Winter 2025 wrapup

2025-05-03

Course reviews

This semester I took a different approach: instead of clumping all reviews at the end, I wrote course journals over the semester. You can read them here:

I also took EECS 201: Computer Science Pragmatics, but for its low stakes it does not warrant its own journal.

Anyway, I gotta comment on the instructors and give a rating for each of these. Here goes:

EECS 461

Rating: 3/5

I feel I've learned less than I'm supposed to, but I'm being a hypocrite because I complain about workload all the time.

Workload peaks 2/3 into the semester, when you get one prelab, one lab, one postlab, and one homework per week. Then the labs and homework vanish and the project turns out to be pretty chill.

Instructor (Jeffrey Cook)

Really knowledgeable, speaks slowly and intelligibly. Impressively adept at technology for his senior age. It is possible, however, to make it through this course without full attendance.

EECS 330

Rating: 3/5

I kinda expected more from this course, but again, workload. The HFSS labs are quite tedious if you don't know what you're doing. It does build some intuition, though.

Instructor (Amir Mortazawi)

Happens to be faculty director at UMARC (UM amateur radio club). Extremely knowledgeable, unfortunately a bit boomer energy when it comes to tech. (Can't blame him, the USB-C adaptor in EECS 3427 lowkey sucks.)

He is a responsible person when it comes to public health, as he wears an N95 mask.

EECS 491

Rating: 3.5/5

Though I did not do as well in terms of grade, I feel this is the only course where I learned something deeply philosophical. Despite that, I still don't feel comfortable enough working on a distributed system, because I can't reason about consistency with confidence; I might work with one, if you pinkie promise me that it's linearizable.

Instructor (Brian Noble)

Is goat.

EECS 201

Rating: N/A because I walked into the course already knowing everything that was to be taught if not extra. Highly recommended though, if your career involves computer touching.

Instructor (Brandon Nguyen)

Linux user rahhh

Notable gains

  • Another semester of working as an IA for EECS 370
  • Stuffed raccoon
  • Figurine of my fursona Mosfet
  • Cat ears
  • Book about Central Asia from my friend as a birthday present
  • Tote bag with my NorthOwOd design
  • The unforgettably experience of getting hit by a car
  • Stuff bought at MCFC
  • Michigan state ID card (which I used to buy booze twice)
  • General class ham radio license
  • New FCC callsign W8MOS
  • Access to the W8UM shack
  • Stuff pillaged from various departments at UM
  • Giant poster of commissioned art for Mosfet
  • Graduation attire
  • Bunch of clothes on a shopping spree with parents

Notable losses

  • Earbud case on the bus 23
  • Clipboard full of stickers

Free books

  • Tanenbaum, Andrew S. Computer Networks, 3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1996. (free book event at ECE office)
  • Kernighan, Brian W. and Dennis M. Ritchie, The C Programming Language, 2nd ed., Prentice Hall, 1988. (previously owned by Jeff Fessler)
  • Kernighan, Brian W. and Rob Pike. The UNIX Programming Environment, Prentice Hall, 1984. (also previously owned by Jeff Fessler)
  • Behannon, K. W. et al. The Magnetotail of Uranus, NASA, 1987.

Places I Went

  • All over both campuses to fly furry posters
  • Lake Huron (mit den Furries)
  • Detroit (with friend)
  • MCFC 2025
  • Rix's apartment
  • Common Cycle three times to fix my repeated flat tire
  • W8UM shack
  • The Grove when there was a popup ziplining and rock climbing
  • My graduation ceremony
  • Detroit (with parents)

Music I Made