Life Updates!
The past semester and this semester was crazy for me! Here are the things that I’ve done (and am doing):
Took Operating System
I took Operating System (OS) with Dr. Gheith! OS is notoriously known as the most difficult core CS class at UT. I was suuuper scared going into it, but I loved the class! I had fun every bit of the way, and I made so many friends (we bond through the struggle T.T)! Dr. Gheith is arguably one of the best professors I’ve ever had throughout my years of schools. The TAs we had, Chris, Daniel, Adeet, Ethan, Palash, and Leanne, were so so helpful. I wouldn’t have been able to get through the class without them.
All of the (mostly) weekly assignments were super challenging, but we got through them all. I especially struggled on p7, virtual memory, and I remembered that Tuesday when I stayed at the lab from around 2 PM – 9 PM just to fix a few test cases. I git stashed so many times because I was frustrated with my code, but I finally got it to pass all chosen test cases!
The final project was the best group project I’ve ever had. Our group, SeaShell, built a “sophisticated shell” (as we claimed). I was on the Frontend team, alongside Rik, Himanshu, and Adhan. Nathaniel and Shreyas worked on file system writing, and Rithik and Rodrigo worked on syscalls. Our shell looks like this:
Our shell supported commands such as ls, cd, pwd, mkdir, touch, rm, etc. We also have a snake game (Rodrigo had this crazy idea and we didn’t think we would make it work, but it did!). We also have a text editor!
On presentation day, we all dressed up in beachy clothing (our SeaShell theme LOL).
I will miss this class and our group a whole lot!
I TA-ed (and am TAing) for CS 313E
One of the reasons why I’m only working at LAITS 5 hours per week last semester and this semester is because I’m being a TA this semester. I’m TAing for Dr. Mitra for CS 313E (the class that made me want to transfer!). Being a TA has been so much fun! I’m especially glad when I’m able to help students clear up conceptual misunderstandings of materials, walk through algorithms, and debug. Many students has told me that it was super helpful, so I’m really glad.
Played in two Piano Recitals
I performed in our Recital of Excellence for PIA 201. I played two short Schumann pieces, Kinderszenen No. 1: Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (Scenes from Childhood No. 1: Of Foreign Lands and People) and Album für de Jugend: Fröhlicher Landmann (Album for the Young: Happy Farmer).
I also got invited to perform in my previous teacher, Yunzhi, end-of-year student recital, where I played Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1. The recital was at Austin’s Steinway Gallery.
Took at Senior Trip with my friends to Hawaii!
I went to Hawaii with my friend group over Winter Break. The trip was a week long. We got lots of good food (super fresh fish) and beautiful sights! I finished the first part of Murakami’s Killing Commendatore while on the trip, and bought Murakami’s Hardboiled Wonderland and The End of the World at Barnes and Noble in Hawaii.
This Semester
I’m still dying a little this semester, because even without OS and Approximation Algorithms, I’m still taking 3 CS classes (Data Mining, NLP, and Graphics) T.T. But I’m having a lot of fun! I’m super excited to keep working on the classes, and sad to graduate soon. But I’ll come back with more updates before I graduate :).