cst 334: week 8

Over this semester, I learned about so much with regards to operating systems, architecture, and how software and hardware components interact with each other.

We learned a lot, but I was mainly excited about some concepts like virtualization and how OS's create the illusion that each program has full access to the hardware based on configuration and permission sets. Then we moved into processes, threads, and scheduling, all while learning how an OS runs multiple things at once and switches between them to keep everything smooth. I also learned how memory is managed through techniques like paging, segmentation, and virtual memory, which help keep programs separate and running safely.

The research project was eye opening because I never knew that there were dedicated papers that came out of conferences. I also was able to collaborate with my teammates on a pretty cool paper about data efficiency.

At the start of the class, I did not know much about how OS's worked beyond the basics and what feels like the bare minimum. Now I feel more confident reading and understanding how systems manage resources, though I still have open questions about how modern systems handle these concepts at scale. This is something I feel that I would be able to pick up as I'm working in a role that requires me to deep dive with this. I also want to keep exploring concurrency, especially how it is handled in real world applications. Overall, I would say that this class gave me a solid foundation to build on.