In my previous post, I talked about two of the classes I took this semester (which you can find here). I promised that I would talk about the other classes I took, so let’s get right back into things. (Again, I’m prefacing this with the fact that I took these courses in Spring 2020.)

6.302/6.320 - Feedback System Design

• An introductory course into “control”
• As this is a course 6¹ class and not a course 16² class so there is a lot less math and more hands-on experiments (though one is still expected to know the math and be able to explain it…)
• Labs are very hands-on and you implement the concepts explained in lecture
• Experiments usually don’t line up with theoretical³ results. Very frustrating as you never really know if you are right or wrong just based off the numbers.
• The general concepts are easy to grasp but trying to understand anything past that is hard
• Course isn’t designed to be fast paced, but one has to be attentive to stay on top of material, as missing a week will throw off everything after it
• Previous point also means that it is possible to catch up if you spend the time and effort
• Labs are done in pairs, so take the course with someone you want to work. You get to choose your own partners given that both of you are in the same lab session.⁴
• The lab kit is very easy to use and the assembly instructions on each lab are all very clear.
• The custom PCB designed for the class cuts out most if not all hardware issues that plague most EE lab courses.
• All other instructions on the labs were less than ideal though, as I often got lost trying to figure out what I are supposed to do/accomplish having finished assembling the lab.
• Ask for help as much as possible! The course staff are super helpful and will answer any and all questions!! Shoutout to all the TAs and Professor Jacob White!!!!
• Lectures teach the control theory, but it isn’t needed to physically do the labs.
• Labs can be easily “completed” by just blindly trying things out based on the loose instructions.
• This also means that you can get by without really understanding anything if the grade is all that matters to you. 😡
• There are no exams in the class, just prelabs, labs, and postlabs. (Usually there is a final project, but it was cut out of the course because of the COVID-19 situation.)
• Prelabs and postlabs are formatted like 8.02 MITx prep questions and all done on the course website.
• The “show explanation” button that exist on prelab and postlab problems usually don’t actually have explanations behind them. Though the few that do are super helpful! Hopefully the course staff get to filling these in sometime for a future run of the class.
• TAs and professors are willing to explain any and every problem in office hours though! 🙏
• Professor’s lecture notes exist but are barely legible. (He calls them scribbles himself 😅)
• Nicely formatted notes done in $\LaTeX$ were being compiled by the TAs but put on hold when everyone got sent home. Hopefully they continue/finish this for future runs of the class.
• Lectures were recorded by TAs so they aren’t “professional” quality, but totally usable if you don’t go to lecture. (👎 for not going to lecture. Please go to lecture!)
• Loose/flexible grading policy (especially once we got sent home).
• A course staff that cares for their students! 💛 Especially apparent in our run of the course as they went above and beyond to help students pass the class. (They even allowed students to get checkoffs well after the last day of classes… though I wonder how they got away with that 🤔)
• Professor White even released an optional lab on Memorial Day, almost two weeks after the course had ended. I doubt many students will bother looking at it, but it sounds interesting enough that I want to sometime in the future.
• Low effort guide:
  • Brute force prelab/postlab questions or try to figure out the pattern to them.
  • Rush through labs with minimal understanding
  • Don’t bother with the lectures and just read through the scribbles.
• My approach:
  • Worked through the questions as best I could but definitely brute forced/“pattern matched” some of the questions I didn’t understand.
    • Wish I went to office hours to fully understand them, but I didn’t put in the effort
  • Did all the in-person labs in the 3 lab sections (definitely not enough time to understand everything for some of the longer labs)
  • Attended most lectures and while I understood things during lecture, had difficulty applying those concepts outside of lecture.
  • Spent a lot of time understanding concepts after the class became virtual.⁵
  • I don’t think I REALLY understand control after having taken the class. Like I understand the basic concepts to get by, but definitely want to revisit the material.
  • I believe it IS possible to learn control theory from this class as the resources all exist, but having the class virtualized made things much more difficult.

18.600 - Probability & Random Variables

• Not a math person so here goes nothing
• An introductory probability course
• Course moves at a slow pace and definitely manageable regardless of incoming math level.
• Starts with a couple weeks of “counting” and combinatorics (I think that’s what it’s called??)
• People who have done math competitions will probability find many of the topics familiar/easy
• Professor Jonathan Kelner is understandable and lectures are easy to follow
• Lectures aren’t necessary as reading through slides (and recitation notes which I only discovered after I finished the course) is enough to do the psets and exams.
• Personally didn’t find recitation that useful as everyone just did the practice problems by themselves.
• Has two quizzes and a final exam.
• First exam covered easier material (aka no continuous random variables)
• Second exam added continuous random variables as well as a few other minor concepts
• Final was like the second exam with a few more small concepts (though this might be because topics were omitted due to COVID-19)
• Psets problems are harder than exam problems
• Psets are physically handed in during lecture (for us it was on Friday). This turned into Gradescope once the class went virtual.
• Exams are generally similar to the practice exams with the same sort of questions (though sometimes they add twists to the questions that make them much harder… 👀 😢)
• Professor Jonathan Kelner is very flexible and understanding! Reach out to him if anything comes up!
• Definitely recommend this course BEFORE taking 6.046/18.410 as it teaches the skills you are expected to have for 6.046 and even exposes you to some of the concepts (Markov chains, hashing, randomized algorithms…)
• Again, this course moves slowly so taking it in tandem with 6.046 might not be as useful
• Low effort guide:
  • Don’t attend lecture
  • Don’t attend recitation
  • Read through lecture slides
  • Look through practice tests
  • Do the pset as normal
  • Take the quizzes and final
• My approach:
  • Attended most in person lectures (but only watched 4ish recorded ones)
  • Looked through lecture slides when I needed them after the class became virtual
  • Attended two-three recitations before I started skipping (oops…)
  • Did two-three practice exams for each quiz/final
  • Usually struggled on a question on the quiz (as it had a small twist)
  • Did the psets with a friend 😄 🙌

21G.110 Chinese IV (Streamlined)

• Yes, I already “knew” Chinese before taking this class
• No, the course wasn’t very hard for me
• No, I don’t know everything taught in the class.
• Yes, I did have to study for the exams. (Especially the dictation exams where we are expected to know how to write 100ish of the vocab characters).
• I took this class in hopes to maintain whatever Chinese ability I had and looked to maybe even improve it. (Also, because I couldn’t find anything else interesting enough to concentrate in).
• “Streamline” means that the course is designed for native speakers and has an emphasis on reading and writing (as opposed to the listening and speaking parts of a language)
• For Chinese, odd levels are only offered in the fall and even levels only offered in the Spring .
• I would recommend looking into the levels and talking with the teachers as soon as you have interest in taking one of these courses. If you are unlucky, you might have to choose between a course that is too easy or too hard for your skill level.
• In this class, everyone speaks in Chinese for the entire block.
• Classmates are diverse in the skill level and skill set they have. Some are great at speaking but don’t read/write as well while others are great at reading and writing but don’t speak as well.
• 高老師 tries to accommodate everyone and all skill levels!
• The class is taught in Simplified Chinese but 高老師 did provide me homework and exams in Traditional Chinese. She also added Traditional Chinese to the slides.
• You will inevitably have to read some Simplified Chinese (whether you like it or not).
• The Traditional Chinese material is all “font-converted” so there are often wrong characters. (I only pick up on a few of them, but I realized that they are everywhere after I showed my dad.)
• Having only taken this and Streamlined III (21G.109), this class is only a slight step up in difficulty.
• 21G.109 is mostly reading/writing spoken Chinese grammar while this course starts to focus on more formal Chinese grammar (language that might be found in a Chinese newspaper).
• Expectations aren’t difficult to meet. (If you attend class and complete the homeworks, you will do fine.)
• Required class three times per week.
• One single page worksheet due before every class. Doesn’t take more than 40 mins!
• Exams are formatted all the same and happen every twoish weeks.
• Has a final project. For us, we had to read a long article and give a presentation about it to the class.
• Low effort guide:
  • Do the homeworks
  • Attend class (can basically stay silent until 高老師 calls on you)
  • Look over vocab for the exams
  • Do the final project
  • Really not much you can cut out, but the class is extremely manageable!
• My approach:
  • Did homeworks the night before
  • Attended every class and sometimes asked questions
  • Did everything in Traditional Chinese. 高老師 was very helpful in this and helped me out every time the traditional version was missing.
  • Did the final project on a random article I chose.
  • Studied for exams by practicing dictation. (With a custom script that reads out characters in a random order. 😄)

And that’s it! Hopefully someone down the line finds my thoughts of these classes useful (or at least entertaining). I really did enjoy my classes this semester! If it were not for COVID-19 and the virtualization of classes, I would’ve learned a lot more too! All my professors were super accommodating, and tried their best to make the course just as good as it would be in person.

I know I still have 2 more years of college (and maybe more if I MENG), but I’m definitely not ready to leave MIT yet. There are so many things I still want to learn about and people I want to meet! Unfortunately, with the current situation, I predict that fall semester will mostly be online, and if there are “in person” aspects, they will be heavily restricted. I don’t quite know what I’ll do once MIT announces their plans. I’ve heard many other students thinking about taking a gap year/semester, but it is still too early for me. Regardless of what happens, I’ll definitely be learning new things, (in class or by myself), and hopefully I’ll be writing about them!

In the meantime, please stay safe and stay strong! ⭐