OMSCS: GIOS and High Performance Computing (Fall 2024)

Fall 2024 was my first semester in OMSCS, and I took on two courses: CS 6200 Graduate Introduction to Operating Systems (GIOS) and CSE 6220 Intro to High Performance Computing (IHPC). It was a heavy start, but the two courses complemented each other well — GIOS covered the abstractions and mechanisms of modern systems, while IHPC pushed into the algorithmic side of parallel computation. CS 6200 — Graduate Introduction to Operating Systems GIOS was the anchor course of the semester — a deep, practical dive into how operating systems work, from single-node mechanisms through to distributed systems. The course is structured around the lens of abstractions, mechanisms, and policies, which became a recurring mental model I still use when thinking about systems design.