This is the third school week and I have been taught of the topic of conjunction, disjunction, negation, and implication.

     Benefitting from the last two lectures, I spotted that I was able to write English sentences in symbols and this was what we learned during this week’s CSC165 class. Yes, it was kind of confusing at the beginning of this course because it was required to know the exact meaning of logical symbols such as ∀ (stands for ‘all’), ∃ ( stands for ‘some’), ^ (‘and’), and  ∨ (‘some’). I was quite unsure at the beginning of this week because I rarely used that symbols before, but it was getting better after I practiced.

     In my perspective, CSC165 has been focused on logic so far which means that all the questions set and exercises we did during tutorial sessions are still about Venn Diagram or converting sentences into symbols. For the quiz I attempted from last tutorial, I didn’t get the first question because it was quite tricky to tell whether an “O” (stands for ‘empty’) should be put into the common area of P and L. And for this week’s tutorial, a question about converting sentence into symbols was given.

     So far, I was quite happy about studying CSC165. Although it could be considered that I almost had no programming background at all, I was still glad to see the progress I have made so far. 

1st Week SLOG

Hey, this is Sunny in LEC 5101, CSC165, who is a first-year student of Computer Science.

      

      Almost half a month past since the first school semester had began, which meant that I had been in CSC165 for two weeks. By looking back, I was truly worried at the beginning of this course because I was considered that had no programming background at all (The only course I had taken related to computer science was IT 11 when I was in High School), and it seemed that there were a lot of smart guys, and people with advanced programming knowledge background in CSC 165.

       

     Among the first past two weeks, the general ideas of Python such as precision, quantifiers, the theory of verification and falsification, and the way to write a logical sentences and symbols were taught. To tell you the truth, I was very confused at the first lecture since it was sort of a universal review of Python, but I almost had no background at all. However, I soon spotted that I was kind of catching it – the main idea of all those stuff we had covered so far were still referred to Mathematics. By observing patterns and all of materials, which were emphasized during class time, I soon found myself kind of getting in this course. Moreover, during the tutorial session at night, key concepts were reviewed (this week was Venn diagram) which really helped me a lot.

        

     For the problem-solving episode, I want to talk about the second question that had been mentioned on the first tutorial. This was a question, which asked you to draw Venn diagram based on the facts from question 1 on that paper. Here are the steps I summarized to solve that creepy question: 1) Rereading the question carefully. 2) Listing a table based on the information given from question1. 3) Symbolizing all the information I need such as using “T” represents test suites, and let “G” represent python program. 4) Letting “x” stand for empty and “O” stand for occupied to draw Venn diagram. I was not sure about the answer before this tutorial because the question was so wordy, but after rereading this question carefully again and listing a table based on the information given from question 1, I soon got it.

        

     Yes, I am an international student, and I just came to Toronto 3 weeks ago. However, one thing I really wanted to write down was that I was truly impressed by the way how the course was taught – people ask questions, express their ideas, and there will always be somebody who is willing to help. I was quite happy about this and I was pretty confident, because I have learned by asking questions and I felt like myself was a piece of sponge absorbing those great ideas all the time.

       

     Lastly, many thanks to my Pro, TA, all of my classmates or even peers of Computer Sciences in U of T. Thank you for talking such great ideas and fully expressing different opinions.

      

    Best.