10 Weeks in CSE3 Fall 2009 By Israel Salazar 10 Weeks in CSE3 Fall 2009 By Israel Salazar Overview Although it was not required of me to take this class as I am an Engineering major and right on the syllabus, Prof. Ord stated that this class was for non- engineering majors, my friend Matthew told me that this is a great class to dip your feet into the world of computers. I learned many valuable things about computers and I am looking forward to taking more CSE classes to become more fluent in the language of computers. Visual Programming with Scratch In Scratch, a program created by the Media Dept. at MIT, we learned the basics of programming and saw firsthand how syntax plays a vital role in whether your code will work or not. My favorite project was making a tic tac toe game. Data Analysis and Visualization with Excel Before CSE3, I had used Microsoft Excel maybe 4 times and every time was to create a graph or a pie chart. With CSE3, we used Excel to perform data analysis, create formulas, and create a tic tac toe game. Presentation of Information Having taken CSE3, I am now ready for the inevitable moment where I have to create a presentation, whether it be for my job, or at a meeting, or to show my kids that they’re spending too much time on the computer, or whatever electronic device in ‘in’ when I am a father. We learned the basics of Microsoft Powerpoint, Adobe Photoshop, and Microsoft Excel. For example, right now I am creating a poster for a CSE3 lab using Mircosoft Powerpoint. Thanks to this class, I am now not totally illiterate when it comes to computers. Computational Thinking Computational Thinking is thinking at multiple levels of abstraction For solving problems For designing systems For understanding the power and limits of human and machine intelligence Computational thinking also means being able to go above the original whole and constructing a whole of wholes. Or going above the whole and thinking about the whole in a different way. The concept of computational thinking is being spearheaded by the Center of Computational Thinking at Carnegie Mellon where their major activity is conducting PROBEs or PROBlem-oriented Explorations Computational Thinking is thinking at multiple levels of abstraction For solving problems For designing systems For understanding the power and limits of human and machine intelligence Computational thinking also means being able to go above the original whole and constructing a whole of wholes. Or going above the whole and thinking about the whole in a different way. The concept of computational thinking is being spearheaded by the Center of Computational Thinking at Carnegie Mellon where their major activity is conducting PROBEs or PROBlem-oriented Explorations Computational Thinking is thinking at multiple levels of abstraction. Computational thinking also means being able to go above the original whole and constructing a whole of wholes. Or going above the whole and thinking about the whole in a different way. There are some very basic statistical concepts that every college educated person should understand. These are useful for understanding our grade distributions in classes here at UCSD, current events, and all manner of information in our lives. Because this isn't a math class, we have focused on the intuition and use of a very few of the most common statistical metrics. In closing, I really did enjoy this class. I know it wasn’t required of me to take this course, but I am glad I did. I learned a great deal from this course. Professor Ord is a great instructor and I wish to thank him for a great first quarter of my college career. I would like to thank Kristen and the TA’s for helping me whenever I got stuck somewhere. I hope to take more CSE courses in the future.