There are no interesting pics to show to this topic either- instead, I included some images from my stay in Thailand and Laos!
EDIT 1: I’ll at least try to include some of the promised pics in the future, I’m currently not able to upload them.
At the point of writing, it’s two weeks into the new lecture period. This time, it’s five courses, which means my daily schedule comes closer to what people actually have in mind when thinking about grad students. Only two of these (the first ones of the following list) are actual Computer Science (CS) courses, the rest was taken to expand my horizon.
- Optimization for Machine Learning: A highly theoretical course about the mathematical background you need to make your artificial neural networks do what you want them to do. This course is purely theoretic and requires a basic knowledge of linear algebra – something I just can’t wrap my head around (as if my wiring was not compatible with the matter); therefore this one might become tough.
- Computer Vision: Undergrad course. Not to be confused with Introduction to Computer Vision, which is for grads. This one covers mostly known CV aspects but combines them with some Neural Network magic towards the end of the semester and with extensive MATLAB programming assignments, making it possibly worth nonetheless.
- Human Interface Design: Covers all topics you should know about when designing any kind of product that is used directly by humans. Those kind of products include anything from graphical user interfaces over humanoid robots to toilet locks and seats.
- Humanities Seminar: Technoculture and Sci-Fi: This Seminar consists of literature analysis in that field. Because it’s only during one week at the end of may, I can’t tell more about this one currently.
- Introduction to Ethnomusicology (I kid you not): My highlight this semester, just because I find it hilarious sitting in a music class as a foreign computer scientist graduate among three other males and around 30 females, all from the music department and Korean undergrads. The course itself is about the study of all kinds of music in (their) cultural context – this ranges from traditional music of nations and peoples but can also mean the study of “modern” music such as Metal and K-Pop. My genuine interest in the subject, combined with the planned fieldwork/group project and the live demonstration/tryout of Mongolian Throat Singing in one of the lectures are the reasons to why I’m sure that this course will be a fun step outside of my CS/Engineering/Math bubble.
Course times are pleasant, sadly the CS courses’ professors and the corresponding lecture organization once again seem to not be the best the University might offer. This time, I can actually compare with the two professors from the other subjects, and those clearly outclass their CS peers in terms of motivation, lecture presentations and just plain sympathy.
While I’m not eating with buddies anymore, I actually found other friends in my courses or even by eating alone in the cafeteria next to another person that is doing the same.
Mondays to thursdays are full university days, with fridays either devoted to Frisbee, to sightseeing or also to uni. I actually had the time this week to visit the Thursday Pub of the current buddy program, which was a very fun thing to do because I luckily knew enough people to just sit down somewhere and drink in company! Besides, life is continuing as usual. There might be a post on my Frisbee “career” in the near future, but I’m not sure yet.
So bye!