freshmen winter quarter roundup!!
Here we are in spring break at the end of my first winter quarter. It went well to put it shortly. I accomplished all my academic goals, we made ICPC NAC which was totally an imagination before this quarter, and I kind of just found my spot, my flow, and my rhythm in college culture and life.
References:
freshmen winter quarter halfway
Academics
I took 4 classes this quarter:
- AM 10 (Applied Math Linear Algebra)
- CSE 16 (Applied Discrete Mathematics)
- CSE 12 (Computer Systems and Assembly)
- MUSC 80P (US Popular Music)
Looking back at my winter quarter halfway post, I said that this quarter was definitely harder than fall. I'm not sure if that's still true, as finals week was def less grueling than fall quarter. However, I did certainly have more work overall, so it was still prob harder than fall quarter.
AM 10 (Applied Math Linear Algebra)
This class is a lot of work but at the end of the day the quizzes and exams are all super easy. He is a bad lecturer indeed but it's very easy to get a good grade as long as you take the labs seriously which I did.
I'm so used to doing those practice problem sets and grinding out problems but with this class and its formatting I never really did that and it made me worry a lot but ultimately like I said the exams are all so easy.
The last three weeks there was like a lab due at the end of each week and these labs take like 10 hours for me to do so that was so frustrating. I would finish a lab and feel so free but then literally 2 days later I have to hop back on the grind again. These labs are such a hard commit, I spend so much time typing up everything and then making sure I do it early enough to go to office hours to check everything. Man these labs were so much time, but all in all it paid off.
So let's get straight into it I PULLED OFF A 110% IN LINEAR ALGEBRA?? It was at 108% going into the final and I needed like 39% to get an A+ which is 97% so I barely studied for the final... and I still somehow ended up with 160/150 acing the final. That just shows you how easy the exams are. It's the most dumbed down questions for the concepts and for the section where we have to prove a theorem he literally gives us a list of like 4 theorems and we choose which one we get to pick, which is super lenient as he couldve just given us a random one and made us prove it.
To provide further context on how this is possible, I literally aced every single lab, I didn't get a single point off on any single problem out of the 5 labs which is crazy. And then the rest just comes from the midterm/final and a perfect quiz score. In the quizzes our TA literally let us collaborate so like yeah.
It's hard to sound humble through it all so Imma just be straight up man this stuff is CRAZy to get not just the highest score in the class but legit the maximum possible score you can get in the class. No mistakes at all. I guess the grading was lenient but man idk what I was worrying about earlier this quarter talking about "hardest class I'm taking." Actually it probably is in terms of workload.
Outside of that, through all the office hours and group tutoring sessions I did meet a lot of new people through collaborating on these labs. I met a couple ppl in discussion section too.
CSE 16 (Applied Discrete Mathematics)
Here is my CSE 16 class which is very easy in general with a very manageable courseload. Most of the concepts are intuitive and the grading scale is super lenient as like all the categories are graded based on median.
However, this class was my roughest going into the final, mainly because all my other classes were already set. CSE 12 was a bit stressful but I knew I would end up fine. ANyway, going into the final I was guaranteed an A- in CSE16 but if I got like 81% or something then I would bump it to an A, and if I got something higher then it would be A+. I ended up just studying by spamming a bunch of past questions I got wrong onto my cheat sheet which helped a lot. I also practiced doing some FRQs.
And here's how we finished with the clutch 89% on the final. Very happy with the A+ and this was my last final to come out so it was very relieving to secure the clean A+ sheet again, i needa take advantage of these A+ before classes get harder.
You can see here how lenient this class is. 2% extra credit from SETS, then the readings are pretty much guaranteed 100% as long as you're not late, the quizzes are easy and it's the median so I ended up skipping a couplel sections. The homeworks are easy as most of them are just free points from the readings and it's median so that's light work. And exams are based on median so if I clutched up the second midterm I would've been able to skip the final but I didn't LOL it's whatever I still clutched in the end.
CSE 12 (Computing Systems and Assembly)
This class was online synchronous 2x a week and it was very hard to pay attention and learn the concepts. There were lots of moments of cramming and skimming through bulk numbers of lectures. Because of this I definitely didnt get a lot of concepts down which may be a problem going into more advanced classes and concepts, but I also did learn a lot.
It's very easy to get an A in this class as we get unlimited tries on the lab and 4 tries on the quizzes, which is literally the exact concepts and problem formatting of what are on the midterm and final exam.
MUSC 80P (US Popular Music)
This class is an online asynchronous class where we have 5 two-week long units, where in each unit the first week is 2 async lectures and a quiz, and the second week is 1 async lecture, 1 writing response, and 1 quiz. We also have a midterm and final on top of things.
So I would consider this class to be a ton of busy work. I took this class because it fulfills the ER requirement for GEs. And I thought this quarter would be on the easier side of the things so I could hawndle 4 classes.
There's not much to talk about. All the quizzes and exams had lots of overlap in terms of the question bank so for some questions you can look back on past quizzes and find them. I pretty much just spent like 3-4 hours every Tuesday to this class and that was the story. Those listening responses are so annoying cuz theyre like 500+ words or something which feels like writing a whole essay. I'm really happy that I got all 100%s on them as it came in clutch to secure the A. I remember halfway through the quarter I was thinking that it might be hard to get an A with so many opportunities to mess up something but I ended up sticking thru and it was worth it.
Academic Conclusions
Very great results, reached my goals this quarter and that 110% in AM 10 I will always live with and have which is very comforting. I've never had anything like this in high school, and speaking of that, high school is harder than this college stuff so far. I've never pulled out casual 100%s and 97%s left and right like this. One factor is def that I'm sweating like crazy in college with so many hours in the library while during high school I would do most of my work at home where I just wasn't productive and locked in. I definitely realized about how much of a difference my study environment makes in senior year and it was kinda too late for high school transcript, but not too late for college. I have so many regrets from high school but it's whatever.
Another thing I learned from this quarter is that I probably shouldn't take 4 classes again even if the 4th class is an async class. It was great to test and experience it, but it's definitely a lot of work, one time I spent something crazy like 20 hours among 2 days in the library or something, aka I spent 10 hours in the library 2 days in a row. I can spend a lot of time in there, as the chairs are nice, the monitor is nice, there's a cafe nearby, and I don't have to talk to Jackson ... But 20 hours in 2 days is not normal.
Next quarter I am taking CSE 13S, AM 30, and Writing 2. My approach will be to just stay on top of things, go to office hours, and idk lock in. All of these classes are in-person which help me stay focused more lecture so that's good. AM 30 should be easy as most of it is review, Writing 2 will be SOOOO annoying man I hate writing those essays man it's so dumb, and when it's graded bro, man graded essays just feel so out of control so random. I can cook up some crazy sht but my teacher could be having a bad day and give me a B- man sht just kills me. I hate this stuff so much. I just want to get an A in this class and get it over with. If I need to get a tutor for this class, I'll just have to grit through it all, it will all be worth it. Then CSE 13S leaves me with my hardest class. With the rest of my schedule not being too tough I think I'll be fine, I'll hope I'll be fine. I got this.
ICPC
This quarter our CP Club competed in ICPC PNW regionals, which is normally set to be in November but we are still recovering from COVID so it's in February for those reasons. I go into great depth in this post: https://cavs4tw.blogspot.com/2024/02/icpc-2023-regionals.html
Fitness
This quarter's fitness is very interesting. The first 2 weeks I don't think I went to the gym a single time, for a variety of reasons. I was scared that it would always be so crowded, I liked sleeping in the morning, I had homework, or I didn't feel like it. There was probably more reasons but I forgot, but for some reason like I legit didn't go at all. And then after that I started picking it back up and I got into a nice rhythm where I hit the 3x a week Monday/Tuesday/Thursday split. And sometimes I would go on the weekends as bonus too. I feel great about it all, I'm dialing everything in and finding better exercises and optimizations within them too. Hope to continue this next quarter.
Food
This winter quarter I downgraded from the dining hall middle tier plan to the lowest tier plan, where I go from 14 meals per week to 9 meals per week. This allows me to allocate that money saved this way into eating out more often or grubhubbing. So unlike last quarter where I had a very elaborate photogallery of dining hall meals, I barely went to the dining hall. There were stretches where I didn't go to the dining hall a week, not just because of eating out but also because of opting to spend my meal points on for other options like the campus bistro, mchenry library cafe, oakes cafe, stephenson coffeehouse.
Here's all the photos I took of my food. 56 photos here which is more than I thought:
Others + Conclusion
There's a lot to reflect on for this semester. I really settled in this quarter and found my groove like I said before. I found a good group of friends and did lots of fun things, like poker, going out to eat, g-league game, and also messing around in one of my friend's rooms, as they bought a TV to put in their room early this quarter.
With that being said, my goals next quarter in this aspect is def to return back to some hobbies again. Cubing was pretty steady and provided great breaks and peace for me in my dorm, but I haven't really been posting on my inked.beats account. I have clips to edit and I have free time, but I just feel a bit unmotivated to actually edit it. Whatever that may mean, I know very well that the fire will kick back in. I knew that there would be great inconsistencies doing this in college with no access to the desk I pentap on in my videos, but yeah I just prioritize other things ig.
My courseload shouldn't be too heavy, so yeah with the free time I def need to be consistent with the gym, and do a lot of codeforces to prep for ICPC NAC. Other than that I also want to explore more and meet new friends if I can, even though I'm always looking for that. I found some cubing friends actually this quarter which was cool so yeah.
So there you go there's my winter quarter wrap-up. Very successful, hope to have this same conclusion/impression next quarter.
Lyric(s) of the Post:
I think i might be right here for awhileLet this memory go if i got to
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