I guess I've never been amazing at beginning things, but I'll give it a try.
CSC165 is quite an interesting class thus far. Admittedly, though I want to be a Computer Scientist, I'm not the best with logic. Ergo, time spent in class and looking over notes is a bit frustrating.
I'll start with the fact that I've never really had experience with the symbols and the small differences in sentence structure. I come from America, where we have no experience with such things, yet I understand most of my friends have at least seen these symbols and definitions before. For example, it took me a while to understand how vacuous truths worked. After all, if we look at A => B, and A is false, shouldn't the statement be false? No, as when A is false, nothing can be concluded. Regardless of whether B is true or false, the statement must be true, or rather, vacuously true.
So yes, it's confusing at first. In class, I'm often left staring at the slides utterly frustrated. However, the first tutorial cleared up so much for me, and I honestly understand so much more now. I've also been researching the topics online and doing some practice problems to get used to the logic behind the problems. I've been looking up statements and drawing up venn diagrams as well as writing them down using the symbols we've learned and read about in the course notes.
Quantification may not be my strongest point, but I am learning. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to keep up, but I really am improving. I'm able to differentiate between a sentence and a statement now--the former being open and unspecified, the latter being quantified and can be evaluated--and read the symbols with a bit more ease. Hopefully I'm able to keep this up throughout the year.
For now, though, I hope this SLOG is satisfactory--if there's anything I can improve on or if there's anything I should talk about, please tell me! I'm open to any suggestions. Thanks!
Best Wishes!
Dominique
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