End of Exams, Now the Future

Final exams have finally ended. I guess I’ll first talk about preliminary results. I had four courses the past term:

• Computer Hardware
• Engineering Economics
• Dynamic Systems & Control
• Operating Systems

Out of the four courses, Hardware and OS were the courses most relevant to my studies, and thus I wanted high marks in those. Engineering Economics was something semi-relevant, while Control Systems is simply a course I had to take to fulfill my kernel requirement. Prior to exams, I had above-average marks in everything except for Engineering Economics. There were four quizzes in econ prior to the final exam, and I had underestimated every single one of them. The core concepts are easy enough and the math is a joke, but I guess having to deal with so many pieces of information in so limited amount of time always gets me at the end. I haven’t failed this much in a course since Signals and Systems in second year.

So I tried my best and gave most of my exam prep time to the econ course hoping for an awesome final mark to balance it out. Despite that, I still made a huge mistake on the final exam. There were five problems where each one would take me about 30 minutes straight of calculations and number crunching. Yet, on the fourth question, I used the wrong approach at the beginning, and only realized how stupid the approach was after I finished the problem. I then had about 30 minutes left, and I had to rush the fourth question again in 15 minutes with the correct approach, and then finish the last question in 15 minutes. Countless errors probably would’ve been made in that mad rushing, lol. I’m hoping the best for that course. Hopefully I didn’t fail.

The other courses are roughly okay. I feel pretty good about my Hardware exam. I didn’t do so well in Control Systems, but I had a pretty good average going into it, and it’s not like I need a good mark in that course. The best news (yet also the most risky news) is probably Operating Systems. Apparently, my adjusted exam mark was a 90%, which combined with near perfect labs mean I’ll get above 90% in the end. However, the professor posted a mark sheet on the course website, and the calculations in there counted my midterm mark of zero. The midterm really shouldn’t be counted since I submitted a petition (I was honestly quite sick on that day). I’m going to hope that an administrative error wouldn’t turn my well-deserved 90+ into a 68.

Now, in terms of the stuff I’ve learned… I’m quite content. Hardware was basically a finish-off of Digital Systems in second year, and it’s nice to learn about computer algorithms for circuit simplification, plus all those different techniques for building all sorts of different types of finite state machines. I’m pretty confident in all those methods now, so that’s good. Despite my horrible mark prospects in economics, I’ve also learned quite a bit from there as it gave a pretty good overview on how engineering firms do all their cost calculations and taxes. I know that if I ever had to do these things, I’m definitely seeking computer-aided help, or if none exist, I’ll program my own (I hate mindless number crunching by hand!). Control systems gave me some good practice in Laplace transforms and matrix operations although I have no idea where I’ll actually use it. And lastly, Operating Systems was the most valuable course this term. I can actually look into various parts of my computer and understand what used to be jibberish to me. The textbook is also a treasure, it’s so well written and so informative that I’ll probably read it just for fun in the future if I ever have the chance.

So, upcoming events now for me include my second attempt at the G2 test on May 11th, and beginning of work at AMD on May 18th. Some day in the near future I’ll also be moving into my new room on the second floor. At residence, Cici and I have already switched into cooking mode. No more eating at Fung, and after two days of successful cooking, it’s good to know I haven’t lost my stirfry skills . Eating awesome homemade food is both exciting and wonderful, especially after a year of badly-made cafe food and expensive restaurants.

As the summer begin, I will be adding more sections to this blog. My MMORPG and Philosophy pages will grow whenever I feel the inspiration to write. Meanwhile, there’s this project I want to attempt. I want to write a beginner’s primer on digital photography (the really basics), and also take lots of pictures – especially around campus during beautiful scenes – and make a library of them. I think too often we students are too busy thinking about our courses, trying to get high GPAs, tests, exams, and stressful things, that the campus – which is supposed to be this romantic and stimulating environment – becomes merely this excruciating distance between our homes and our classes that we have to walk through every day. I saw people taking photographs of the cherry trees behind Robarts yesterday, when the sun was just above the line of houses to the west. It was beautiful, and it would be nice if that moment was captured.