Comments - Week of 25 October


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Comments - Week of 25 October

Comments?

Was that Lab 4 a piece of cake, or what?
What do you think about the new topics – raw CS stuff, like what makes a computer fast and how WinAmp works?
The midterm #2: (You can save answering this until Thursday) Not too bad, eh?
(There were some last minute postings at Comments - Week of 18 October)

is there going to be a midterm review tonight? if not, can there be enough TA's there tommorow to break us down into groups if there are tons of ppl? thankyou sooo much TAs

There will be a midterm review session on Tuesday, Oct. 26 @ 7pm in the CoC Rm 16. There will not be one on Monday. I'm not sure if we will be able to break the class into groups to answer questions since the room will be pretty difficult to divide. We'll see how it goes though. Angela Liang

what does media.Sound instance mean when you are manipulating sound in JES?

media is the name of the module in which we built all the JES functionality. Sound is the name of the class inside of media which is the Sound object class. So, an instance of media.Sound is a sound object. If you print the object, you'll get the printout of a sound like you're familiar with. Mark Guzdial

i just wanted to say that the TAs for this class have been no help for me whatsoever. i have gone 3 times to try and get help from them in their office hours (3 different TAs) and not once have I been able to find them. Not only do we not exactly know what they look like (1 photo on a webpage doesn't do much), they do not make themselves noticeable (or just don't show up) in a large commons area. I have also posted multiple questions online with only a few of them being answered and many being skipped over and ignored. And the TAs gave us an answer for the midterm review (in the review session) which was exactly the answer I had previously posted on the questions page and had been told it was wrong.

Not sure who your TA is (in response to the above posting) but I have met with my TA at a bunch of his office hours, not to mention even gotten help from Prof Leahy when I had a question. As for getting help from TA's that were not mine, I had no problem there either. Maybe you should check and make sure you know where their office hours are located. And if you can't find them then, EMAIL them. I think you're comment is completely ridiculous.

I e-mailed the guy and told him I would be coming in advance. I also e-mailed him, and the other TA who was supposed to be there too, while I was there saying that I couldn't find them, and they never even responded.

I'd go to your breakout this week ( b/c the TA's are at the breakouts) and speak with them in person. If you don't know what your TA looks like, ask you breakout lecturer to point him or her out.

I know what my TA looks like, it's the other ones I cannot find.

Ahhhhh!!! Once again completely understand the midterm review seemed to help me little on the actual midterm...what a blindside with some of those questions. I give up trying to do well on a midterm, good thing this was the last one. I'd estimate almost half the material was not on the review. Woo hoo. Hopefully the afternoon class can blow us out of the water again. Yeah, morning CS pride!

1.Your TAs are required to be at their office hours when posted. They are not, however required to be sitting there waving their arms wildly with a shirt/hat/whatever that says CS 1315 TA. It is generally your responsibility if you plan to go to the office hours of a TA that you don't know to email and ask them ahead of time where they sit or what they look like. If a TA said they would be there, and truely were not, I apologize. You should discuss this with the TA. If they don't respond to your email or if you are still unhappy, go to the head TA or professor to express your concerns.
2.As for the questions online, we do try to answer all of the questions online, and if we miss one, it is usually either becuase we've already answered the same question elsewhere or it was a mistake. You can always email someone or ask during breakout if you feel your question was not answered to your satisfaction online.
3.If a TA in the review answered a question "exactly" the same as your answer, and you were told it was wrong, then the TA made a mistake. It was a small mistake. The difference between print and return is minor on the whole. The rest of the code was perfectly fine. As I said on the review page (when I answered your question) just make sure you follow the instructions for what to input and what to return.
4.The midterm review is *not* meant to be fully comprehensive. As we have said in breakout,lecture, and at the review if you were there with me, you should study the lecture slides, your notes, previous asignments as well as the midterm review. The review is meant as a guide on types of questions that could be asked. And most of the questions on the exam did come in some way from a question on the review. Just becuase it was not the same question does not mean you cannot apply concepts and ideas taken from the review to solve them. If you feel that you completely understood the review but did poorly on the midterm, then you may not have understood it as well as you though. Knowing the answer does not always mean you understand it. And never give up trying to do well. The midterms are meant to be challenging, and remember there's still the final to study for. And the afternoon class did not blow you out of the water last time, their exam was different, as it is this time, and therefore you cannot compare the grades on one to the grades on the other. Kelly Lyons

where do i go to see what TAs will be at CoC for their office hours tomorrow (thursday)? i am confused about the nested while loops for the assignment due this friday.

You can go to the TA contact info page and scroll to the bottom and there is a grid of who has office hours when. Find the right initials, scroll back up and find out who the TA is and you can find out where. I know I have office hours in the CoC today at 11-12, and if that's bad and there are no other TAs available at better times, you can always set up an appointment with any available TA whenever is more convenient for you Kelly Lyons

is there another Spring TA info session besides the one on Monday Nov. 1st?

See answer below. Kelly Lyons

I made up the midterm and the midterm review. The match between the review and the midterm was very close. I'd be happy to discuss it with anyone who would like to come to my office hours or contact me via email. Mark Guzdial

I appreciated that the review and midterm were more similar than they were for the first midterm. It's not that the first midterm was too bad, just that it took me off guard, but I felt this review prepped me more for the midterm. Then again, we'll wait and see what the grade says... :-p

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i thougth this midterm was at a lot higher difficulty level compared to the first midterm. Midterm 2 sure was a lot more similar to the review sheet. there were also more definitions than i had expected (background subtraction)

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is there another Spring TA info session besides the one on Monday Nov. 1st?

I do not believe there is going to be another one, but if you cannot make it, you can go talk to Rich LeBlanc as he is the one holding the session, and he can tell you anything you missed. It is not mandatory to go to the info session to be able to apply Kelly Lyons

what are the times for the breakout sessions on friday?

What breakout sessions on Friday? There are no breakouts on Friday. Just Tuesday and Thursday....

what are the perks of being a TA?

Depends... what would you consider a perk? Angela Liang

so should i ask what are the benefits? like credit? some sort of stipen?

that is what i meant by perks

Generally, your first semester you have to TA for credit (I believe it is a 3 hour "class"). Any semester after that, you choose between TAing for credit or for pay.

You can either TA for credit or TA for pay. Usually you start off as TAing for a 3 hr. CS credit. Check with your advisor if it will cover your CS requirements if you need it. Otherwise, it'll be a free elective. If you TA for pay, the hourly pay is determined by your class and by your experience. The first semester you TA doesn't HAVE to be for credit it CAN be for pay. But since you don't have any experience TAing, it might be harder to get hired for pay, but it happens. Angela Liang

Not to mention the joy of knowing you helped someone learn... Kelly Lyons

the ta application does not seem to be working... just a comment on the comments page

Try it again on Tuesday. They'll probably be fixing it tomorrow. You can also let the people in charge know at the info session tomorrow, as well as click the help link and email them, but my guess is that they know there's a problem and will have it fixed tomorrow. Glad to hear you are interested. Kelly Lyons

"Grades are your worst scenarios; you come to class primarily to learn, not to argue and complain about the difficulties of the midterms or your scores."
—Unknown

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Comment Areas-Fall 2004 last edited on 22 November 2004 at 5:38 pm by c-24-98-10-160.atl.client2.attbi.com