CHAPTER 15- ACADEMICALLY SPEAKING IN WINTER
The quarter started and it started on a bad note academically, as I was not able to enroll in two courses I had asked for, due to the preference to local UCD students. I had to change my plans and had to reshuffle courses but I was happy with what I got finally. I took up Algorithm analysis under Martel, Probability under Matloff and Visualization under Nelson Max.
I really enjoyed algorithm analysis a lot and did well in that course and learned so much with a wonderful prof like Martel. We would sit down with our algo books on the mornings of the days we would have to turn in the assignments and still finish it on time (though we had to use the cyber-shot once to finish off an assignment… don’t expect me to elaborate on this again). I had a lot of company for this course with JD, MS, Varun and JB taking it, apart from my other apartment mate Allen (to whom I am indebted to for reasons obvious to those concerned) from Hong Kong, who had moved in to replace our former roommate, who had to vacate due to incompatibility issues. The five of us used to discuss across the table and completed the first assignment a week in advance of the turn in date; we discussed the second one on the previous day of turning in; the third one we discussed on the morning we had to turn it in; the fourth one- don’t even ask. So it was like any other course where a motivation-duration graph would be hyperbolic in nature.
I also had a lot of fun in the course watching Jag doze off during the class (which was early in the morning…9 am…which is early for winter) with Martel lecturing and snoring a couple of times right at the moment Martel pauses for breath, such that the snore penetrates all through the class and all the attention including Martel’s is focuses on the bench the sound came from and eyeing an embarrassed JB with disdain with JD sleeping beside him happily oblivious to all this. On JB’s advice, Jag decided to be physically absent to the class from then on, thereby sleeping happily at home, instead of physically turning up and mentally being in ZZZland. Though he attended not even one class mentally, Jug got the best grade among all of us. Good for you, mate!
Probability was a course I was forced into taking because of not getting a course I wanted, but it turned out to be a really interesting course where I would learn to apply math in a lot of places in CS and it was taught by the rather dry but immensely knowledgeable Prof. Matloff. I found the course pretty easy as it was theoretical math for most part but lost interest in it towards the end and messed up the final, in what would have otherwise been a perfect course. I had Varun for company on this one and I teamed up with him and an insanely bright guy, Spencer for doing the assignments, which we really did wonderfully. I might have got a perfect grade had I finished the course well but then, I am not complaining.
Visualization was one course I had been looking forward to for a long time. Especially because it was under Dr. Nelson Max, one of the most respected names in the field of graphics thanks to the 40 years he has spent in being one of the pioneers developing the field to make it become what it is now. The papers he has published, and their importance and number of citations easily answer to how successful he has been as a researcher. But it does not testify as to how successful he was as a teacher. I had to find this out the hard way. I will simply state that his style of teaching did not really suit my way of understanding and hence didn’t really enjoy his classes. The field of visualization itself wasn’t too interesting to me. It all seemed too abstract and random to be able to represent data any way we wanted by forming our own representation so that we would understand it in the future. A lot of its aspects seemed beyond me. I do not know if I started disliking the subject because of the teacher or disliking the teacher because of the subject. Either way, I did not enjoy those classes too much and that got reflected in my final grade. This was one course I regret having taken up at UCD. But anyway, having learned it the hard way, I won’t repeat the mistake again and I now know what to stay off now that I am back for grad school. It’s good that I learned it now rather than during grad school when I’ve got more to lose.
I also audited a couple of classes for fun. It is the unique flexibility of the system that allows us to just walk into any random class and sit there and participate in the lecture, not giving the exams or writing the assignments. This system allowed me to audit a course on special relativity initially. I went for the first class, and on talking to some students in that class who were all physics majors, I found that they were of the opinion that I was wasting my time auditing that class as I wouldn’t understand a thing as it required a lot of prerequisites that they had done in their three years as physics majors, in which I had no background. Quite dejected, I thought I’ll sit in that one class as I made the effort to come all the way. Once the class started, I was as surprised as the others to discover that I was among 3 people in the class of 20, who were able to follow the discussion and raise a few points about what we were discussing. I guess the amount of general reading up on stuff like relativity was responsible for that. Quite jubilant, I went out of that class with a grin. But I couldn’t attend that class too often as it was an 8 am class and it was worse than being strung up by thumbs to get up at 6 am in winter to make it to a class, which was not even going to give me a grade.
I also audited John Owens’ graduate course on Graphics architecture regularly and I discovered there was so much to explore in the realm of hardware in graphics, which I had looked at from the software point of view. He was a really good teacher and his classes were really merry and interesting. Varun was also totally into the class and so we kept coaxing the other to attend it even if he was in the mood to give it a skip. Hence we ended up attending most of the classes and learning a lot.
All of us SRM ppl hung out a lot more this quarter. Last time we were all in small closed groups but this time we all met up a lot more. We had a couple of get-togethers where we all met up and had a lot of fun. There was a lot more partying this quarter for me and a couple of sleepovers at Mahi and Deepak’s apartment, which was a lot of fun. Whenever I think of Mahi, the first thing I get reminded of is what he did in the gardens of the Capitol building, the office of the governor of California, the terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sorry folks… can’t elaborate further. MS’s b’day also came around that time and we celebrated it with a good cake but the most memorable thing about that b’day was the b’day bumps he got. (any comments, MS?)
It was around this time that the budding rapper in da house, JD and the music composer, D-dub (provided he has his mac) started taking their rap seriously. They decided to compose a rap song in memory of the Blue flamez and it was amazing fun to see them at work. It was always amazing to see Dwarak shout at someone and JD got a lot of that during their composing sessions, when Dwarak wasn’t too happy with something. Dwarak came up with lots of amazing tunes but it took JD too long to give him the lyrics and so it never took off. AZ was a real natural though at writing instantaneous but really impressive lyrics but he wasn’t a natural singer. JD and D-Dub have continued their work a little after coming to Chennai though and it seemed to be shaping up quite decently. I must say I thought they would’ve come out with the final rap by now but alas no results yet! Guys- if you‘re reading this, we’re still waiting eagerly for it. So get your eyes off this monitor and go make some music.
