Scientific Computing [1/2]

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته

I never thought I’d be writing this post. Actually I still have my doubts :D. I just know now, It wasn’t CSys. I love coding more than this & debugging hardware wasn’t very fun (sorry simoz :D). Definitely not IS :D (no offense :D). May be CS was a choice, but guess what?

I enjoyed my year in SC J with all the ups & downs…I took the whole package & I’d take it once more if I had the choice J

So how did it go?

1^st you need to know that whatever you choose…whether it is CS, IS, CSys or SC…you’ll still be an FCISian & you’ll work wherever you want. The department does NOT define you. It’s you who define your own self. You learn, understand, solve, win, achieve, think or do whatever…not the department!

You can get the BEST of what you have just by keeping your positive attitude.

Back to SC, my dear department (a)

Visualization

Simulation

Finite Elements

High Performance Computing

Mathematical Programming

Those are the subjects for the 1^st term.

Let’s start with Visualization…It’s my favorite J

1^st I need to make a confession…This was one of the main subjects that attracted me to SC. During the 1^st couple of lectures I totally HATED it & I thought it was gonna be the worst subject ever! Then things turned out to be VERY different. Again it became my favorite J

Dr. Ashraf Saad is really different. I was told by a friend from the previous batch that he really loved us (my class) and that he treated us differently. I learned from him how to think outside the triangle I was fitting myself in. He always had some time for free discussion…things related to the subject, but not the exam ;).

When we studied his subject (I’ll tell you later about the “we” J) we always needed to be online. Youtube & Wikipedia were our best friends, along wiz some googling of course.

The exam was way different than all the previous exams…what do you expect? He loved our class :D :D

The subject itself wasn’t complicated; we just needed to read more in order to understand. Most of the study was reflected in real life. I guess that’s why it seemed attractive to me.

Those were some related posts:

• Color map editor
• Contouring
• My Visualization Package

Next comes the Simulation. This was common with CS.

The core of the subject was to simulate some real system. Example: Some customers in a supermarket, they come with a certain rate that is governed by a distribution, they are serviced in a certain time & we need to find out whether the system is efficient or not.

It was nice to know that almost any real system can be simulated & studied with computers.

The thing I hated about it was the amount of rules we had to memorize. I generally don't like to memorize rules & I don't study from the beginning of the year, so I don't practice a lot. Totally my fault J.

The third subject was HPC which stands for High Performance Computing. The very special thing about this subject was the exam. It was an open everything exam...yes EVERYTHING :D

Bring all what you can bring (notes, books, summaries, exams wiz solutions, laptops & even USB modems!)

It's one of the exams where you actually use your brain and think :D

Dr.Hossam may sometimes seem to be offensive, but he really wanted our own good. He wanted us to learn right & to get the most benefit out of the subject. 

This is one of the subjects that you'll enjoy...and never forget our BEST friend...Google ;)

Next will be the Finite Elements...well I got its goal very late...and this was the main reason why I didn't like it much. We studied the materials and how the bodies are affected by tension, pressure & heat.

It wasn't very much related to our field, but you can always try to find an application that you'd relate to all the year J. After all, we're having a +ve attitude :D, aren't we?

Like simulation we needed to know many rules...so u do the math.

Finally comes the Mathematical...It was one of the nice & light subjects.

Our midterm was a take-home exam & we delivered it via mail. (Interesting, huh :D?)

It's mostly about algorithms & problem solving.

Network Flow, Graph Coloring, Assignment Problem, Queuing System, Scheduling...Along with some old algorithms like Kruskal, Prim...

I totally enjoyed the Visualization, HPC & Mathematical. I liked the Simulation & I went over the Finite Elements.

The "we" I said about earlier was SC gals. We always studied together. We used to divide each subject upon us & met to study together. Sometimes we met offline at college while others were skype conference calls. We enjoyed it a lot & it was surely beneficial.

And this was my first term in SC J
I hope it will be somehow useful J


Scientific Computing [2/2]