Sunday, August 16, 2020
Semester II v. hosed
Semester II v. hosed You know youâre hosed when it takes you a week after classes start to write about your classes. Seriously, look at this mess. (Realistically, it looks more like this because who even goes to all of their classes? Definitely not me I decided to write this post right after I decided I wasnât going to attend any of my Monday classes) Sophomore Standing If youâre scratching your head and wondering how exactly MIT is allowing me to take this many classes, itâs because I accepted early sophomore standing, which gets rid of the 57 unit credit limit that second semester freshmen normally have. Basically, to get sophomore standing, you have to have 96 units of credit by the end of first semester, have completed 25% of your GIRs, and have taken one CI-H/HW class. Somewhere between 25-30% of freshmen are offered sophomore standing, but Iâd estimate that the percentage that actually accept is probably closer to 10-15%. There are a lot of reasons to accept/not accept sophomore standing (this Tech article goes over them in more detail than I will if youâre interested in learning more), but I personally accepted it because I want to get 18.03 (Differential Equations) out of the way before sophomore year. Iâm still on the fence on whether I want to double major in math or be a 6-2 instead of a 6-3, and 18.03 happens to be a requiremen t for both of those options, so hopefully itâll help me figure out what I want to do with my life. If I get through the semester without dropping the class, that is⦠Classes 6.036 Intro to Machine Learning: Iâm pretty excited for this class, both for the material and because I have a lot of friends taking it with me. I also really like the way the class is structured essentially, I go to lecture Tuesday morning and learn the material for the week, then go to lab hours in the afternoon and work through a sizeable chunk of the pset. In other words, I donât have to spend that much time outside of class on homework, which is everything I could ask for from a class this semester. 6.006 Intro to Algorithms: Iâm taking this class on Sophomore Exploratory (one of the benefits of getting sophomore standing is that you can get this status early), which basically means that if I do bad in the class, it wonât appear on my transcript. 6.006 is notorious for having time consuming psets that involve a lot of algorithm analysis and proof writing, but itâs also a required class for my major, so Iâm going to do my best and hope for the best. 8.02 Physics II (Electricity and Magnetism): Every time I attend this class, Iâm reminded of just how much EM Iâve forgotten since I took it in high school. Iâm terrible at understanding concepts in this class (you can see a ball rolling down a ramp in mechanics, but you canât see an electron whizzing around in space in EM), but itâs been pretty easy so far, so Iâm going to keep my fingers crossed. 18.03 Differential Equations: For whatever reason, MIT smiled upon 18.03 students this semester and assigned Bjorn Poonen (this guy) as our lecturer. 18.03 is one of those huge classes where you need to work up a lot of motivation to go to lecture, and having a good lecturer is basically what makes or breaks the class. Iâve enjoyed all the lectures Iâve attended so far, and I think thatâs going to make the class a lot easier for me. 6.0001 Intro to CS Programming in Python: Iâm awful at programming under a time limit, so I unfortunately failed the ASE for this class at the beginning of the year. 6.0001 is technically a prerequisite for all Course 6 classes (even though most of Course 6 doesnât *really* care about prerequisites shh, you didnât hear that from me), so I sadly have to get it out of the way. But since I donât attend lecture or recitation, the class is basically just a mild annoyance to me at this point. CMS.840 Literature and Film: I didnât get into the CMS class I wanted for this semester (a lot of them are lottery only, so the best thing to do is to preregister for a bunch of them and hope you get into one), so I wound up in this class instead. Iâm definitely not complaining, though literature analysis is the only thing I actually claim Iâm good at, and reading books is a good break from the endless numbers and equations that my technical classes so kindly provide me with. Im also currently unsure if Im enrolled for the graduate version of this class or notI should probably figure that out :P Fencing I donât know if Iâve ever talked about fencing in depth on the blogs before (something to do with NCAA rules and regulations), but since Taylor has blogged about basketball, I figured itâs probably okay. The cool thing is that I had never fenced a day in my life before getting to MIT I actually got recruited from the saber fencing PE class here. Iâm still not what anybody would consider good, but Iâve definitely improved a considerable amount since the beginning of the year. I also enjoy it a lot, even though itâs 10 hours of practice a week for those of you who are familiar with how saber fencing works, itâs very fast and action packed and strangely well-suited to a small, angry person like me. Me scoring a touch! Yayay Petey commented on this me, lying on the floor, existentially exhausted after dealing with all of your content, which is pretty accurate (pc. Sasha Galitsky) The fencing season is coming to an end, so IAP was pretty packed with practices in preparation for all of the meets crammed into January and February. This definitely sounds like a lot, and it is a lot, but Iâm a bit sad that the season is ending. Fencing gives a lot of structure to my day, and once I lose that, I will most likely revert to an unnatural sleep schedule and a very screwed up meal schedule. Iâm going to try to keep some sort of exercise routine going after the season ends, but like most things that I plan for, this may not actually end up happening. A Cappella I finally did the thing and joined an a cappella group over IAP! Iâve always really liked to sing, but I never had time for it in high school, so Iâm glad that I finally worked up the courage to audition in college. Singing is the best form of stress release for me, and thatâs something Iâm really going to need this semester. The MIT Ohms! Thats me third from the right :) Iâm currently on break from a cappella until the fencing season ends, but Iâm excited to get back together with my friends and sing at the top of my lungs. UROP I have a really cool UROP at the Scalable Cooperation group at the Media Lab this semester after a semester of fangirling over the Media Lab, I finally made it in :,) My work involves a lot of the stuff I learned in 6.008 (Intro to Inference) last semester, and even though I wasnât a fan of the class, itâs cool to apply the material I learned outside the classroom. Miscellaneous Life is short/long, and either way, youâre best off spending your time doing things that you care strongly about. Over the past few months, one of the things Iâve realized that I care about is my dorm, East Campus. Iâve said this on the blogs many times and Iâll keep saying it, but East Campus is by far the best part of my MIT experience, and Iâm always going to be grateful that I found such an amazing group of people to live with. So over the past few weeks, Iâve been learning about âjoining the swampâ (running for dorm government positions) and have attended a couple of dormwide meetings. Governing is hard, and governing a dorm like East Campus is even harder, but Iâve realized that if Iâm going to put my energy and frustration into being involved in anything, Iâd want it to be East Campus. I may not reemerge on the blogs again for a while this semester, so until then, wish me luck. Post Tagged #18.03 Differential Equations #6.0001 #6.006 #6.036 #8.02 Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism #a cappella #East Campus #Fencing #MIT Media Lab #MIT Ohms #PE
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