Week 2

The second week started with quantifiers, which had been the most scary word that I had been introduced my university course work till then. But, gradually, as the class progressed, I got better understanding about the concept. Its visualization with Venn diagrams and the inter-conversion between quantifiers and sets was useful.

The most interesting, rather conceptual, part of the lecture was implications. I had an idea of converse and contrapositive earlier, so that wasn't something new I learnt. But, the different forms in which a simple implication was shaped was very new. And then, 'If the moon is made up of cheese, I'll be staring as the next Iron Man'. And, that's True! (Thanks to Vacuous Truth).

This week also had the first tutorial. It went smooth, and the quiz was easy. It surely helped to clear out some misunderstandings I had about few of the concepts about quantifiers. Overall, I felt better about the course curriculum.

Week 1

Bahen Center.

"You're in Computer Science?"
"Yes!"

"Great. You'll having lot of your classes at Bahen then."

I heard this from every second senior I talked on Facebook, while sitting back in India before coming to Canada. And finally, it is the Week 1 Day 2, I have my first class at Bahen: CSC165.

Our professor Larry Zhang enters, and starts briefing about the course. The most enlightening, and rather a bit scary thing that struck my mind was, that we'll be speaking Mathematics after the course. At first, it sounded silly. Speak Mathematics, really? But within next couple of hours, I was assured that it wasn't a kind joke, we actually would be able to converse with a certain expression and reason (Yes, mathematical).

It was a class that me ponder that English may prove to be inefficient means to communication, because sets and quantifiers take the esteem position for efficient communication. (That was weird. Actually, it still is.) I loved the fact that professor introduced an element of laughter here and there throughout the 3-hour class, especially the use of troll pictures to bring the class alive.

'Prostitutes appeal to Pope's ambiguity to computers high precision, everything seemed to be going smooth.  The computer to human language conversation was challenging, but fun. But the 'Streetcar Drama' problem made the class for me. It was really engaging, and satisfying to get the ages of three children (children for whom, I hardly care anyways). The class ended with the simplest of question that could be put up on 'Quantifiers' which did give me a boost, but alas, in coming days, MAT137 screwed the easiness of Quantifiers that I used to have. Yet, the opening lecture showed me that the course would most probably be testing, but on the other hand would help create e perfect logical base for my CS career.