Class Shopping

Here was my class schedule for the first week of the semester.

This post is about giving my brief takeaways from all these classes, in a style similar to one done by a blogger on the MIT blogs that I would link to but I just spent 10 minutes looking and I couldn't find it so now I only have 13 minutes to finish this post. I may come back and add it later.

Here are all the classes I took, along with a brief note about each of them.

6.101(aka Fundamental of Programming aka .009)

This is one the the 5 classes I ended up taking. It's pretty useful, I think, and required for most later CS classes. I don't really go to the lectures (they're basically just recitations), but that's more or less the expectation for this class. Every week, you're assigned some big thing you have to implement (Snokoban, 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon, Image Processing etc), and every one teaches you something (hopefully) new about programming.

6.120

Also one of the classes I ended up taking. It's not that great. Mainly basic math concepts (counting, induction, sums) gone over in confusing language that makes them sound much harder than they actually are. Not sure how much I learn from this class, but it's sortof nice to go over concepts I already knew. This class makes feel much more elitist as a Physics major.

6.121

I only ever went to one thing for this class, and it was a recitation. I quickly realized upon talking to others that there was no change they would let me take this without having fulfilled the prereq (6.120), so I dropped it.

6.190

I really regret not taking this class. It seems super cool to me (buildign your own computer one a breadboard, programming in languages I've never used). Luckily, it's a quarter long course, so I'll probably take it 2nd quarter. Sadly most of my friends took it first quarter though.

8.03

This may have been the most basic lecture I've ever attended at MIT. I was already leaning pretty strongly towards just skipping 8.03 and going straight to 8.04 before this lecture, but going to it made it obvious. After 8.022, it felt like a joke. I guess they have to moderate it for all the kids coming from 8.02 (the regular track option).

8.04

This will probably be my most difficult class this semester. It's pointed out a lot of the holes in my calculus knowledge, and made me painfully aware of what math can look like in physics. So far it's not been as fun conceptually as 8.022, but it's still pretty cool.

18.065

I just dropped this class. I wish I took 18.102 instead of it. I think I'll end up taking it, but it felt like a class I really wouldn't

18.100B

I only went to the first lecture for this class. I've techinically alreadfy taken a baby form of analysis (Intro to Analysis at a local college my senior year), so it felt fairly like review. I'm probably being too cocky assuming I don't need this, but the lecturer seemed mid and I decided that it wasn't worth my time. It was a sad cut to make though

18.102

I think that this is the number one class that I wished I took this semester. But I understand why I dropped it. I signed up for it because my friend Shreya said she was taking it, and I wanted a challenging math class. But, I didn't even know what functional analysis was. I felt pretty good at the first few lectures (the lecturer was a 70 year old British man with an S-tier sense of humor). But, when I opened the first pset, I was immediately lost. I decided my proof knowledge was insufficient, and I asked for an extension. The other classes I was taking were piling up, and against Shreya's best efforts, I decided to drop it.

I've since grown to regret it. The rest of my classes have gotten much easier, and I feel like I'm missing cool math stimulus. I've also used the few math concepts I learned in the first few lecturers over a dozen times since (norms and metric-spaces), and decided that this is a class that's really fundamental. I will likely take it next spring.

18.200

I never went to a lecture. In hindsight, wish that I'd at least considered it over 6.120.

18.600

I'm currently taking this class. Probability is something that I think I have very bad intuition for, and I want to become better at this. I had some reservations about taking it this semester because the professor gets bad reviews. But, in the end, I decided it was too important to wait, and to just take it. I still don't know if this was a good idea. I definitely think I'm learning a lot from this class though.

Humanities

17.S917

This is another class that Shreya tried to get me to take. It's a special subject Poli-sci class that's more of a book club than a normal class. I went to the first meeting for it, and although the subject matter is interesting to me, the reading schedule (1 book/week) felt like more than I would realistically do. I pictured myself showing up to class every week, having barely done the readings, and feeling like total shit as I did my best to not let others onto it. This felt like it would be a waste of my time, so I dropped it.

21G.071

I only went to the first class for this. It was alright. Small and hot classroom.

21L.024

I didn't end up getting into this class.

Reflections

I didn't end up