27/12/12 Matlab workshop

Decided in a wimp yesterday to join this Matlab workshop that is organized by IEEE of MMU. I saw this last week, but was clever enough to ignore it. I don't know why I went to see it again and then decide to join in. It cost me RM50 for this 5 hours workshop.
The workshop promises to cover:

• Introduction to MATLAB 
• Matrix Operations 
• Graphical User Interface 
• Image Processing 
• Simulink *bluff me, don't have this*
• Miscellaneous Functions *???*

By far, the introduction to MATLAB, I can actually learn it online in my own pace. I went to google matlab and then discovered www.mathworks.com. Clicked some tutorials in the academia section. I learned a lot in just 30 mins by myself. And I find it easier to understand from the online site better than in the workshop, as the website uses interactive video so it's more interesting and the explanation are way better. And they use perfect English, not in Malaysian slang/grammar, so it's much more easier to digest and understand.

First of all, the computer sucks. With only 1GB of RAM, it's super slow. MMU should upgrade the old computers plus there's only a few labs which have Matlab in them. Plus the Matlab version is not even the new one. How disappointing!

There's two lecturers who came to teach. The first one teaches intro, matrix, and the GUI. Honestly, I didn't really paid attention to him because his powerpoint slides did all the necessary explanations. The second one teaches image processing. The first one is okay but the second one is really bad at explaining. And he is suppose to be my Digital Signal Processing lecturer but then I went to another section instead of his. He skipped most of the explaining, maybe it's due to the time constraint, but this doesn't help the students to better understand at all. So, basically, they just give some example coding and then we have to teach ourselves what those coding does by observing the output and listening to the little information given from the lecturer. I guess this is how university level students learn things. We can't be spoon-fed anymore, have to find out the answer ourselves. But it's okay, Mr. Google helps a lot. 

Dinner was at 9pm, they provided us some Burger King's burger. IMHO, the portion is too small, even for me. It's not really that fulling at all plus the timing of dinner time was too late. I would be starving if I didn't went for teatime with Alex. 

In the end, I think I wasted some of my money and time in there. But maybe I wouldn't have learn anything if I didn't went to that workshop. Maybe I'm just buying a push that I needed to make me learn something new. 

I think I'm not going to participate in these anymore if I knew I can learn this by myself with Prof. Internet. 

I'm beat. I'm going to sleep now. Goodnight.