Testing the Techniques

* spends 5 hours on project * * decides to take 1hour break* * doesn’t work afterwards *

So - if I Piku the Niku, do I get to have my enthusiasm and hardworking character back? Because I really want things to get better before they get worse, and I want to show this schedule who is boss

School is closed for the next few days, which finally allows me to catch up on some rest and on some work without needing to worry about going outside and interacting with people ( though I probably will do that ). In terms of stuff, I really did not do much, but the stuff I DID do included going to the (really exhausting) career fair which, to be perfectly honest, helped me realize ( through a friend directly telling me ) that I need to improve the aesthetics of my resume and simplify my experience. What I have rn is good for a cv, or for something to pull my experiences from, but it does not have the same punch as a real resume as the design is simply incredibly poor. Luckily for me, Raul was generous enough to donate his resume's template to me so I can better design my resume and create something that actually looks nice and lets me interact with the recruiters more. I am indebted to him, so I need to also use this opportunity to run it through r/resumes even if I really do not...

- Overall, pretty uneventful: MTH 217: Same old, same old. I just hope we get hw back so I can, well, improve on my proof writing and actually make headway on getting a good grade. MSE 220: Diffusion? Diffusion. Starting to get why DEQs both exist and are really useful for engineering. MTH 316: Deqs are deqs v2 - more 2nd deqs. EECS 280: Need to catch up on lectures, as I decided to skip for the better option of not trekking through miles of snow.

Note: Meetings suck and are boring. Jokes aside, today was rather anticlimactic. Had meetings with both hyperloop and perch, which really soaked up my time and my energy, as we did nothing. Besides this, turns out my high-school has some shady relations in China. Neat.

Doing all my homework on one day was a bit of a mistake, but thank god I am done with that. While its a lot of fun, its also the most intellectually draining part of my week each and every day of the week. I need to find my fun and learn to relax a bit so that this weekend can become more manageable, but otherwise it's all done in a relatively short time. 217: HW 3 was harder than HW 2 in terms of PB, but not PA. Thus, I believe that this sort of work gets a heck of a lot easier as the semester progresses, so once I get more theorems to work from I'll be able to work so much faster and use far less concentration to do the proofs quickly and easily 416: Boy.  What a difficult problem set. But it was actually really worth it to see how I fair against difficult sets where even Stanford was unable to give a reasonable explanation of why something is the way it is. I just hope my work gives Hamacher a chance to see what his class can and can't do, as this was quite the effor...

Overall, classes were rather interesting: MTH 217: I had to shut Pf. Ashley down, as he provided a counter-example without any backing for a problem. This was honestly one of the most nerve-racking tasks I have ever done in my time here at U of M, for I was sure I would make a mistake through the simple derivation of a counter, but luckily it all went well and the class got to understand that, perhaps, it is a good idea to question math teachers in general, as I hope to not have to do that again for awhile. MSE 220: We covered that diffusion. All about that diffusion. Diffusion is diffusion. It honestly was not that interesting, though I am sure to find it more interesting that later in the term we get, as it will make for a very interesting session. MTH 316: We finally started covering second order equations. As these are the ones which I have studied in far more detail than anything else so far, I am happy to be playing in my ball-park and can't wait to grind through the pr...

It's a bit weird for me right now, coming off of what I think will be a pretty bad test and coming into a pretty bad position for the start of the year. I am starting to be unable to function as quickly as I used to be able to, and boy am I feeling it. While, even in IA, I managed to stay ahead in terms of simple speed when I handled tests and all, this semester seems ... different. This blog post is an attempt to diagnose this, as this speed is something I normally bank on so my test scores are not terrible. 1. I am not as sure about my answers as I used to be. As this is all new content for me for the most part, my internal clock is set afire and I am a lot more careful going through tests. This is the most important factor, as it leads to a lot of double-guessing and double-checking when the answer is either wrong or right. What I am curious about is why this phenomenon started to appear this semester unlike last semester, when I was also learning new content more or less. Per...

Ok. Turns out I have been doing quite a few things rather stupidly, and so I am going to pay for my insolence a little bit. Overall, here are how classes are going: Mth 217: Same old, same old. Nothing really happened here, except Pf. Ashley seemed to state, at first, that infinite vector spaces are not vector spaces for this course, which is obviously not true as the later examples in the worksheet assumed that it would be so. MSE 220: We covered crystal defects today, and in particular Burgers vectors. Was really worth my time, and I believe I will be able to tackle the homework better now. Mth 316: This is the first of my errors. I … did a dumb and did not pay my due respects to doing work before the exam. I should be alright to get an A or A-, but I need to not be careless and get used to solving many, many, differential equations. In fact, it might be helpful to actually do some work and create notecards for this class, as I think otherwise I might fail to meet my own expect...

Onto the recap: MTH 416: Welp. I think Hamacher really enjoys my attention to this class, in particular my ability to lead others to answers through rigorous questions. It seems like, at the least, he values my input and my particular style to education. Thus, I think I'll be alright in the class, at least for the current session of work and so I can potentially get another reference later on in the year. Perch: Why did I spend so much time on this? While I finally understand React more, I really do not want to spend my entire day on stuff like this again. It is a very interesting way to turn websites into OOP code, but it also tends to be rather unintuitive when we compare it to more traditional approaches, such as those featured in pure JS/CSS/HTML code. While it is a good tool, I am still not entirely sold as I have not seen a good reason why this separation really matters, though then again my stuff is rather front end heavy and features little to no back-end ( which I hope...

Welp. In short, I did nothing. Absolutely nothing with respect to work and stuff. However, I think that my day tomorrow will be far better for it, as I will be able to get all of my remaining work done and get into the essay writing zone for the rest of it. Next week, I really need to look into co-ops and apply, apply, apply. After all, having a house is better than being homeless, no matter where I end up ( though I do hope that my email to housing got through... )

Reporting live from the Agarwal house, it is I, Arav Agarwal, here with another round of updates on what life is and why I might case about it more now: - Main update: Math 217 HW is done. Finally, the shackles of dull pain from doing tedious work have fallen off, and I can rise from the ashes a stronger person more experienced with the toil and trouble of my life of programming and linear algebra! Overall, the problems were not as hard as they could have been, but they did serve to be slightly more challenging than last time, with some actually requiring me to think laterally about the theorems used and find creative ways to get the results which I desired, though I do hope my justifications were sufficient for the purposes of the tasks set apart. Once again, I found Part B to be less of a pain than Part A, so I think I'll continue solving them in that order till Part A gets easier to solve than Part B, something which I do not think will happen quickly nor will happen right now...

As I am pretty sure that no one is reading this blog as of right now, I might as well treat myself to a little Tim-foolery with some vague references every now and then. But, as a whole, this day mainly revolved around getting work done for my various math classes. For Math 416, I am pretty sure that I am done with the homework right now. There is a book on Discrete Mathematics that seems to say what I think is true is true for number 2, that Big Theta behaves similarly to Big O, but I am unsure of my definition's accuracy, so I plan to talk to Hamacher and see if I am missing something. ( Really happy that office hours exist ). For Math 217, I bit the bullet and binged part B. It was less painful than last time, but still required a great amount of skill and work to ensure everything goes well. I need to get stuff finished here quickly, as Part A should be less difficult, but I'll need to finish the work to see how bad it was, as I will need to write everything out like la...

Yet another day of lectures, and surprise, surprise: They were better than last time. It turns out that, due to a quirk in my schedule, the weekly labs I have for 316 make the class end earlier than it normally does. If I couple that with my early EES 280 lab, I end up having more time to work and relax, and a way to breathe on the last day of my week.  Now onto the classes: Math 217: Pf. Ashley got a substitute, and now I think I will continue with my generally rigorous proof style, just with some minor removals of some of the more painful parts to keep it clear and so they keep my grade up. I think I will enjoy part Bs much more than part As due to my knowledge of the subject, and, now that the first hw has been turned in, I will soon get to see how much I will struggle in this class to get what I desire. We covered the idea of linear transformations and that you can write them as matrices for vectors. MSE 220: Another really chill class. Today we just covered planar and...

Overall, I disappointed myself in just how little work I wanted to do today. After 416's class, which revolved around conditional probability and discrete random variables, I got a chance to look at the first HW assignment for the class. Man, I really do need to get my experiences in order now, as the work is a bit straight-forward, but it's definitely going to take some time to write up. Similarly, looking at 217's second assignment, I am probably going to start shortening my responses to better relate to the overall increase in pain of this week, as we have actual proofs to do, and they're relatively trivial yet still not the most fun to do ( though proving F(cX) = cF(x) implies linearity is a fun exercise for real domains ). I am just going to end it here, honestly. I need to get some major rest so I can feel empowered to get more done tomorrow, and sleep is the best way to do so. Iff everything goes well, I'll start writing something more substantial for tomorro...

Now that I am a week in, I can better judge the flow of courses and really start thinking about what courses I like and which ones I do not, but on a side note - Wednesdays are going to be my new personal hell. I hate development at this time after all of my actual classes, as it really makes my day sour to have to sit down and program when I really just want to soak in and sleep after learning so much. Besides that bit of venting, however, here is what I got out of the courses: - MTH 217: I am going to be nicer to Pf.Ashley from now on, at least for awhile till I better understand him and his teaching style. I honestly am reminded of just how frustrating courses can be when I know more than I probably should and am bored to death of doing the basic linear algebra sequence time and time again, but what can I do? Michigan has no easy test-out system, and my major requires that I take LA in some shape or form. Chalk it up to problems with Michigan Math I guess. Today we covered proof t...

Today was rather simplistic. As I had some small work to do, I just needed to get through 416 and finish what I started yesterday. - Hamaker was not present, so we covered basic probability axioms and proofs, all in line with our goal of understanding how likely we were to get a false positive with our current polynomial algorithm. Overall, it was pretty enlightening and pretty freaking cool. I really enjoyed how clear all of the explanations were this time, and I feel better about my abilities and feel better about my life with respect to this course. However, of course, I will still need to see what Hamaker considers as difficult homework and as actual class before I truly know how this class will go, though so who knows? - Application to SURE was written up well. I just hope I get a chance to do something cool that semester, though I got exposure to new worlds and new ideas that I'll want to volunteer for once I get through 281 and 376 ( which I need to do as soon as possibl...

Overall, it was just a normal lecture day. In it, however, I did manage to get some fun stuff to occur: - In Math 217, I managed to help Pf. Ashley with my group. While I am more sure now that my skills are up to par for the class, I am also more sure now that my time there is going to be more similar to what my dad used to do for his classes, where I end up teaching the lessons in some part so that my classmates get some more information. - In MSE 220, I may have made a bit of a fool of myself by using the term "instantaneous dipole" rather than "temporary dipole", "fluctuating dipole", and "Van der Waals Forces". I should probably read the book to get better information, as I am unsure if I am actually learning much in that class and should focus on understanding how to think about the application of information in the real world case our professor wants us to target. - In Math 316, I learned we have a hw assignment. Luckily, it seems lik...

Once again, looking online, I got to see the sheer amount of opposition online to millenials. With mounting college dept and a desire for solid high paying jobs, our generation was told that life would be good when, for a lot of us, it is a struggle. However, I think there is a factor that, besides the new environment, really keeps a lot of us from living our lives: technology. When I say technology, I am not referring to all of the marvels we have in this day and age. The ability we have to learn anything and do anything really can make a difference in how people live their lives, and I respect the sheer effort that people put in to making our modern life. Toasters, refrigerators, modern medicine - all of this work is without any blame, as those things allow us to live our lives with less effort and allow us to do what we love, whatever that happens to be. What I am referring to is the war of attention we have to play with everything that's pulling our minds. While each genera...

So... I did a goof. Today was supposed to be a day where I got some essay work done, but I did not start my day right and, thus, ended up with very little done after that. As a result, I now have a bit more to do with respect to them, though it should still be very doable as long as I pace myself out and start writing them. Besides that, however, I did find a very interesting youtube channel. careykh does a lot of interesting ML content, which took up a lot of my time when I watched all of the creativity he put into it. It's not much, but it was a lot of fun to watch and learn a bit. Additionally, I managed to speed through the majority of the second chapter of the DEQ book I am using ( DiPrima wrote it , and its the only book he's written on it I believe ). What's weird about 316 is that the class is rather basic right now, but the book is much more challenging in comparison. It makes me think that this class will be a lot harder than 285 relatively, as at least JD was...

This day was rather packed, but essentially it boils down to the following activities and other nonsense. What matters is that I now know the following: - MSE 220 is going to be a relatively painless class in the outer regions of what I do, but it is going to be difficult because it is a reimagining of a subject I hold near and dear to my heart: Chemistry. From situations where I am not allowed to use the term "London Dispersion Forces" and "Dipole-Dipole Interactions" to needing a more physical understanding of the universe, this class will stretch my reasoning skills into a dimension I generally do not touch: real, practical experience. Hopefully I can keep my cool and ensure everything goes well here. - MTH 217 is going to be a slog. I just came back from 2+ hours of handwritten work, and I think that I'll need to transition to using Overleaf soon, as otherwise I will be unable to write and be unable to effectively translate my work well, especially as t...

Another day over, and now I have experienced the final class in my register for this semester: Math 416: Randomized Algorithms. Honestly, out of all of the math classes I have taken, I expect this one to be the most challenging and the most interesting that I will have. It claims to be an advanced undergrad mathematics course, then goes around and says it's a Masters Level CS course. Honestly, I just hope we get to cover some interesting content and get to see what will follow from this. However, in order to make this schedule work, I will need to do loads of homework, something I am prepared to do, but I'll need to keep my mental energy up to ensure I can get everything all correct at the end of the day. Besides 416, I finished my EECS 280 Project 1 today. Overall, Statisics are not terrible to compute, and I just hope that I'll be able to keep my spirits up while I struggle to get all else done in my life, as I spent a solid afternoon on the code and it seemed to requi...

Now that most of my classes have started, I wanted to put some initial thoughts up as to how I might like it, to see if my ideas about a course will improve or lower depending on the timeframe: Math 217 : Overall not impressed by it and its difficulty. Unsure of how much the teacher works with me, but I'll roll with it until I figure out why I am having trouble understanding him, especially as I know the material more or less. My main goal for this class will be to do the work before anyone else so I don't have to sweat before each class, as 12 hours a week is a bit insane for a 4 credit class, especially when its outside of classwork we're talking about MSE 220 : Cover of "Ahhh" Magazine. I did not realize the type of teacher I have now, but I am going to have to pay attention and move to quickly learn and grow, as he is quite strict yet rational about his grading and, as long as I pay attention, I should be alright. Hopefully. Mainly I need to ensure my note...

This site... is practically dead, but I am not going to let it die so quickly. To start off this year right, and to ensure that I start writing something each day, I will begin the year with a bit of a recap on some of the stuff that happened last semester, particularly what I learned and what I now realize I need to do. Firstly, this semester began with me wishing for better days, as my mental state was not the best. School never frightens me, but all of my social problems came to bite me, causing quite a big problem for my morale. I went through multiple stages of grief, from anger ( which seemed to help my productivity ) to despair ( which obviously did not ). What seemed to help, however, were the people that did not decide to make my life a living hell. Without them this semester would have been a heck of a lot worse off. That said, I think I am starting to get over it, with my own courage surprising me when I thought I was all out of luck. Besides social anxieties, my academi...