Week 8: I'm a tree hugger

To start this blog post off, I must say that the past two weeks have been really hard. In particular, I devoted most of my time to Assignment #2 with my partner this past week, which means that I now need to catch up on this week's lab and review previous labs and lecture notes to prepare for the test. Go here if you need some help with the additional exercises.

We did our best on that assignment. The second test is on Wednesday, and I hope it's better than the first. I didn't do well on the recursion part of the first test, which cost me marks. (It's March now. Where are my time management skills?) Otherwise, I would have gotten at least a B+, which was the class average. Nevertheless, that class average was fantastic, especially for a first year computer science course like CSC148! Kudos to everyone! (Note to self: I CAN and WILL do well on the second test!)

Here's a good calm-down routine for the test. This is surely what I will be using, too:

Like everyone else, I have work from other courses to do. (Saima, I am in the same boat as you. Let's work hard.) As Saima put it in her post, time management is key, and I mean very key. It's short, sweet, and to the point. Not to mention, it's motivational! I recommend reading her blog, too, because she reflects on her experience in CSC148 very well.

Another fellow CSC148er gave me some advice recently. They told me to be curious as well as not be satisfied with not understanding anything. I need to be able to understand why my code works the way it does. One thing to think about when I'm in my Thursday morning lab is to find out why the method that I implemented works the way it does, with support from my TA. My problem solving skills will improve if I engage with the material as thoroughly as I can. The nicest part about this course and CSC165 is that an aid sheet is allowed.

Anyway, here's the latest from the CSC148 world. We've been looking at binary trees. (And I've been struggling with CSC148 as usual.)

"Binary trees? You mean these?"

As a bit of review from recursion, a tree is a data structure that consists of nodes. Some of these nodes have edges, which connect one node with another. So, it looks something like this:

Now, a binary tree is a type of tree that consists of a "parent" node with two "children," named left and right. Prof. Heap showed us a class, BTNode, that represented a binary tree. The above diagram is an example of a binary tree with 2 as the parent and 7 and 5 as the children. Then it goes on.. and on... and on.

I'm going to familiarize myself a bit more with binary trees in time for the test. The advice that someone gave me can be really helpful for me and anyone else who is struggling with grasping CSC148 material.

Best of luck on the test, everyone! I'll see you next time!