CST 334 - Operating Systems (Week 8)

 The final week of Operating Systems course and the final exam is getting closer. As I was reviewing the Persistence from last week's material, I did not find any material that catches my interest. Therefore, I decided to sit back and look over the whole CST 334 course.

Previously, I studied in Computer Architecture and had to deal with Assembly Language. Even though my professor made it simple enough, it was hard to understand the cores and made them work correctly. When hearing that Operating Systems is based upon Computer Architecture as a prerequisite, I was worried that I could not handle it. Turn out I was partially right. The materials of CST 334 are hard, but professor has done an outstanding work to break down the course and feed the students.

First is the reading materials. There are a lot each week, and many of them left me confused all the time. Of course, any student in that situation would find it very frustrating, I did feel it too. However, when I finished reading the materials and moved to the assignments, they start making sense. Professor used the quiz, the discussion as the opportunity for us to use the reading materials, to ask questions to ourselves and to discover the answer. By doing so, we start thinking and understanding the knowledge, as well as discover many new features along with the process. That is such a great approach, especially for the online learning environment, where students tend to skip the learning materials and jump into those parts that give grade.

Second is the programming assignments, in which I am highly impressed. They still made me frustrated for being complicated and confused. However, whenever I was working on them, reading through the files to understand the structure and finding the hints, I discovered the complexity of the programming assignments. And every time, I could not help but nodding and appreciating how well my professor has made those assignments. From the student's part, the pre-build files to the test cases and auto-grading, everything were phenomenon. In addition, I discovered that if I understand the cores of that week's materials, the programming assignments are easier as they involve around those cores.

In conclusion, the CST 334 - Operating Systems course is still a hard subject to deal with. But with the efforts of professor and TA (and other staff), this class is totally manageable. And I am glad that, at week 8, while I am preparing for the final and writing this, I feel satisfied with the memories I had with CST 334.