Saturday, October 18, 2008
Portfolio 4 - What difficulties do you have writing in your engineering classes?
After entering into university, I find certain difficulties in writing and adapting in engineering classes. Taking “CS1101C” as the discussion module for difficulties faced in engineering class; the reasons for difficulties are no background knowledge of the subject, too much variation in programming and insufficient time for practise. Firstly, I find it hard to adapt to the module as I do not have any background knowledge on C programming. Although the lecture pace is neither fast nor slow, the level of understanding needs to be high in order to excel in the subject. Thus in order to improve, I always read up the lecture notes before hand to get a brief knowledge of the upcoming lecture and clarify any doubts with the tutor after the lecture. Secondly, the reason for the difficulties is that there is too much variation in programming. When doing a program using the system, a program can be created through different standard of codes. Therefore, I am often unsure what the mistakes in a hand written program are. In order to improve, I often try to understand the written program by solving it like a maths question to find out the possible errors. Also, I will try to think of as many ways as possible how a program can be created and clarify with tutor for any uncertainties. Thirdly, due to the insufficient free time as lessons are quite packed, I often do not have much time to practise programming. As such, I will try to practise during my weekends to improve on the subject. Furthermore, I will try to organise my own timetable and find time for practise. In brief, to excel in a subject, we have much to do such as well organised timeslot, self-study and frequent practise.
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4 comments:
writing in engineering class is not an easy task and it requires you to have a strong background about what you write and be expert in using words and sentence structures. In addition , you have also to think critically or seriously about your writing scenario, such as how much your readers can understand the writing or how they will feel about it. Generally, it requires a writer to spend a lot of time and efforts to finish successfully done or perfect writing.
To adapt to writing in engineering class is seriously not an easy task because of two factors. One of them is like what Terence had mentioned which is not having any background in that particular module resulting in more time needed to understand that module neglecting the other modules. The second one is the lecturers for engineering classes are usually not local, they are usually from Hong Kong, China or India and students usually have a hard time trying to understand what they are trying to say. In conclusion, engineering students will have to put in more time in self study to do well for the modules.
Terence has taken the example of module CS110 (a programming module) to express his difficulties in engineering class. Having taken programming module before, I could understand the difficulties Terence is facing. Indeed to come up with a program code to program a system, it has many ways to achieve the objective. Terence has the correct approach and attitude in his studies towards CS1101. He is able to related programming to mathematic which to understand why and how it is being solved in this manner rather than to accept the fact. With this attitude towards CS1101 and the self studies disciple, I believe Terence can excel in this field.
We do not have enough time to practise in CS calss. You choose to do some paratice on the weekend. That is a good way. I need to make effort in future.
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