Learning journal Week 1- CST370

This first week was a solid refresher. I started by watching the video on Euclid's algorithm for GCD. It was insightful to compare it against the basic consecutive integer checking method because it proved that brute force is not always the best answer. Sometimes a simple mathematical insight saves more time than a faster computer ever could.

I also worked on Homework 1 this week. The assignment asked us to check for palindromes while ignoring symbols and case. I chose to create a new filtered string with only alphanumeric characters first. It was a good exercise, but it made me think back to the Algorithm Analysis Framework videos. Since I created a new string, I effectively used extra memory space. This connects directly to the space and time tradeoffs mentioned in the syllabus.

I also spent some time reviewing the Graph representations and Trees videos. I realized I need to be careful about choosing between adjacency matrices and lists depending on whether the graph is weighted or unweighted. It is good to get these structural basics down now before we get into the complex traversal algorithms later.