It's come to that time of the term where tests and assignments get thrown at you one after the other. There is a term test within the next few days and everyone's running back and forth trying to get their hands on past tests and any potential aid. With all this panic and commotion, there are a few people who are relatively calm; either they are well prepared for the upcoming evaluation or they just gave up. Though it may not seem like it, this is arguable the most important period you can come across this year.
Some of us are just walking into our first major assessment of the year, while for others, it's just an reoccuring pressure point. Either or, now is the time we should reflect on our performance in the past month. If you were to take the test right now this minute, would you be confident enough to say that you'd pass with a decent mark? I know that I wouldn't. If the test was similar assignment 1 with the addition of an hour time restraint, I would pretty much borderline pass.
I'm sure that I'm not the only one out there in this situation, but as I mentioned earlier, this is an important time, not to study, but to reflect. Were you up to date with the class material? Did you ask questions when you were lost, or were you in the "Oh I'll just look at it at home. Everything will click in later."? Did you harass Danny during office hours (At least drop by and say "Hi!"?)?
I can probably speak for the majority of the class when I say that we didn't do all of those. But it's not too late to pick up the gear. Think of it like a game; you must win at all costs. Those people who keep up with the material and stay ahead of the game would be the ones in the upper part of the bell curve while we slackers would lie in the median range. After going to the csc-POST and talking to the research opportunities representative, I felt really bad. By the way I was told, "It's not too late to start applying", indicating that I should've already started a long time ago.
It pretty much came and hit me right in the face. I was slacking off way to much; not just academically but also socially. I didn't make the varsity Track and Field team because I was too lazy to wake up at 6 in the morning for tryouts. Instead of finding clubs to join I was too busy doing other unimportant things. As a result, I decided to make a day-to-day schedule for myself. I will only talk about the portion related to this course as an attempt to stop my rambling.
I decideded to dedicate one hour every week to harass Danny, even if the lecture material is straight forward. I'm sure that reviewing the material with Danny would cause something new and intriguing to pop up. I"m also going ot arrange a study group, so that we could bounce ideas off each other for assignments, tests, tutorial work, etc.
I personally struggled a bit on the first assignment. I found it relatively straight forward to find the proper approach for all 4 questions, but my problem lied in the formal presentation. I was pretty much in a deadlock until I ran into a study group at Bahen's Great Hall of Computing. After listening to their explanations and how they came about explaining their solutions assisted me with my own. I realized how beneficial it is to be in a study group.
The size of this blog is beginning to get a little out of hand, so I will end it by re-emphasizing the importance of keeping up to date with the course material and the benefits of working in a group. At the end of this semester, I want to get together with a group of people and game for 10 hours straight right before the final exam. I want to know how it feels like to party right before it; knowing that I will ace it.
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