Week 63: CST370 - Design and Analysis of Algorithms

 WK04: Weekly Reflection

This week's module focused on merge sort and preparation for the midterm exam. Since there is only one lecture this week, most of my time is being spent reviewing past topics and practicing problems for the upcoming test.

The merge sort lecture helped me better understand the divide and conquer strategy. I learned that merge sort works by dividing a list into smaller parts, sorting those parts, and then merging them back together in order. This made recursion easier to understand because I could see how smaller problems combine to solve a larger problem.

One thing that stood out to me was the merging step. Splitting the list is important, but the algorithm depends on carefully combining the sorted parts. This showed me that divide and conquer is not just about breaking a problem apart, but also about having a clear method for putting the solution back together.

The rest of the week is focused on midterm review. I am going back over topics such as brute force, exhaustive search, DFS, BFS, time efficiency, and divide and conquer. Reviewing these topics together helps me see the connections between different algorithm strategies.

Overall, this week is mainly about strengthening my understanding before the midterm. My biggest takeaway is that merge sort is a useful example of divide and conquer, and the review time is helping me prepare for the exam more confidently.

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