Spring 2025 Semester Review

I just got back from my fourth semester at CMU and honestly had a great semester. Here are the reviews of the classes I took.

10-701 Introduction to Machine Learning (PhD)

This might be the lowest quality classes I've taken so far. I signed up for this class so that I would maybe learn something about machine learning or statistics, but I probably would've gained the same knowledge by scrolling through Wikipedia for a few hours.

The slides that came with the lectures were mostly useless as well. Bowen said the slides were "pointers to information" and I can't help but agree.

15-451 Algorithm Design and Analysis

Definitely one of the best classes I've taken at CMU! All the content was at least slightly interesting and the topics were taught with a very agreeable amount of rigor. The final was pretty rough but I'm not even too upset about that.

21-849 Algebraic Geometry

Calm and laid back course. The only grades were the two take-home exams and the final project. Definitely learned a good amount and really enjoyed the project because it gave everyone some freedom to explore topics that interested them and share our learnings with our friends. Super happy that CMU is getting a little more algebra content because it was definitely lacking previously.