User:Gkammer

Gabriel A. Kammer
Room	H304
Year	2022
Course	Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Hi, I'm Gabriel! I no longer live on hall; I moved to pika after my freshman year, but I'm still around sometimes.

Dislikes

• The phrases "what's up?" and "how's it going?"
  • Because really, aren't many things "up"? What do you want to know? All it accomplishes is the responder saying something vague like "nothing much".
  • And what is "it", which is going? Where is it going?
• Those times in winter when it's more than cold enough for it to snow for like a week straight, but there's never precipitation, until that one day when the temperature exceeds the freezing point of water and it suddenly pours and things get soggy, and later icy.
• When you're in a comfortable position and you need to grab something but it's exactly 4 centimeters away from your outstretched fingertips.
• Bagged tea.
  • Why?
    • Just why?
      • You're paying extra for the taste of paper in your tea.
• Boba
  • It tastes good but for some reason I feel sick after having it.
    • Big sad.

Likes

• The following Chipotle order:
  • Sofritas, brown rice, black beans, spicy sauce, lettuce, sour cream, cheese.
• Bouldering
  • I starting rock climbing January 2019
  • Walker is a great place
• Puzzles
  • Once upon a time I went to the IOL.
  • After that, I thought I wanted to be course 24.
  • I then took 24.900 and realized that I don't actually enjoy linguistics very much, I just like IOL puzzles that vaguely have some linguistics brewed into them.
• Board games
  • My board game preferences tend to be slightly more heavy-euro-y than the average pizen's.
  • Favorite games include:
    • Amun-Re (it was the first game I learned to play at the age of ~6, much sentimental value)
    • Agricola (the kind of game that is so good to strategize about but so frustrating to play because you can't have it all)
    • Castles of Burgundy (I only played this a couple times in Brazil but I remember it being good)
    • Power Grid (the game where you have to juggle between getting points and getting an advantage in future rounds)
    • Mystic Vale (a spin on the traditional deck building game, where you literally build up the cards themselves)
    • Race for the Galaxy (it's quick and each round is super different from the next)
    • Istanbul (only played once but it was interesting how the board itself can change and make different playing strategies more/less viable each time)
    • Terraforming Mars (the new trend, and honestly it lives up to its reputation)
    • Stone Age (never played a hard copy, but it was pretty fun online)
    • Civilization the Board Game (extremely long, can get tiring, but I appreciate how logical the gameplay is)
  • Sadly none of these board games are currently found on floorpi
• Cooking
  • A good way to spend time that would otherwise have gone toward psets.

Things That I Am Studying

AP Credit & ASE

18.01: Single Variable Calculus: AP Credit
18.02: Multivariable Calculus: The ASE was surprisingly straightforward, stuck to simple applications of the material for all but 2-3 problems.
8.01: Mechanics: AP Credit
8.02: Electricity & Magnetism: It is apparently possible to pass the ASE without knowing what a Poynting vector is, even though it was tested in two out of not-that-many questions. I have done so. I have also learned what a Poynting vector is since then.
6.0001: Introduction to Computer Programming: I learned python the day before the exam. The exam wasn't hard, just make sure your IDE actually has a built in help function.

Fall 2018

21G.101: Intro to Chinese: A lot more work than one might expect, but the class was great. Attendance is also 100% mandatory and it runs 4 days a week, so if you're not a morning person don't take it early morning.
24.900: Intro to Linguistics: It was fine I guess. I haven't taken other CI-H's to compare this one to, so I can't say whether it was worth taking or not.
18.404: Theory of Computation: Great problem sets, Sipser is a great lecturer as far as I can tell, but I can't comment on quality of lectures past the first month because I stopped going. He wrote the textbook though the lectures are basically a slightly easier-to-understand but more time-consuming alternative to reading the textbook.
6.004: Computation Structures: b l u e s p e c. They changed the curriculum the year I took it and there were lots of issues that hadn't been worked out yet, which made the class less enjoyable than it could have otherwise been.

IAP 2019

Chinese Calligraphy: Probably the most interesting/fun class I've taken. It was a great way to spend IAP doing something other than cramming for exams, writing papers, etc, but still getting HASS-A credit.

Spring 2019

6.046: Algorithms (There were 2 professors but I don't remember): Pretty good, I enjoy the material and it wasn't too hard.
6.009: Fundamentals of Programming (Unclear) : As someone said, "It's too hard if you need this class, and too easy if you don't". I came in knowing Python and I can confirm that it was way too easy for me, but also took a surprising amount of time grinding on the labs. I can also see why it would be very hard for someone without programming experience.
11.158: Behavior and Policy: Connections in Transportation (Zhao): Interesting class, I learned quite a bit. I probably shouldn't have taken it as a freshman though. I definitely felt like the young person who shouldn't be there at times.
14.01: Intro Micro (Unclear): Quite easy, not as big a time sink as some people told me. But maybe that's because I already took econ in high school.

Fall 2019

6.815: Computation Photography (Durand): A pretty good class, the problems sets tend to be quite easy and don't take much time.
6.035: Compilers (Rinard): I definitely didn't know enough programming coming into this class :(
7.012: Biology (Lander, I think?): I have never been to lecture.
18.03: Differential Equations (Unclear): I have never been to lecture.
CMS.608: Game Design (Tan): A very fun class, very chill. The prof is a former pizen!