Week 8

Lecture

In the lectures so far for this week, we mainly covered sorting algorithms and counting steps. We also went over the Big Oh for (n^2). Using insertion sort we proved the worst case upper bound by overestimating. At first I was very confused by what we were doing but as we kept going, I started understanding everything and also being able to predict what the next step would be. On Friday, we are going to prove the worst case lower bound and I assume we're going to do this by underestimating. I am hoping to be able to understand what we do and also be able to complete parts of it myself without first seeing how professor Heap does it. It's crucial that I'm on top of all the work because of our test next week which hopefully won't be too difficult or too long.

Week 7

Lecture

The lectures so far this week were interesting. We started off by quickly going over two proof exercises that we needed to complete in a set time period and I managed to get the first proof correct with the proper structure. However, for the second proof, I wrote down the entire structure but could not find the number required to make it work since it was an existential claim. Later on though when professor Heap went over the proofs I realized that it was not as hard to find the number as I initially thought. Wednesday’s lecture was about different allowed inferences which I found very useful to help guide the different proofs we will be completing in the near future. We also talked about the assignment very briefly which I am hoping to start as soon as possible. Lastly, we ended off by going over the different sorting methods. I am not the best at these sorting algorithms however I’m hoping to be able to practice them and understand them as best I can.

Week 6

Test

Having received the test back today, I am extremely delighted with the mark I received. Initially I thought I would lose around five or six marks because I had to rush at the end of the test however it turns out I only lost one mark overall. This is amazing because my assignment was not the best and hopefully this test will help balance out with the assignment mark. More than anything though, I am pleased that I am understanding what we are learning in the course and hopefully I can continue to succeed in this course.

Week 5

Test

Well now the test is over with and out of the way. The test was not very difficult however I was working a little slow and ended up having to rush a few things especially the last question which I think resulted in me getting it wrong. Apart from the last question, I feel I completed everything else correctly or maybe at most a few small mistakes (hopefully nothing major) and I can get a good mark on it. The example test that the professors posted was directly related to the test we completed which I felt was really helpful. The aid sheet I made was very unnecessary for this test in my opinion because I put a lot of other stuff that happened to not be on the test. However, this was the first test and now I know what to expect for the rest of the year and future years to come.

Week 4

A week away from the test and I’m starting to get mixed thoughts. On one hand, I feel like I understand what we are learning and on the other hand I am very nervous about the content and my preparation for this test. However, this week was more focused on the assignment and the lecture content.

Lectures

In the lectures so far we learned about transitivity and mixing quantifiers which I understand. After that we moved onto an introduction to proofs which was fairly similar to how we started off learning epsilon-delta definitions in MAT137 too. This is why I understood what Prof. Heap was talking about and I really liked his choice of using graphs to help people understand what he meant. However, on Friday we are going to look at examples of proofs and how to actually solve one so it will be interesting to see how comfortable I am with that.

Assignment

I enjoy the freedom to be able to pick my group members for the assignments because I feel that gives me the opportunity to pick students I know and work well with to maximize productivity and results hopefully. My group and I did not encounter any major difficulties in completing this assignment and we also went over each answer multiple times to ensure we did not miss anything. Hopefully we do well on this assignment and hopefully this assignment also helped prepare us for the upcoming test.