Weeks ago, when I had first signed up
for this course and read the course title, "CSC165: Mathematical
Expression and Reasoning for Computer Science", my brain interpreted that
as "PROOFS, PROOFS, AND PROOFS...for Computer Science". I'm pretty
wary of doing more proofs after previously taken a math course that involved
various kinds of dreadful proofs. I remember being extremely confused after my
math professor had first completed a proof for us. In fact, even after an hour
of trying to dissect it I was still confused. I mean, how did my professor know
to begin by stating this variable? How did he know which order to go in? Why
did proving this, imply that? I guess if it's one thing I learned this week,
it's that proofs are carefully constructed pieces of art. I imagine that all
the eloquent, beautiful, long proofs presented in textbooks are the result of
days of planning, trial and error, and editing. Some proofs have taken
mathematicians years to develop (talk about dedication). Anyways, I'm actually
looking forward to the next couple months because maybe after this course,
A={feelings of anxiety} will no longer be a subset of B={feelings experienced
when doing proofs}.
As for the material we are currently learning
in this course, I don't think that I'm very confident about it (yet). I'm
hoping that with enough effort and studying, this will change. I'll admit that
I'm the type of person who has difficulties when it comes to 'wordy' problems.
I had some trouble figuring out what I was supposed to do for question two from
tutorial exercise #1. Nonetheless, I still attempted it, and went to tutorial.
After seeing a couple examples in tutorial and discussing it with a friend, I
finally understood the question. I remember professor Heap saying something
about how attempting a problem, getting stuck, then getting help with it, is
the best way to learn. Well, what do you know, it's true.
Since this is my first SLOG entry,
I'll include an optimistic list of to-do's in order to succeed in this course:
read the course notes, review lecture slides, attempt tutorial problems before
going to tutorial, and most importantly, get help when needed.
