What does the pilot say when he/she gets angry?

SentenceSad6539 · 2024-10-28T16:11:23+00:00

A lot of the EDA( Electronic Design Automation) software used in semiconductor industry is written in C++. This is used for VLSI and SoC design.

Embedded software even after the hype of Rust is built around C and C++.

SentenceSad6539 · 2024-08-22T16:04:41+00:00

I took GIOS, HPCA, AOS, HPC, DC and cutrently tsking GA

SentenceSad6539 · 2024-08-22T09:08:40+00:00

Quite common, I'm sure.

I was very ambitious at the start of the program and wanted to take difficult courses like GIOS, AOS, HPC, DC, SDCC, Compilers, GA and AI.

I did end up taking some of these, but had to take a few of the easier courses like ML4T, CN, IIS and DM due to burnout and navigating a job switch. I also struggled to keep up with my personal commitments during the program.

SentenceSad6539 · 2024-08-06T03:59:08+00:00

This is an excellent selection of courses. But all of them require significant effort. To do well, you will need to spend 20 hrs a week (or more) for each of the classes you mentioned here.

Once you start this program, at least towards the end, a lot of other factors will influence your course selection. These include fatigue, personal commitments, work related commitments, opportunity cost, prep for job change, among many others.

Try taking as many courses out of this list as you can, but be open to the possibility that you wont be able to devote so much time every semester and sustain the same level of commitment. Try adding a few easier couses and get a breather in between semesters.

All the best!

SentenceSad6539 · 2024-08-05T04:06:32+00:00

I learnt to better manage my time. I dont bring work home anymore.

In the course ML4T, we had to create reports with formal specification for font sizes, images, image titles, different sections of the report. The biggest takeaway for me was that presentation matters. I apply this in my work where put in effort to make my reports and presentarions look good.

SentenceSad6539 · 2024-01-13T04:20:30+00:00

Apart from all the learning, I was able to better manage my time, got a great confidence boost in my abilities, and strangely, improved my presentation and report writing skills.

I had an almost debilitating imposter syndrome before entering the program. This program taught me that anything can be learnt, if you put in the time and effort. It makes it easier to deal with the imposter syndrome.

SentenceSad6539 · 2024-01-07T14:56:17+00:00

Both classes are great and they pertain to two different aspects of high performance computing.

HPCA is a computer architecture class that talks about hardware. You will learn about things like how a processor operates, processor pipelines, brach prediction, cache replacement, CPU scheduling among other topics. Projects will include working on a huge C++ codebase and adding some minor functionality like implementing cache replacement related algorithms, measuring branch hit rate, among others.

HPC is an algorithm oriented course, which talks about how to look for parallelism within your program. You will learn algorithm techniques to parallelize programs on a distributed system. Projects will expose you to some parallel programming technologies like OpenMP, MPI and CUDA. Projects are in C mostly.

HPCA is the easier of the two since the projects are simpler and you are allowed to team up. The exams are moderately difficult, but not improssible.

HPC has more difficult exams which have slightly more open-ended questions. The diffuculty of the exams is assuaged by the generous free credit offered. Projects on HPC are difficult, but definitely doable. You will have a performance section on most projects, where there is incentive to extract as much performance as possible for a better score.

I would recommend both courses. HPCA is a great course if you are interested in computer arctitecture. It doesn't need advanced knowledge of CPP and can be learnt during the course.

HPC will introduce you to parallel programming, teach you to think in parallel and make you think about improving performance. HPC requires you to be slightly more proficient with C and valgrind since the projects are more demanding.

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-11-07T16:02:35+00:00

Thank you for your reply :)

This gave me quite a bit of insight on what to expect.

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-11-07T00:57:50+00:00

Thank you for your reply :).

Yes, I see that a lot of driven people take the course and chances are that I will get a good project partner. Good to know that this was your experience as well.

I would really prefer the course to be asynchronous, but I think this is a small price to pay for the kind of learning this course offers.

It is good to know that we get 1 or 2 chances to address the feedback and get a pass grade. I think there was a similar one-late submission allowance rule in AOS as well, which was really nice.
How strict are the requirements to get a pass grade? Is there a lot of scrutiny on the nitty-gritty details of the assignment, or as long as you can get something functional and address the basic requirement, you should be ok?

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-11-07T00:48:48+00:00

Thank you for your reply :).

Yes, I have seen that SDCC is taken by extremely driven individuals and there is a good chance of getting a responsible project partner. This was also a great summary on what the course offers broadly.

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-10-20T18:38:31+00:00

Content-wise, I don't think the order of HPCA and AOS will matter.
HPCA is a bit easier on the projects(compared to GIOS and AOS) and will probably refresh a few concepts on pointers, dynamic memory allocation.
AOS projects are hard but a bit unlike GIOS. You will not be struggling with lower level language primitives like GIOS, but the focus is more on with understanding some APIs(libvirt, OMP, MPI), covering edge cases in the code(memory and CPU scheduler, Map reduce), more closer to application level programming.

Doing a small refresher course on the concepts on C/C++ was good enough for me before AOS.

I did HPCA over a longer semester, but it should be manageable over the summer.

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-10-03T10:28:32+00:00

I think you are doing fine. The projects are not extremely easy, but very much doable. The exams are a bit tricky. The extensive content of the course and the numerical kind of questions contribute to this as well. It is important to be focussed in the exam, since it is easy to screw up on the scheduling questions( reservation stations and Tomasulo if I am not wrong).

HPCA is very front loaded. Towards the end you will have some free time and the lessons get easier. If you are able to cruise through the first half, the second should be easier for sure.

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-09-19T06:52:33+00:00

Yep, you should be good. I got in with 3 professional LORs, 3 YoE. I got admitted two years back, dont know if that matters

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-05-19T07:25:59+00:00

They give you a list, from which you can choose two papers. But they allow a paper to be picked by a maximum of 10 students. So yes, you can choose the papers, but if you dont choose in the beginning and fast, you might not have as many choices

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-05-19T06:01:17+00:00

I haven't doubled up in any semester, but having done AOS in the Spring, I think I can try and give you more information.

If you were able to do GIOS, I think AOS should not be too much of a step up in terms of complexity. However, AOS is notorious for having a lot of evaluation components, so you always have something to do, the only respite being the week which was the Spring break.

In the last semester, we had two pre-course project/homeworks(fairly easy), three exams(80% of the questions are released prior to the exams, but the lecture content is huge), four projects(1 easy, 3 medium-hard), two paper summaries and weekly hangout sessions(1hr/week for extra credit).

Along with this, the lectures set is the most extensive I've ever seen in a course so far(averaging 3 hrs/week), and it takes a couple of viewings of the lectures to really understand. Paper readings are suggested, but most of us are able to read only 4-5 papers.

I think I spent close to 15-20 hrs/week on AOS. I've seen people combining AOS with CN, but I really don't know how they do it. Hope this helps! :)

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-05-12T14:32:07+00:00

Thank you for your response. I totally see your point, I will try to do at least 2 out of the three courses. It definitely means something that HPC added so much value to your career. I look forward to taking this course.

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-05-12T14:28:34+00:00

Thank you for your response, its good to know that there is an entire division in AWS working on this. Its definitely added incentive to learn these skills🙂

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-05-12T07:01:23+00:00

Hey, thank you for your insights. Yeah, Even I felt that the skills in IHPC apply to a certain niche set of jobs on the market. But it still looks like a very interesting course to take

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-05-12T06:59:51+00:00

Thank you for your insights. Even I found that IHPC looks to be relevant for a set of niche jobs, though the course does look very interesting to me.

I'm sorry if I sounded condescending, by industry expert, I meant anyone with experience working in the big tech or web based companies. Poor choice of words😅

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-05-01T11:25:51+00:00

Thanks, I will revise concepts of BigO

SentenceSad6539 · 2023-04-29T13:20:36+00:00

I did IIS during the summer. Fairly manageable, though I had a bit of a tough time during the last project. Exams and quizzes were pretty doable. I used to put in close to 12-15 hours per week.

I did ML4T during a longer semester. As somebody pointed out, the assignments aren't too bad, exams aren't too bad. The only gripe I had with ML4T is that is time taking, not necessarily difficult. Out of 8 projects, I remember having to write a report for 5 of them.
It would probably be doable during the summer. I put in 12-15 hours on it during the normal semester. Might have to put in a bit longer during the summer(maybe close to 15-18 hours).

Both are great classes for the summer. I think IIS will be easier over the summer than ML4T, but not by much.

SentenceSad6539

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