This week I learned about merge sort and spent most of my time preparing for the midterm.

Merge sort is a divide and conquer algorithm that works by breaking an array into smaller pieces until each piece has one element, then merging them back together in sorted order. I learned that it runs in O(n log n) time, which makes it very efficient, but it also uses extra memory for merging.

While studying, I also reviewed asymptotic notation and graph traversal methods like DFS and BFS. Making a cheat sheet and reviewing earlier material helped reinforce concepts and move them from short term to long term understanding.

Overall on the midterm, I think I did okay, mainly because some of the questions were a bit more critical like the coin weighing and the boat crossing one.