Study Tour Sharing - What do I get?

Study Tour UK 2007, I treat it as a 4 credit hours course which last for at least half a year. Why do I join it and what do I get from it? It's pretty simple to answer the former question. There is something that attracts me so that I join the tour to get it. So, the remaining question is - What do I get from it?

I get duties, I get works; I get experience, I get feeling; I get knowledge, I get exploration. By the way, these are not the most attractive thing to me. So, what is the one? This year, Time Magazine selects Chris Anderson as one of the hundred people who shape our world. He is selected because he makes a Big Idea - the Long Tail. Am I going to get the "Long Tail" in the study tour? Not at all, but something similar. The most attractive thing to me is the idea behind the researches being done by those Computer Scientists. Thus, I join the tour. I want to learn from those ideas.

Indeed, these ideas are the ways of thinking in order to tackle down different challenges. They are not the ideas similar to the "Long Tail", but they are valuable to me as a Computer Science undergraduate. Then, the next question is - What are they?

Let me give some example.

The first idea I learnt from Professor Bob Fisher. If I am going to do an analysis on a pool of data sets which share some similarities, how can I catch the data set with dissimilarity in a fast and efficient way? There are two approaches actually, either observes the changes of data in different sets or finds out how difference between sets of data. The former one is simple but inefficient. It takes account with all data in every set to figure out the difference. The later one was the nugget given by Prof. Fisher. It takes account with the similarity of sets and figure out how much difference between sets. This is a complicated one, but it is efficient.

Another idea I learnt from Professor Sethu Vijayakumar. There are two ways of teaching. Teaches the system to perform a specific task; and teaches the system to learn to perform specific task. The former one is to program the system while the later one is to program the system to learn. Prof. Vijayakumar showed me the capability of teaching a system to learn. This elegant way of teaching is complicated and challenging, but it is the best solution to teach. If I don't want to teach every time, I must teach how to learn.

All in all, what is the philosophy behind these ideas? What is the impression to me?

These ideas are new to me in terms of Computer Science, but not new in other areas. So, why bother to mention? The point is, how can I bring the ideas across different fields. Or, let's put it in this way, how can I links up different things together in order to generate a new combination? One of the methods to generate innovation is - break the boundary and bring across the idea. This is the Big Idea I get from the tour.

I like thinking and I enjoy thinking, although I am not able to links up different things all the time. Thanks to the study tour and the hosts, I know how to bring across things now. It's quite simple. When facing challenge, step backwards and observe the situation. Figure out all the possibilities discreetly and multi-dimensionally. Then, form the solution by joining back the appropriate ones.

Here is a final note as a reminder. When I was leaving London, I was attracted by an advertisement of in the Heathrow airport. "You cannot view from different angle. Because you are not thinking in that angle." Ads by HSBC.

An intermediate "review"? or it is a "meditation"...

I am writing the personal growth exercise...

so, the first thing to do ... pull out the notebook from the drawer and get back the background summary of Edinburgh.. (actually, looking for ILOs, plan, and activity).

When I pull the thing out from the pocket, i think of something...

I did many hardware for the tour... and I also did many software for the tour. I had already made a lot of STUFF!!! a big difference from the study tour to japan, which I didn't get this feeling...

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Folks, who still keep on reading this blog ... Can you find any stuff you make for this tour ^^?

Study Tour Sharing - What is Computer Science

"What is Computer Science?" This is a question that I bear in mind during the study tour. Here is a brief explanation that I learnt from the lecture - "Computer Science is not a kind of Natural Science that studies/discovers the nature. It studies the theoretical foundations of information and computation; and then, applies those researches/studies into our daily life." However, I think Computer Science is much more than this, and hence, one of my objectives is to "discover" a concise meaning to Computer Science for myself.

By the way, how did I achieve the goal? That's trivial and simple - "Ask and Listen"! By participating in the study tour, I earned opportunities to talk to research students, doctors, and even professors. I got direct interactions with these academic professionals. So, what did I got from them? Keep on reading!

The first thing I learnt was "What actually Computer Science is doing?" In order to apply those theories into our life, the simplest way of doing this is "Trial and Error". Professor Bob Fisher taught me an idea, "The nature of carrying a research is just simply try out some ways to achieve the goal and find out the most adaptive and compatible one." For short, "Try out and Find out" and then you make it! So, let me further elaborate on this.

When we get a problem in our daily life and we want to solve it by some mean of efficiency, then using computer is one of the approaches. After we decided the approach to solve the problem, we move onto the next step - find out all the methods that can solve the problem. These methods can be either theoretical or practical. Most likely we need more than one method to tackle down the problem. After that, we try to implement and connect those methods to solve the problem stage by stage. In each stage, we try out methods to see whether they are adaptable and compatible. We find out the most efficient one and use it for the next stage. When we get error in implementing or connecting, we step backward to previous stage and pick another method. All in all, by repeating the "Trial and Error"/"Try out and Find out" cycle, we made it!

The second thing I learnt was "What is the basic requirement of doing Computer Science?" I am not mentioning the academic result in Maths, Physics, etc., but the mental requirement for doing Computer Science. In fact, everyone can do Computer Science. Professor Sethu Vijayakumar taught me another idea, "If you do Computer Science, you must have the passion in doing it. That is the primary driver for doing Science!" By the way, how can we get the passion in doing Computer Science?

Indeed, we do not always have the passion in doing a particular thing at the beginning; but, we can grow up the passion gradually. First of all, we take the "Just Do It" approach. We don't consider whether we like to do the job or we get interest in doing it, but at least we don't hate it. This is the seed of growing up passion. Later on, we get more knowledge, experience, and feeling or even we find interest in doing it. Passion is budding. Afterwards, we would like to know more about it and even want to produce something belongs to it. We get passion!

So far, I talked a lot related to Computer Science. Perhaps, you might ask "Does Study Tour 2007 always talk about Computer Science?" Actually, this study tour did also give me an opportunity to explore the United Kingdom. I learnt some history of it, and I also know some culture of it. There are tones of it! I am not going to talk so much here. Go to the report and Check it out =D