CSC165 - Week 1 and Week 2

I am a first-year student in CSC165, which is a course that covers mathematics in terms of computer science and logic related to it as well. While this course may be interesting and detailed, it can also be very challenging and overwhelming for beginners, like myself. At this point, I have learned quite a lot about the logic involved in this course, and it has turned out to be quite challenging for me as a student. A main reason why I find the course challenging is because of the language used to convey logic. An example of this is when a statement asks to return all elements in a set if they do not correspond to the elements in another set. I think the wording for this is not all. I found this wording quite confusing and thus, I didn't understand it. Additionally, we had to draw Venn diagrams to show how certain elements in one set related or didn't relate to elements in another set. I struggled to do this as well because of my lack of understanding of the logic in the phrases. Likewise, a tutorial exercise consisted of drawing Venn diagrams based on statements that declared whether all, some or no python programs passed all, some or no test suites. This was confusing for me as well because I could not interpret the statements' meanings well enough to draw correct diagrams for them.

As well, I did not understand other phrases which imply multiple meanings in logic, such as 'If you eat your vegetables, then you can have ice-cream'. My professor explained that the antecedent, which is the first part of this sentence before the comma, could not happen and the entire phrase would evaluate to true. I did not understand why this was. This is because I interpreted the sentence literally and thought one could not have ice-cream without eating vegetables. Another concept I struggled to understand to the point of frustration was the idea of contrapositives. I was confused of how and why the end result of certain statements were the way they were after reversing their implications. Furthermore, I kept struggling to retain the information that I had learned and not get confused at the same time. To clarify my doubts, I asked the teaching assistant to explain the use of Venn diagrams in my tutorial session. I also attended and plan to continue to attend the help centre for computer science to clarify my doubts about concepts learned in class.

One thing I enjoyed in this course is the professor explaining to students whatever concepts they find confusing. He also understands that they find this course challenging and overwhelming and knows that it will take time for them to fully absorb and understand the course material. To help his students, he incorporates simple, real-life phrases and situations to convey the course concepts to them. Right now, I am still confused with certain concepts, but I will take the initiative to improve my understanding of this course and its wonderful logic. I do believe that if one takes the time to practice and absorb the material in the course, it will become more manageable and easy.