In this post, I mentioned that the concepts that I learnt in these weeks weren't that difficult, but they weren't too simple either. I somewhat agree with this statement, as this is the case even now; the course concepts aren't too simple. In fact, the concepts have become more and more difficult to internalize, absorb, and above all, apply. The basic theory and code is quite easy to understand, but the application is the difficult part.
"The concepts are [relatively] easy to understand, but applying them requires a lot of thinking and can be difficult."
The world "relatively" is included here; it wasn't included in the original post, because now, I've realized that the course concepts have become more and more challenging to understand, despite being relatively easier than to apply. Because of this, I really struggled with the labs and the resulting quizzes, and even the assignments and midterm tests.
I also mentioned that I planned to ask for help from various people, including TA's. I had planned to do this, but I haven't really been able to do it. This was because of other work that I had to do, and that I didn't really know what questions to ask them and how to. To be honest, I wasn't really sure of what I wasn't sure about, and also I didn't know how to verbally express what I didn't know. Additionally, the long TA strike had further limited my opportunities to seek help from TA's. So, I practically tried to figure out everything myself, with limited help from friends and TA's.
However, I do agree that I had looked forward to learning more advanced programming. This is true, because I tried to browse through the weekly lecture slides and code before every lecture, anticipating more new material. I really wanted to know what I would learn in lecture, and I wanted to be well-prepared.
My situation is similar to this blogger, Niyant Hathi, in some ways: He mentioned that the course got difficult very quickly, and that things would get tough for him starting with recursion. However, he mentioned that he put in time and effort to understand the new topics. And even though marks are very important in the course, I completely agree with him on what he said about valuing what he learnt in the course than what some number says about his efforts in the course.
This is his blog post: http://niyantcsc148.blogspot.ca/2015/03/revisit-previous-slog.html
As well, I agree with Fahim Lallani, another blogger and my CSC148 classmate, about the importance of attending lectures. I feel that attending lectures in person are much more effective, than watching online lectures or listening to recorded lectures. He also mentioned that going to lectures would drastically improve his mark. My marks haven't improved drastically simply because of how much I struggled, but the lectures provided the foundations for my understanding of this course. Also, the professor explains concepts very well, and even outlines what needs to be done in assignments. Personally, I think that everyone should try to attend as many lectures as they can.
Fahim's comment about lecture attendance is in his most recent blog post: http://fahimscourse.blogspot.ca/2015/04/week-11-revisiting-earlier-blog-post.html
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