optimism.
today was a pretty good day. let's start with the obvious. got to school early, thanks to my baby for giving me a ride. read appendix a of goldsmith's book. it was difficult to understand since i haven't got the background in digital communication. but in the afternoon, i was able to do the quiz given in the class. so i think it wasn't so bad. next week we will officially begin the wireless channel modeling part in that class. since i have been sitting in on the grad level class, i think it'll help me understand the channel modeling part better. which reminds me, i should review my statistics.
after my class, i did the majority of the hw for dsp. and then, i helped chiawen with his interview with qualcomm. they asked him several question on hardware, which i didn't really understand. but all of the questions they asked on wireless and general communication, i think i could have answered better. that actually made me pretty optimistic about my future job situation.
i have also decided to sit in on this circuit theory class to help me gain more hardware background. that way next fall i can take more hardware classes.
anyway, time to shower and read some more papers.
rate 01/31/08: 8
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
huffman code
struggles.
yet another average day. started working on the homework for dsp which is due friday. this time there were a lot of problems and every problem has a lot of calculations. think i should probably use matlab for some of them since the fourier coefficient calculations take forever by hand.
since dr. pfister is in san diego this week for ITA, dr. narayanan took over the lecture for digital communications. last semester i sat in on dr. narayanan's information theory class. though it was a bit of a struggle with all the advanced material, nevertheless, it was such a joy listening to dr. narayanan's lectures. he's always very patient in presenting the material. he almost never rushes in writing things down on the board and carefully explaining each results. since most of his research is in the area of channel coding, he talked about a few algorithms today. the majority of the discussion was focused on huffman code, which is a very simple coding scheme that produces an optimal instantaneous code by utilizing the probability distribution of the source. it is used widely in data compression, such as jpeg and mpeg files. there is a really nice story behind it. definitely worth reading and knowing about. =)
anyway, back to homeworking.
rating 01/30/2008: 7
yet another average day. started working on the homework for dsp which is due friday. this time there were a lot of problems and every problem has a lot of calculations. think i should probably use matlab for some of them since the fourier coefficient calculations take forever by hand.
since dr. pfister is in san diego this week for ITA, dr. narayanan took over the lecture for digital communications. last semester i sat in on dr. narayanan's information theory class. though it was a bit of a struggle with all the advanced material, nevertheless, it was such a joy listening to dr. narayanan's lectures. he's always very patient in presenting the material. he almost never rushes in writing things down on the board and carefully explaining each results. since most of his research is in the area of channel coding, he talked about a few algorithms today. the majority of the discussion was focused on huffman code, which is a very simple coding scheme that produces an optimal instantaneous code by utilizing the probability distribution of the source. it is used widely in data compression, such as jpeg and mpeg files. there is a really nice story behind it. definitely worth reading and knowing about. =)
anyway, back to homeworking.
rating 01/30/2008: 7
struggle.
yesterday was overall a productive day. i did the matlab problems for dsp, and also read many sections of the book. still haven't done the exercise problems yet, but hopefully after i finish reading the next two sections, i will be able to do the problems without too much problem.
in advisor's class, he asked us to read through appendix A and B of Wireless Communications. since i'm taking digital communications this semester, appendix A was a difficult read. there were a lot of terms that i'm not very familiar with. but hopefully i'll be able to get by. appendix B was much easier, since it was mostly on probability and random variables. though toward the end, when it talked about random processes, i was a bit lost. the math was pretty difficult to get around. maybe it will clear up a bit when i read it again this afternoon.
for research i was supposed to read this paper by anthony so. i got through about half of it so far. and then i got stuck on one of the theorems. and for the last two days, i haven't made any progress. think i really need to finish it before group meeting on friday.
rating for 01/29/08: 7
yesterday was overall a productive day. i did the matlab problems for dsp, and also read many sections of the book. still haven't done the exercise problems yet, but hopefully after i finish reading the next two sections, i will be able to do the problems without too much problem.
in advisor's class, he asked us to read through appendix A and B of Wireless Communications. since i'm taking digital communications this semester, appendix A was a difficult read. there were a lot of terms that i'm not very familiar with. but hopefully i'll be able to get by. appendix B was much easier, since it was mostly on probability and random variables. though toward the end, when it talked about random processes, i was a bit lost. the math was pretty difficult to get around. maybe it will clear up a bit when i read it again this afternoon.
for research i was supposed to read this paper by anthony so. i got through about half of it so far. and then i got stuck on one of the theorems. and for the last two days, i haven't made any progress. think i really need to finish it before group meeting on friday.
rating for 01/29/08: 7
Monday, January 28, 2008
entry 1 of blog version 2.0
prelude:
the people have spoken and i have listened. a few of you might have read the previous version of holden94122.blogspot.com, and might have liked it even. so you might know that it was deleted due to my lack of time to properly maintain updates on it. though my schedule remain very busy, i think in this version, i will try to keep the entries short and to the point, so as to save time. so for those of you who enjoyed reading the last blog, please feel free to make comments as well as suggestions.
the new blog is titled "struggles, confusion, and optimism". i think those three words characterize very well my life as of now. struggles mostly refer to school work; confusion is what i have been experiencing since coming to grad school; and optimism is what i hold for the future. each entry from now on will be labeled by one or more of these three words, depending on the content of the entry. also, i'm thinking going back to the original rating system developed by dan and chris. a number will be assigned at the end of everyday, based on my activities during the day. academics and daily life will be the two major weighing factors that i taking into account in assigning myself a score. not sure if dan, chris, and derek are still using a rating system. perhaps i will check later.
---
now today's entry: optimism. after group meeting with advisor last friday, i felt a little more optimistic about my academic future. the majority of the group meeting composed of eating pizza while giving updates on research, huang zheng giving a presentation on the papers he read recently, and dr. Cui asking a bunch of difficult questions and getting mad at huang zheng's terrible english. so basically how group meeting goes every friday.
but toward the end of the meeting dr. cui said something that kind of hit me differently. he told us that it's not important to him how long we take to make big progress. it's ok as long as we make a little progress every day. the learning process is a long one. he himself didn't publish his first paper until 3rd year of grad school. but because he was able to set a good foundation, and cumulate material over the first two years, in his 4th year, he published 4 papers.
what he said made me think about what i have been trying to do since i first got to grad school. i kept on thinking that i need to learn a bulk of things right away, so as to catch up to the other people in my dept. but what i really need to do is to take small steps. no matter how small the steps, as long as i keep it consistent, it will lead to good results later on. this is one of the reasons why i think keeping a blog would be beneficial in the long run. it allows me to keep track of things everyday to make sure that i have done what i need to do, to take those small steps.
now that i have spent about 20 minutes on this, time to get back work.
1/29/08 rating: 7
the people have spoken and i have listened. a few of you might have read the previous version of holden94122.blogspot.com, and might have liked it even. so you might know that it was deleted due to my lack of time to properly maintain updates on it. though my schedule remain very busy, i think in this version, i will try to keep the entries short and to the point, so as to save time. so for those of you who enjoyed reading the last blog, please feel free to make comments as well as suggestions.
the new blog is titled "struggles, confusion, and optimism". i think those three words characterize very well my life as of now. struggles mostly refer to school work; confusion is what i have been experiencing since coming to grad school; and optimism is what i hold for the future. each entry from now on will be labeled by one or more of these three words, depending on the content of the entry. also, i'm thinking going back to the original rating system developed by dan and chris. a number will be assigned at the end of everyday, based on my activities during the day. academics and daily life will be the two major weighing factors that i taking into account in assigning myself a score. not sure if dan, chris, and derek are still using a rating system. perhaps i will check later.
---
now today's entry: optimism. after group meeting with advisor last friday, i felt a little more optimistic about my academic future. the majority of the group meeting composed of eating pizza while giving updates on research, huang zheng giving a presentation on the papers he read recently, and dr. Cui asking a bunch of difficult questions and getting mad at huang zheng's terrible english. so basically how group meeting goes every friday.
but toward the end of the meeting dr. cui said something that kind of hit me differently. he told us that it's not important to him how long we take to make big progress. it's ok as long as we make a little progress every day. the learning process is a long one. he himself didn't publish his first paper until 3rd year of grad school. but because he was able to set a good foundation, and cumulate material over the first two years, in his 4th year, he published 4 papers.
what he said made me think about what i have been trying to do since i first got to grad school. i kept on thinking that i need to learn a bulk of things right away, so as to catch up to the other people in my dept. but what i really need to do is to take small steps. no matter how small the steps, as long as i keep it consistent, it will lead to good results later on. this is one of the reasons why i think keeping a blog would be beneficial in the long run. it allows me to keep track of things everyday to make sure that i have done what i need to do, to take those small steps.
now that i have spent about 20 minutes on this, time to get back work.
1/29/08 rating: 7
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
