Monday, April 30, 2018

CS is happening

Registration for the two CS classes finally opened today. The schedule document only said that the restrictions would be lifted sometime between 9 AM and 5 PM, so at 9 I started attempting every few minutes to add the courses from my planned schedule. I noticed that a handful of seats had become free in CS 225, the one that was previously completely packed. (The department had previously announced it was going to crack down on people who had already taken the class and were holding seats for their friends, so maybe that happened.)  I also noticed that the discussion section - not the lecture - of that class that I was hoping for was completely full, so I changed my plan to a free one, which meets at 7 PM. Suboptimal, but far better than nothing,

Around 11:30, my registration attempt succeeded, and to my shock I added both classes! Therefore, I dropped organic chemistry from my fall schedule and will take it over the summer. For fall, I'm currently registered for 14 credit hours and will probably add 2 of research. My day consistently starts at 11 AM (a huge improvement over this semester's 8 or 9 AM) and ends at a variety of times from 2 to 9 PM.

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Only finals remain

Tonight I took my last midterm of the semester. It seemed to go really well; results should be out sometime next week. Now all that remains are four more days of classes and then finals. Some classes are already over - today was the last chemistry lab, and biology discussion doesn't meet on the last week of the semester.

Friday, April 20, 2018

One more full week

Next week is the last full week of normal class days for the spring semester. I have two midterms of the third round: differential equations on Wednesday and chemistry on Thursday. Today I did a lot of practice problems for chemistry, without much trouble. This weekend I should focus on math. Yesterday and today I finished off two groups projects and started the last one.

I started filling out the paperwork for remaining in the research lab next semester. It looks like everything is in order - I just need to figure out how many credits to register for, which I can do after working out the rest of my schedule on the 30th.

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Probably not going to get both CS classes

I just checked the registration system again to see how many seats are left in the CS classes I'm hoping to take in the fall. The almost-empty one is still almost empty, with only eight seats taken in the lecture I plan to join. The other, however, is 100% full in both the lecture and discussion I was hoping for, with only thirteen seats left in the other lecture (that conflicts with my planned schedule). It's therefore very unlikely that I'll get into both, but that's alright - I'll take organic chemistry in the fall, which gives me a full schedule of helpful classes.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Week of group projects

I don't have any exams this week, so as originally scheduled it was going to be pretty clear. It turns out, though, that three out of my four classes have group projects that will be starting or finishing this week. For MCB, we need to finish recording our "tips for success" video that will give advice to the students in the course next semester. For chemistry, we need to make a small correction to the poster we've been working on and submit it for printing. The CS final project is done in pairs, which will be determined this week in lab. I'd like to get started on that as soon as possible since next week (the last full week of classes!) will be busy.

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Need to wait longer for the CS class

I happened to check the CS department's registration restriction schedule again recently and noticed that it had been updated. Instead of one class opening on the 23rd and the other on the 30th, both the ones I want open to all of campus on the 30th. Especially with the entire College of Engineering having an extra week to register before me, it seems unlikely that I'll get into the changed one. That's alright; I'll just take organic chemistry in the fall and leave the summer clear.

On the plus side, the MCB exam answer key came out yesterday, so I used it to compute my unofficial score. I only missed one question, for a 98%.

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Kicking off the third round of midterms

Tonight was the third MCB exam. It covered a wider variety of material than the previous two and required more memorization (as opposed to thinking/application) than I expected. At first I felt uncertain about several of my answers, but looking over the exam before submitting, I'm satisfied with my choices and feel pretty good. The answer key will be released sometime tomorrow, and I will score my responses then.

I now have a week of relative calm before the last two midterms, and then there's only half a week of instruction left.