STRINGS & OPTIMIZATION

This week, I began the second course in my programming specialization from the University of Michigan, Python Data Structures. I’ve also been working on advanced derivation in differential calculus on Khan Academy.

My schedule is still pretty wonky and once again, I haven’t completed nearly as much this week as I have in the past.

I admittedly didn’t do any coursework on Tuesday, November 8th. I first traveled to Guam (not really Guam, just really far away) for a doctor’s appointment and they had no record of my appointment and had to reschedule. I then returned from Guam to vote, and ran some errands afterward. The rest of the day consisted of me being too preoccupied with watching the election results. I never discuss politics on social media, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have strong feelings about it.

I was out again all day today and I’m beginning this journal at 7:00pm, or 1900 hours, for you military folks. It feels as though I’m away from my apartment a lot more as of late. My life has changed quite a lot over the last few weeks, and I’m still having difficulties adjusting and finding as much time to do my coursework.

I won’t continue to be a broken record about this every week, I just want to explain why I haven’t accomplished as much as I should.

Programming

I completed the first week of Python Data Structures, where we focused on strings. No, not the things you use to play with cats. A string is a string of characters. It can be a single word or an entire novel, if you’re utilizing it in a programming language.

“Hello World!” is a string. They can be very basic, but there’s a lot you can do with them in programming. They’re also important because a string is usually what a user will see when they’re running a program, based on how you or someone else coded it.

We learned some of the tools that can be used for parsing and data analysis, such as removing whitespace, making everything lower case, searching for characters or strings, etc.

This class builds upon my previous course, and uses the same text book. The instructor has made everything in the class creative commons, including the lectures, book, and automatic grading system, which is awesome. It truly is a good class and I’ve learned a lot already.

Calculus

The final lessons of differential calculus are pretty crazy.

We studied a lot of optimization problems. For example, calculating how to cut a box to give it the largest cubic area, figuring out the lowest cost for materials, or deciding the maximum profit for a business. Derivatives are used in all of these problems.

We have also used derivatives for applied rates of change. Some of these problems were a little tricky, especially a couple in the quiz questions.

It’s amazing how often calculus can be used in everyday situations. In your face, people who say there’s no reason to learn math!

Yes, I realize very few people would use calculus when they’re making a cardboard box, but perhaps they should. They’ll be able to fit more inside of it.

Penmanship

Unrelated to my studies, but I recently decided that my penmanship is horrible and I need to change it. The only time I write on paper anymore is when solving math problems, so I’m using math as my medium to improve my handwriting.

It certainly takes longer to write legibly than my usual chicken scratch, but I think it’s worth it. Unfortunately, I don’t like the appearance of even my nicest looking writing. I personally feel that it has no sense of style.

One day, I decided to practice my cursive. I did several math problems in cursive as practice. It only takes 10 times longer to write this way and it still doesn’t look all that good.

Perhaps I should learn calligraphy. My penmanship would be amazing, but I could never write fast enough when taking notes or working on mathematics. So far, every writing style I attempt to emulate falls flat. Maybe I’ll have nice, natural penmanship one day, but not today.

Conclusion

As always, I truly appreciate your support. It means a lot to me. I hope you are doing well.

I’ll see you next week!