With my freshman year at UCLA wrapping up last week, I thought I would take the time to reflect on it. This is mainly to 1) appreciate the year that has passed, and be grateful for all that I got to experience 2) get in the habit of writing about my experiences as I found out its a good way to stay mentally grounded, and its prety fun to read back later down the line and 3) test the blogging functionality of this website (as its new to the time im writing this).

Coursework:

Professor ratings and my opinion on some notable courses I took this year.

Fall Quarter

I took a total of 4 courses and 1 seminar, and there were 2 notable courses I was enrolled in.

COM SCI 31 – Introduction to Computer Science I

CS 31 isn’t too bad for people who come in with a good amount of CS experience already (at least the basics that are covered in AP Computer Science).

MATH 61 – Introduction to Discrete Structures

This was my first proof based math class

Winter Quarter

I took a total of 5 courses, 1 being a lab course, and there were 2 notable courses I was enrolled in.

COM SCI 32 – Introduction to Computer Science II

MATH 180 – Graph Theory

This class was my first experience with an upper division, and I enjoyed it pretty thoroughly. The professor was Terrence George, and his teaching was very clear and his notes were concise.

The course acted as a sequel to MATH 61, with the first couple weeks of the class reviewing the material. Soon after, we covered our first novel topic, which was k-connectivity. After Midterm 2, we covered a lare amount of concepts regardnig coloring and planar graphs (Kruskal’s Algorithm, Cayley’s Theorem). A recurring concept throughout the entire course was the idea of isomorphisms, and we revisited them constantly, especially when a new graph structure was introduced.

The class definitely favors people with a good counting background (not me), so its probably not the best idea to take it as a first upper division course, but it ended up working fine for me. Other than that, the only gripe about this course would be the jump in difficulty between the midterm and the final, but even that worked out in the end as the class was curved generously.

Spring Quarter

I took a total of 5 courses, and there were 3 notable courses I was enrolled in.

COM SCI 35L – Software Construction

EC ENGR 102 – Systems and Signals

Kadambi is an amazing lecturer, and athough I couldn’t go to as many lectures in person as I wished to (since the class was from 6-8 PM), I

MATH 131A – Real Analysis I

Extracurriculars:

Research

I tried my hand in research around Winter Quarter, where I joined the Elegant Mind Club

reflection on freshman year