ucla classes

okay, due to popular demand (aka brian), i will mention (1) my ucla classes and (2) the student body:

(1) i am taking 4 courses:

• CS246 (web information management):

we learn about the most novel and monumental ideas of the web by reading the academic papers that started everything. for example, we read some by the the creators of google the 1st week. each week we are assigned 3-4 papers to read and write reviews on them. we get to pick any cool project we want to do. past projects have produced papers that were later read in the course. it's like a recycling program.

• CS118 (fundamentals of networking):

the internet was invented at ucla back in ~1970. so, they are pretty good at networking. this is just a course i have to take to fulfill my breadth requirement for my master's.

• CS495 (teaching assistant seminar):

at florida tech, this course wasn't even a course; it was a 3-day-long session of what not to do in the classroom. here, it's amazingly thorough. we meet 2 hrs 2 times a week and really learn about all the minute subtleties that go into teaching well. we each have to do a simulating teaching lesson to the class, and they even video record current TA's and critique them...

• CS201 (computer science seminar):

we hear (2) 2 hour lectures a week from smart ppl. last week, we heard a great talk from douglas comer (he has been a prominent member of founding the internet and its direction for the last 40 yrs).

(2) the student body seems clearly divided:

• undergrads:

everyone is white or asian and is from cali. about 70% of all undergrads are really pretty white girls.

• grad students:

everyone is from taiwan or is named chris tanner.