Addendum

Now that the Blockkurs is over, here is a little addendum to the recent update:

Anwendungssysteme (1,7): The idea, as I understand it, was to open our eyes to the non-technical aspects of Informatik. We considered questions such as the following: What effects do new technologies (e.g. cars, e-mail, Facebook) have on society? What should we consider when developing technologies (e.g. privacy, usability)? How can human nature and human interactions affect the success of an endeavour? How can they lead to accidents (e.g. as in Chernobyl or the Therac-25 case)?

Neither the course nor the exam were (was?) as bad as I thought they would be. The discussions in the tutorials, in particular, were a welcome departure from the usual dry procedure. I suppose my main complaint is that the concepts covered in the PowerPoint slides didn't really call for thirteen two-hour lectures (well, one-and-a-half-hour lectures, technically). Fewer would have sufficed.

By the way, since I ended up getting a 1,0 for ALP V (and since there is no Nachklausur for Anwendungssysteme -- not that I would bother, even if there were) I won't be writing any Nachklausuren this time around! Glorious freedom!

I will, however, be taking a Japanese placement test at the beginning of April, so that I can (hopefully) finally take a proper Japanese course at the Freie Universität.