A Wrap on the Classes

The two programing classes I took at UCI Extension have ended. On Sunday I submitted the final for my MATLAB class. The C in Embedded Systems class finished up a few weeks before that.

There are a few differences between the classes. For the C one, the instructor did not have any graded work for the class, any tests, and the only three assignments did not have to be submitted or posted. In contrast, the MATLAB one had 7 weekly assignments, a final project, and a final exam. The different standards of accountability had a direct connection to my level of learning. I did not learn very much about C, but I have learned more about MATLAB than any other computer language I have studied for that length of time.

The final for MATLAB was on the same level of difficulty as the weekly assignments. In keeping with the instructor's pattern of not proofreading, it said Fall 2007 in 24 pt font at the head of the document. I don't understand how the instructor does this. It looks like I spend more time reviewing one of my posts on this blog than he does reviewing an assignment he is being paid to produce.

The grades are in

The C programming class was for credit/no credit and I received my credit.

The grade for my project was posted first, 85%. There were no comments, just a grade. The final exam had a grade of 90%. The one comment for it provided me with a line of code that would plot a Fast Fourier Transform. My answer did not have that specific line of code because I was never asked to plot anything. The problem paraphrased was: Take the FFT of a vector and apply the inverse FFT to show you get the original vector again. After transforming the vector, I wrote a line of code that compared the original vector to its ifft. Since it returned an array of 1s, the comparison was true. However, my efforts for the problem did not merit even 1 out of 10 points.

In the assignments and the final, I graphed a lot of problems I was not explicitly asked to graph. There was no doubt about my ability to use graphs. I was agitated about this because I computed my final grade for the class to be 87.5%. With even half credit for the FFT problem I would have 90% for the class. When the grade was officially posted I got an A for the class. My agitation abated.

The next class in the program will not be until the fall quarter.