CS373 Fall 2020 — Week 8

What did you do this past week?

I spent the earlier parts of the week studying for the exam, putting some work into the frontend of our website, and doing assignments for other classes. The later parts of the week were spent studying for other exams and adding to the website whenever I had time.

What’s in your way?

My biggest problem right now is that all of my classes seem to have exams and projects due at the same time, so this week I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. For our website, I really want to be able to make it look better visually, but at this point its about slapping all the requirements on before the deadline. Hopefully during phase 3 I’ll have a bit more downtime to work on the visuals.

What will you do next week?

Monday and Tuesday will be completely dedicated to finishing phase 2 and working on my neural networks assignment. Wednesday onwards will be for getting a head start on phase 3 and catching up on some reading for other classes.

What was your experience of Test #1? (this question will vary, week to week)

Test 1 wasn’t too bad. I’m glad I studied as it definitely wasn’t a walk in the park, but I’m confident that I did pretty well. I do wish that the exam was only a day long, even if it would have taken longer as it’s a bit hard to dedicate so much of the workweek to one class. It was nice to be able to collaborate for parts of it, though it did seem redundant at times.

What made you happy this week?

I got some of those halloween themed cookies at HEB the other day, and we put some lights up on our balcony and it’s all very cute. October is my favorite month because of the weather, the football and the general Halloween vibes and I’m excited to be almost done with a lot of the heavy work for this month.

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

Zoom school is very overwhelming at times. It often feels like I’m sitting at my desk all day working for hours and never getting everything done, then never taking a break or enjoying any free time. When I look back, I realize I actually accomplished a lot and it just doesn’t seem like much because of how much there is left to do. My tip of the week is to set specific goals for each day and try to plan a stopping point where you disconnect from schoolwork. It’s helpful to have a game plan so that you have a sense of doing ‘enough’ in a day, and also important to take a break sometimes.