Hell, It's About Valentine Part 1

Yes, I'm still awake. Before I talk about current affairs, let's go back to last Friday. I wrote that the ZBT after-party was disappointing. That was and is true, but I did get something out of it though. David Zou was playing music from his laptop, and one of the songs that came up was One by Epik High. Now, I am normally not a fan of Asian and Korean music, but this was one damn good song. You can find the youtube video here. And I really want to learn the piano part. A video tutorial can be found here, and the sheet music is here (mediafire blows, but deal with it).

Now, you probably don't want to read about the boring daily routine of weekdays and classes, and I can't remember enough right now to make it worthwhile, so I'll just give a brief overview of each class.

6.01:
Ahh computer science. 6.01 is Introduction to EECS 1. The first part of the course is about basic programming, especially object oriented stuff and modularity. And it's done in Python. Python is pretty cool, but the syntax can be annoying, and I can't see how a huge programming project can be completely done in Python (maybe I just don't know enough about Python yet; these are initial perceptions). The lectures are ok. I really like the instructors, and they have a good amount of energy. However the lectures themselves are somewhat mindboggling. What I mean by mindboggling is that they try to teach the EECS stuff through a new angle (modularity), and that can be at times confusing or just plain boring. I don't particularly look forward to lecture. But I do look forward to lab assignments. Notice how I write "lab assignments," not lab. This is because the lab activities are super cool and fun to do. But the concept of going to a huge computer lab to program by yourself does not make much since. It's supposedly so that you can ask for help, but in the real world, there won't be TAs to bail you out of programming bugs. I think they should let the students figure it out. The excercises are too long to finish all of in one lab anyway, so why go to lab at all... I am talking specifically about Design Labs (on Tuesdays) where you work alone on programming excerises. Software Lab on Thursday involve working in teams and doing a small programming project. That I kinda like.

18.03:
18.03 is Differential Equations. It's taught by Professor Jerison. Unlike a lot of people, I actually like the guy and think he lectures pretty well. Though, as I mentioned in a previous post, he tries too hard to be funny. But I like lectures. Recitation and Psets are another story. I have this tall, nervous German grad student as my recitation leader. She is not very good at explaining things. But nice and friendly. Not much to say. Psets are just a pain in the ass. The problems themselves aren't too difficult, but understanding them is half the battle. The problems are worded in the worst possible way. Thus it's likely Friday mornings will be spent finishing up this bitch. As for the subject matter, diff eq's are interesting, but can easily get annoying.

18.06:
18.06 is Linear Algebra. Despite despising matrices and everything to do with them in high school, 18.06 has been really interesting thus far. It's a bit easy right now, but still engaging. This might be due to me having to use MATLAB more now. Professor Johnson is relatively young and seems like a really cheerful guy who knows his stuff, but he fu-fucking stu-stutters so much. It's quite bothersome. I can't pronouce nor spell my Russian TA's name. I think he can be a good TA, but he's also shy and nervous. Math TAs suck in general.

3.094:
3.094 is Materials in Human Experiences. By "Materials," they mean metal and fiber, and by "Human Experiences," they mean native Central/South Americans. This class is a proejct based classed, so there will be a lot of hands on labs, which is awesome. The first part of the course is on metals and is taught by this badass old lady who still travels to metal mines and studies up on metalworking. My most recent lab was on smelting copper from malachite. We got to work in the furnace. It was long/tiring, but really cool. Need to ask Nathan for the pix. However the lectures are dense, and they're about the archaeology of Andean cultures. It's hard to tell whether I should be taking notes or not, but lecture is basically a lot of information force fed to you. Not my idea of fun. The second half of the course is on fibers, and one project I'll be working on is building a raft from balsa wood shipped from Ecuador. Fun labs, boring subject matter.

14.01:
14.01 is Principles of Microeconomics. This class makes me question if I'm really into econ or not. The lectures are really convoluted, and there are often equations and graphs that aren't explained well. At the same time, the lectures seem really disconnected, as if every lecture was a completely new subject. The professor has an annoying voice too, maybe it's because he's straining it by not using a mic. And the pset does not seem like it's connected to the lectures either. Sigh. It's a clusterfuck. It is however seemed by the most badass TA I ever had. She's like super energetic and super serious Indian grad student. She goes through subject by subject at bullet train speeds and manages to explain things with clarity as well. She basically covers up and repairs the wreck caused by lecture. Awesome TA. But intimidating as well. Yesterday, I was busy copying down notes, when she called one me ("you, with the neon green shirt") to solve a Lagrangian as part of a derivation. The problem was that I didn't quite remember how to do Langrange multiplier problems and was somewhat embarassed. But after a bunch of ummms, I made it through. Phew. This class will be really important is helping me decide on my major choices.

That about summarizes my classes thus far.

Stay tuned for Part 2 for actual Valentine's Day/Eve coverage.