The benefit of weekly problem sets

With the start of second year, I have noticed many changes in the format of the assignments and weekly work in my csc courses. Having had to submit weekly problem sets for mat137y1 in first year and with the memory of the countless hours poured into the questionably difficult proofs, I was dreading the idea of having to do the same for csc236, csc207 and the required computational statistics. However, I was suprised to see the difference that keeping ontop of the weekly exercises for csc236 seemed to make in my ability to complete the first assignment. Ultimately, I think the reason I find the problem sets this year more useful then the ones from my math courses last year is because the difficulty is enough that I need to look over the notes i've made in class, but not so difficult that I become hopelessly lost and am forced to create a large study group to solve them. I found that the most useful aspect of these weekly problem sets are their ability to get me to review the material covered in class since, in first year, I found it incredibly difficult to do as the due dates and test dates of all the courses I had seemed to fall in the same week and left me with little time outside of working on them. 

While the weekly assignments mean I have more work to do each week, it seems to lower the overall amount I need to revise before assignments and tests, since the concepts and materials have had a longer time to processed. Additionally I find it much easier to learn the concepts when the revision is done closer to when the exercise was done in class and because i'm not forced to recall a large number of distant concepts in one or two large chunks of time. Although my former first year self would be disgusted by the thought, this year i'm finding the problem sets this year to be extremely useful and effective tool towards learning the material, rather then a weekly chore.

Beginning csc236

For the fall semester, we have just begun csc236, the follow up course to csc165. Having done csc165 in the fall semester of the previous year, I'm finding that my induction skills are a bit rusty. However, having taken a large number of math courses in the meantime, I'm finding myself able to remember the techniques of induction quiet quickly. I'm finding the problem sets to be a good way of keeping myself up to date with the material and am trying to keep at least a few days ahead of each of my due dates for all of my courses. Thus far, it seems to greatly reduce the stress of university life.