My Journey in Computer Science and Math (Continuously Updating...)

Just as I wrote in About Me, I love the world of CS and math and I taught myself bits of knowledge in these fields and use them to pass the entrance exam of UTokyo and to be hired as a software engineer. This post is about what I did and what I will do in the future.

I got my bachelor’s degree in pharmacy but I decided to quit that in the 4th year of my undergraduate studies. Thus I have no extra time to persue anthor bacholer’s degree in computer science/math/software engineering. With generous seggestions from one of my good friends who is a Google software engineer now, I decided to learn open source computer science courses.

2018.3.1 ~ 2019.3.31

The entrance examination of computational biology department in UTokyo needs calculus, linear algebra, graph theory, data structures, algorithms, probability, statistics and stochastic processes. In order to pass the examination, I spent most of time on math courses.

Calculus

• Calculus courses in Nankai University
• Review it by this book

Linear Algebra

• MIT 18.06
• Practice problems from the little yellow book i
• Read some chapters from Linear Algebra Done Right

Differential Equations

• MIT 18.03

Probability

• Coursera courses (i, ii)
• First half of MIT 6.041
• Practice problems from the little yellow book ii and homeworks of Harvard STAT 110

Statistics

• Statistic courses from NCTU
• Practice problems from above course and the little yellow book ii

Stochastic Processes

• Poisson process from MIT 6.262
• Discrete Markov process from chapter 1 of Markov Chains

Graph Theory

• Graph theory chapter of this book
• Unit 1 & 2 of MIT 6.042J

Data Structures and Algorithms

• MIT 6.006
• Part of Algorithms

Some other introduction to cs courses and programming language (python, C++) courses are not listed here. These are what I learned before I went to UTokyo (~2019.3). Following part are what I learned from 2019.4.

2019.4.1 ~ 2021.5.14

Machine Learning

• Machine learning course from Prof. Hung-yi Lee
• Data mining course from Prof. Tsuda in UTokyo
• Part of watermelon book

Deep Learning

• Stanford CS231n
• Part of Deep Learning

More Algorithms

• Algorithm courses from Prof. Hirai in UTokyo.
• Chapter 1~6 of Algorithm Design.
• Solved over 1000 problems on various Online Judges such as LeetCode, AtCoder.

Computer System

• CMU 15-213 together with its labs on Github.

I also got benefits from some courses without a university backround, like ones from yxc, Gaurav Sen. Computational biology related books and courses are not listed here.

Here is my plan in the future.

2021.5.15 ~

Competitive Programming

• To solve all problems on Ant book.
  • Currently solved all problems before chapter 3.3. (2021.5.15)
• Solve another 1000 problems on various online judges
  • I wish to have a rating over 2000 on AtCoder, currently around 1400. (2021.5.15)
    • Because I usually play sports at Saturday night, I didn’t attend much competitions this year, but I never stop practicing. (2021.12.17)
• I wish to win a T-shirt from GCJ or FHC or TCO. (Made it, yay~)
  • For GCJ, I need to be qualified for GCJ R3, currently qualified for GCJ R2 (2021.5.15). But I didn’t make it this year :(. (2021.12.17)
  • For FHC, I need to be qualified for FHC R2 and solve at lease 1 problem and be ranked in top 2000. I made it, actually 1,278th out of 6,789 :). (2021.12.17)
  • For TCO, I missed the event. It was at the beginning of this year, so it’s ok. (2021.12.17)

Operating System

• MIT 6.S081
  • Github
• I decided to change course from MIT 6.S081 to Tsinghua OS course. Because I wanna learn Rust. Rust sounds fancier than C. (2021.12.17)

Computer Networking

• Stanford CS144
  • Start from 2021.5.12
  • Github, might be set to be private in the future if requested by course owners

Database

• CMU 15-445
  • Will start it if I finish two above courses I will study computer architecture before this on. (2021.12.17)

Computer Architecture

• ETHZ Digital Design and Computer Architecture
  • Wait my FPGA board to arrive (2021.5.15)

Compiler

• CS143

Design Patterns

• Haven’t decided where to study it (2021.5.15).
• Learned it from working with excellent colleagues. (2021.12.17)

I am also interested in other criteria such as distributed systems, but most of them need above courses as prerequite. I’ll think about it after I finish the above courses.

By the way, I believe all of the courses above can cover requirements of a bachelor’s degree in computer science engineering, so I call it “yy的补全计划” (YY’s completion plan). If you see this word in some other place, that should be me.

At the very beginning of this plan, I wished to finish it before 2022.9, after changing some contents of it and becoming a fulltime software engineer, I found that most of energy will be taken to do my job and I would like to spend much more time with my dear girlfriend. Thus pushing myself crucially is meaningless. I wanna enjoy my job, enjoy my life, enjoy these courses, and don’t want to be burnt out. My estimation on the date that I finish these courses is 2023.3, a traditional graduation season in Japan. Actually it’s lifetime study, just enjoy it~

頑張ります!