Justin Li

Classes! and other Big Things (TM)

2007-09-29

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I'm sort of slipping back into the wait-till-something-big-happens-and-I'll-write-an-essay-about-it mentality. It should be slightly easier now, with all the new-school-year-frenzy dying down a bit.

I thought I would use this entry to describe my classes and other campus activities a bit.

Natural Language Understanding

Not as in "learn English," but as in why telling a computer to do something is so god damn hard. An interesting class, which led to me reading about puns and palindromic poems (Doppelganger by James A. Lindon). My favorite example showing a computer's problem is the following sentence, and it's several interpretations. The problem we're trying to solve is, how do we get a computer to understand the real meaning?

Time Flies Like An Arrow

Cognitive Psychology

Should be an easy course, although I like the professor a lot. He puts humor in a lot of experiments and results. I've taken some cognitive science classes before, so there is a good portion which is overlapping.

Interdisciplinary Design Projects

My most intense course. It's a two quarter long design course, with real clients and real impacts. I have yet to know my project, so I'll say more when I get my assignment (should I choose to accept).

Introduction to Statistics

Another easy course. The professor starts off assuming we don't know how to calculate averages. Er, duh.

Research

Recent got a to help a professor do research in bipedal locomotion a.k.a. walking. Again, haven't done much. I'll give updates.

GSW

Teaching, the highlight of the week! Haven't done much yet either though.

Outing Club

Same.

Sorry this is kind of lame. I'm a little tired of writing.