First exam of the semester

Tonight was the first MCB 250 midterm. As expected, it was challenging. There were a couple details that I didn't expect to be tested on (and that weren't in the practice exam), but I worked around that by remembering related information and applying some test-taking strategies. I think I did pretty well.

Tomorrow is the second CS 173 examlet.

Assignment development starting

This morning I met with the other CS course developer who will be working on the new auto-graded programming assignment. We determined who will be doing what, decided on some architecture, set up the source code repository, and got our development environments working. I can now get started on my half!

Exploring the town

This afternoon while taking a break from MCB homework, I walked south off campus to try to visit an interesting loop of road I had seen in bus route maps. I couldn't actually get all the way there because the sidewalk veered away from the road into what shows up on Google Maps as an extremely long detour around to the other side of the loop. I turned back there since it was hot and I had already gone a long way. The walkway goes through a park, part of which I saw on my way there and back, but much of which I'll need to go back to experience.

CS course dev work starting

Today I had my first meeting with the professor of the CS class I'm working as a course developer for. I'll learn about the details of my specific project next week, but today I learned that I'll also get to work on creating a new auto-graded programming assignment for the students. My assignment will replace one that tests similar concepts but wasn't amenable to interactivity. (One goal this semester is to add an Android frontend to more of the machine problems so the students can interact with their creations.) The assignment won't be given for at least a month, so I have plenty of time to engineer it and write up the directions.

Now the semester is actually going

The semester is now in full swing. The first MCB exam is coming up, both MCB and chemistry labs are meeting weekly, and CS 173 is holding its first quiz/examlet tomorrow. CS 225's autograded programming problems are starting to be a bit of a challenge. Exciting times!

Semester up and running

It's now been two weeks of class (one of which was a bit short due to Labor Day) and the semester is fully going. I had the first Data Structures exam this afternoon. Discrete Structures will start holding weekly quizzes this coming Thursday. Both the biology (class, not research) and organic chemistry labs will be held this coming week.

Paperwork done for now

I recently got through all the new-hire HR electronic paperwork and gained access to the time tracking web app, so I think I am ready to start actual work as a CS 125 course developer! I think I'll receive more specific directions at the meeting of all the developers, which will hopefully be next week.