sLog Week 4: Obsessive Nature & Collaboration

     This week's main goal pertaining to this course was to successfully complete the first assignment due at the end of the week. At first glance, it didn't seem too time consuming...until I actually started doing it. Something I've started noticing about myself with this course is that I can't stand not completing a problem (or a set of problems). What ends up happening is that I'll work for as long as I can on the problem, but if I don't get the answer before I have to move on to another class or another assignment, I won't be able to get it out of my mind. In every second I can spare I'll find myself thinking about a different way to approach the problem or a possible solution. I have quite a lengthy commute to U of T that approaches 2 hours on most days, and more often than not I'll be working on any sort of 165 problem I can find or reading course notes. I'm worried it's becoming something of an obsession (if that's even possible with a course). Nonetheless, it helps me keep up with my notes and tutorials, so I'd rather be obsessed than lazy.

     The first assignment allowed us to work in groups of up to 3 students, which actually turned out to be my first group project in university so far. For the sake of minimizing our time together (we don't hate each other, I swear), we decided to do the entirety of the assignment individually and then come together and compare/discuss our answers. This proved to be a really good way of completing the assignment as we all got to understand the problem individually and then get feedback from each other on whether or not we were approaching it in the right way. We struggled the most with translating English to symbols with #1a, as well as drawing Venn Diagrams and differentiating between the different meanings of symbolic statements with #4b (who didn't struggle with #4?). With a lot of really intelligent discussion and brainstorming we eventually came to a consensus. I learned a lot from my group members about problem solving and communicating my thinking, and I hope they were able to take something away as well. Overall, we probably spent close to 4 hours working together, but it was definitely worth it and we all worked pretty well together.

Thanks for reading! See you next week.