Class Impressions: Spring’10

My classes have met for the first time this semester, so it is time for my customary class impressions post. Older similar posts are archived, the link chain starts here. I am only taking 6 hours this semester, originally because my preferred last core class was not offered. I was thinking this would allow me to get ahead on research this semester, but is now also fortunate because of the TA position. The lab sections don’t start meeting until next Tuesday, so I can’t start talking shit (up to FERPA-approved limits) about that yet.

CS585:Linux Internals/Finkel
There are a lot of familiar people in this class, instructor included, and I’m pretty sure it is going to be awesome. It seems like the class is going to be exactly what I hoped; we’re going to dive into the kernel sources and hack around, guided by the books and lectures. We’re using two books, Linux Kernel Development, which is written in the fabulous tongue-in-cheek manner that seems to be endemic to good computer scientists, and Understanding the Linux Kernel, which is an O’Reilly book in the standard tradition.
This should more than make up for the extremely lackluster undergraduate OS class (CS470) I had from UK, seeing as we basically covered CS470, less some tedious detail on implementing resource locks and using shared memory, in the first lecture. Very excited, and expecting very hard projects.

PSY562:Human Technology Interaction/ Carswell

We did the around-the-room introductions thing, and the composition of the class should make things really interesting: 11 Psychology Seniors, a Computer Science Senior, a Computer Science Masters Student, an Education Graduate(didn’t catch which) Student, an Information Sciences Masters Student, a Computer Security person, and myself. In addition to the professional variety, we have hobbies like “Professional Juggler,” “Snake Breeder,” “Dog Trainer,” and “Certified Skydiver,” so there should be no shortage of interesting people. I suspect groups will always be set up with the topics people evenly distributed among the psych kids for the mutual exposure. Apparently the class is going to be fairly guided, and run around a selected central project (”Something significant to the Lexington community”, but we don’t know what yet), which means there won’t be quite as much chance for implementation as I would have liked, but it should be great fun anyway.

There is one other person in both these classes, which proves(or at least allows me to pretend) they aren’t a totally irrational pairing of interests. Looking forward to the semester. Good skills to be had, and it looks as though the classes themselves will be fun.