Perception

Tutorials and lab sessions began these past couple of weeks, and I’ve been noticeably busier with the flood of assignments and homework that sit in my seemingly never ending to-do list. I’ve also two projects with deadlines not too far away, one which I expect to be a lot more difficult and time-consuming than the other one. I’m rather thankful I didn’t try to take 6 modules this semester, as my timetable already reflects a hefty 21 hours of lessons in school, which compared to the 16 hours of last semester is quite a significant increase.

So yes, busy with schoolwork I have been, but somehow I’ve not managed to develop the studying momentum of the previous semester. I think a few more weeks should do the trick, which would give me enough time to acclimatise to the busier schedule. Getting into a routine for doing schoolwork will better my time management and possibly leave me with free time to relax or pursue more interesting things like web development.

CS2100 Computer Organisation, one of the core CS modules that I’m taking this semester, covers quite a few interesting topics which revolve mainly around boolean algebra. Although the theory is roughly similar to that in the earlier chapters of CS1231 Discrete Structures, the application in this module has been extended to logic gates and circuits, which is also taught through the lab sessions.

There has only been one session so far, an introductory one, but it was fun being able to set up a simple circuit using the chip and wires provided. It’s not too hard to learn how the breadboard works or where the wires for the input and output should go, although with more complex circuits involving more gates it should get significantly more difficult. I reckon the remaining lab sessions won’t be as comfortable nor easy to do, but the practical nature of the lesson makes it more appealing to attend than the tutorials.

The lecturer has been blazing through the concepts quite quickly in my opinion, although according to him his pace is already too slow. There are self-assessments and assignments on top of the tutorials and labs, and also a bunch of quick review questions at the end of each topic. Depending on one’s character and work ethnic, it can be quite an arduous workload to go through in order to keep up with the pace of the module. I need to catch up in this aspect and spend more time revising the concepts, which isn’t easy to do considering that other modules are flailing their arms for my equal attention.

In other news, I spent quite a bit of time this weekend watching a few TED talks, namely Bill Gates’ How I’m trying to change the world now, Clay Shirky’s Instituitions vs. collaboration, Seth Godin’s Sliced bread and other marketing delights and Malcolm Gladwell’s What we can learn from spaghetti sauce. I must say that the talks were really interesting, well-delivered, and equally humorous and thought provocative. I’ll definitely be looking to watch more when I have the time.