(Part 2) Top products from r/ucla

You're an adult now, just cook. It can be tough cooking for just one person because but it's doable.

Learn some basic, cheap recipes and get comfortable eating leftovers.

Here's one for you:

Hamburger Gravy

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef (get the cheap stuff 75%/25%, you're a poor student)

1 1/2 cup white rice (uncooked)

1 family size can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, (low sodium is healthier but doesn't taste as good).

Cooking

I cook my rice in an Instant Pot, it's very fast, easy, and requires no supervision. Takes about 10-13 minutes depending on how much rice I'm making. I used to have an amazing Zojirushi Fuzzy Logic Rice Cooker that was the most amazing thing ever, but an ex-girlfriend stole it, so... Use the Instant Pot, it's cheaper and faster anyway.

Rice cookers and Instant Pots typically come with a cup for measuring rice which actually measures about 3/4 of a cup, and the inside of the cooking vessels have graduated measuring lines showing you how much liquid to add for the amount of dry rice you're cooking.

Put the two "cups" of rice (1.5 cups actual measure) into the Instant Pot and fill it with water to the "2" line. Close it up and make sure the pressure valve is closed (I've failed to properly cook my rice too often because I am dumb and don't check this). Once everything is set, just hit the "rice" button.

While the rice is cooking put the soup in a sauce pan along with a can full of milk, any milk works but I prefer whole milk myself. Put the sauce pan on the stove, medium low and stir frequently.

Now that the rice is cooking and the soup is warming put the ground beef in a skillet. I like a good [cast iron skillet] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006JSUA/) myself, they're cheap and indestructible, and because of the heat transfer properties of iron they tend to cook foods evenly without burning.

Cook the beef on medium high until it's browned, then drain all the water/grease out into a Tupperware container, do not pour grease down the drain! you can seriously make life hell for yourself and your neighbors if you do.

Add the beef to the soup, increase the heat to medium/medium-high and continue to stir frequently. You want the soup hot enough to bubble a bit, but not a full boil.

By now the rice should be just about done. Let the pressure out, take the lid off, wait a few seconds for the steam to abate then, with a large plastic spoon (you don't want to scratch the bottom of the Instant Pot), "fluff" the rice, just scoop and turn the rice in place, loosening it up, and letting more steam out.

To serve, scoop some rice on a plate, ladle some soup onto the rice, season with a touch of black pepper, and eat.

The rice is enough for 2-4 servings depending on your appetite, while the gravy is enough for maybe twice that. Typically it would be enough for two dinners for me, a 6'4", 225 pound man) and my girlfriend who is pretty petite.

Cost:

Beef: get the cheap stuff, depending where you go and the quality you get, this can be between $2-$5/lb. If your super poor, get a 10 pound tube of ground beef at Smart and Final for like $25, then break it up into 1 pound portions and freeze, otherwise it's about $5/pound most places. So let's say $5.

Rice: the cheapest food on Earth, and it's healthy too! You should probably plan on this being about $1/pound. Get a 10 or 25 pound bag and you'll be set for at least a quarter. Pro-tip: rice goes with literally everything. Add it to all of your meals for some good, clean carbs. Pair it with smaller portions of what you'd normally eat to get the same caloric intake but healthier and cheaper. Anyway the rice in this recipe has a marginal cost of maybe $0.15.

Soup: I think Ralph's usually has the family size can of Cream of Mushroom soup for $2-$3.

So, all in for one person, you could probably make at least 5-6 servings for $8, and it takes maybe 15 minutes to cook.

Store the rice and gravy separately in Tupperware in the fridge for up to 3-4 days. Mix together in a bowl and b reheat in the microwave for 90 seconds to 2 minutes for leftovers. I prefer to make fresh rice each day, but making one larger batch then reheating it works as well.

Alternatives

• You can swap the rice out for a baked potato or mashed potatoes if you're feeling fancy.
  
  
• I've tried it with shredded chicken breast and Cream of Chicken soup, but it takes a bit longer, is a bit more work, is a little more expensive, and I don't like it as much, so I basically never do it, but you do you.
  
  There you go, cheap, quick, not totally unhealthy home cooking.

You will want to jump on 115A, but have a back up class in case you need to drop and realize it isn't going to work. I dropped 115A twice before I could finally commit and feel mature enough to do well in it.

One thing that really helped me was taking Combinatorics, a field that is fascinating to me. There was *some* proof writing in the class, but it was pretty basic (similar to proofs in statistics). I enjoyed writing those proofs and taught me the entire purpose of doing it. I was then able to do 115A with little difficulty.

I also got the following book, which is excellent (I used a much older edition) How to Read and Do Proofs by Daniel Solow.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Proofs-Introduction-Mathematical/dp/1118164024/ref=pd_sbs_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1118164024&pd_rd_r=DRKKPQHM9KM7NF7XS7AJ&pd_rd_w=jAI7z&pd_rd_wg=TfejV&psc=1&refRID=DRKKPQHM9KM7NF7XS7AJ&dpID=51ljxm2YBEL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=detail

OH BOY, recursion... midterm flashbacks intensify

Tbh, I think the best way to learn recursion is just to try practice problems. I know that's kinda cliche but I think two or three good practice problems can help drill the concept of recursion more easily than a half hour explanation. I took CS 32 with Nachenberg, and he told me to check out this practice textbook from a prior professor for the course. They were by far the best practice I had for the midterms and final.

If you happen to have the UCLA edition of Friedberg's Linear Algebra (the one you'll likely use for 115A) already, there's a section at the end with an intro to proofs. This book is pretty popular at universities with a dedicated intro to proofs class, so it might be worth checking out; I read a bit of it before taking the upper divs. Hope that helps!

Thanks for the help! Did you get it on something like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/1464138265/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me= it says not guaranteed but it's in the title? I think it's better to ask someone to piggyback their code right? Thanks so much!

I recommend purchasing yourself a copy of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Transition-Advanced-Mathematics-Douglas-Smith/dp/0495562025

Chapter 0 is especially great, as it guides you through some of the basic grammar of mathematics. Most of the material is seen in some form or another in 115A(H), but I personally found this book to be a much better introduction to the upper division courses.

https://www.amazon.com/LaunchPad-Biology-Works-Twenty-Four-Access/dp/1319015999/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500968604&sr=8-1&keywords=launchpad+for+biology+how+life+works+%28twenty-four+month+access

hey man, im sorry but I guess the price went up now. When I bought it back in april it was only 10 bucks.... maybe it'll go down sometime soon but for now thats the best i can do

You can get it all off Amazon or if you want you can buy them from these guys.

https://www.amazon.com/Safety-Works-817691-Economical-Glasses/dp/B000BO6RWK/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1466305366&sr=8-10&keywords=safety+glasses

https://www.amazon.com/Student-Lab-Notebook-Spiral-duplicate/dp/1930882742/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466305354&sr=8-1&keywords=carbon+copy+lab+notebook

https://www.amazon.com/Bulwark-Flame-Resistant-Cotton-Collar/dp/B0078QUK6I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466305343&sr=8-1&keywords=bulwark+coat

I took CS 31 last quarter with Smallberg, so not sure how similar the class logistics are compared to Stahl, but the grading seems the same.

For us, the midterm was is divided into two parts, with midterm 1 being 35 points and midterm 2 being the other 65 points. I felt really sick while taking the first midterm, so I ended up not finishing and got a 10/35, while the class average was a 30. However, I did significantly better on the second midterm; I got a 52/65, which meant my total midterm score was a 62/100.
I still passed with a B, but my project average was proabbly about an 80ish (got a 90-100 on all of them except one which I got a 50ish on and turned one of them in super late so it went from a 95 to a 70. Also, I got an 88/100 on the final, which I thought to be much easier than the midterms.

So even if you do not do that well on the midterm, if you do okay on the projects and final, I think you should be able to pass with at least a C. I also heard that the averages for CS 31 are lower in the winter and spring because there are less CS majors, etc., so there’s that to take into account as well. The class averages for almost everything when I took it was a 90 something.

To add, I did have a little programming experience in a formal setting since I took two introductory Python courses at the university I transferred from. However, I got a B for the first course, which was supposedly easy with the professor I had (almost 50% of the class got A’s), and failed the second one horribly, so I wouldn’t say that I had much programming experience nor was I that good at it in the first place. In my opinion, I think that Python differs vastly from C++, so when I took Cs 31 it felt like I was starting to learn CS with no programming experience at all.

What helped me personally while taking CS 31 was reading the textbook, which might not be of help to you since most people didn’t bother looking at it, but reading through it and understanding the examples in there was useful to me. Also, I went to TA office hours a lot while working on my projects and that cut down my time wokring on them, and I think they are very helpful; I understood some of their explanations of concepts more than Smallberg’s. Other than that, I just paid attention to every lecture and discussion. Try going to discussion sections, too. My TA had us work in groups, too, which I thought was helpful.

Currently taking CS 32 and CS 35L right now and I think that getting through CS 31 was harder. So far, the material is not too difficult to understand and every assignment/midterm was pretty easy for me, although they do take a lot of time.

Edit: My bad, just checked my email for my grades, and I got a 98 on the final, not an 88. Also, I forgot to say that I also worked out every problem in this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Problems-Beginners-Moving-Beyond/dp/0998544000

It was suggested by Smallberg and was written by a professor who taught CS 31 at UCLA before. The problems in the book are similar to the code writing problems in the midterm/final.

"I dont want to do the CS major as it seems too bureaucratic and without direct application in the employment sector" uh what? CS has a very direct application, which is software engineering or algorithm development. Both are essential in industry. Really confused by what you mean by "too bureaucratic"

1. If you're looking to get employed in software look at Cracking the Coding Interview
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
   
   
2. Take CS111 as well, you will probably get asked operating system concepts during your interviews