Fall '22 Term

Hello again. Well, the Fall 2022 term at OSU is over and it was my busiest yet. This time around my CS classes consisted of Introduction to Security, Software Engineering II, and Operating Systems. Operating Systems, in particular, proved to be a very difficult class. Unfortunately some of the material was very outdated or even inaccurate which only added to the stress of exploring new topics. However, it’s my understanding that the class is also being redesigned and I am hopeful that future students will find it more rewarding. In any case, it gave me an opportunity to greatly expand my knowledge of the C programming language and explore the inner workings of Unix-like systems.

Introduction to Security was the elective I chose for this term and it was quite a lot of fun. I really enjoyed delving into topics like cybersecurity, cryptography, and access control. Moreover, the projects had a very “DIY” feel to them which awakened my inner researcher and left me eager to learn more. Our final project was to write a report on the vulnerabilities in the Damn Vulnerable Web Application, which I may convert into a blog post at some point.

Software Engineering II was all about verification during the development process with a heavy emphasis on different types of unit testing. Some examples of the types of unit testing we explored include black box testing, white box testing, and test driven development. The class culminated in a group project in which we employed Continuous Integration and Mandatory Code Reviews to work on a shared git repository.

As I begin an eagerly anticipated winter break I’m making plans to attempt Advent of Code. This will be my first year participating, and from the date of this post you might notice I’m starting rather late (I took my last final yesterday, Dec 10). For better or worse, I’ve also decided to write my solutions in C, although I may rewrite some in Rust as well just for the practice. Naturally I’m also looking forward to some down time so for this first year I’m going to keep things casual and just try to have fun. Regardless of whether you celebrate a holiday this season I hope you have a wonderful time as we transition to winter, and I’ll see you next year!

Photo Mostafa Meraji, CC BY-SA 4.0