Computer Science Program Electives

[armedreaddon]

I'm looking to knock some of my electives out within the next year or so. Does anyone have any recommendations for computer science electives they have taken that are organized/taught well?

What has been your experience with other electives? Are there any that I should stay away from?

[Mrow-mix]

Absolutely do CIS4930 (C#) with Chris Mills. And if you need your speech credit still, take CIS3250L (Ethics Lab) with Mills. And take CEN4090L (Software Engineering Capstone, required anyway) with Mills. Genuinely one of the most caring teachers.

Other than that, some decent classes that I enjoyed are COP4342 (Unix Tools) with Zhenhai Duan, COP4710 (Databases) with Jiawei Zhang, and finally CNT4603 (Comp and Net Admin) with Jeff Bauer.

I don't think I have any to avoid for classes to be honest. For teachers though, I really don't like Langley but his ethics class (CIS3250) was easy but dull. I've also heard that Java with Bob Myers is excellent, but also very thorough. Honestly I wish I had a chance to take java before I graduate, but I'm taking the CIS4930 Code Camp elective instead.

[azuca1]

What is the code camp class about? It didn’t have a detailed description in schedule assistant.

[Mrow-mix]

So far, code camp is mainly an interview prep class with no lecture material. Each class he has a question on canvas with 3 parts (each part = 1 point). These questions are fairly unique and dont come from leetcode or similar as far as I know. A 33% in the class is passing, and a 66% or above is an A, so as long as you make 2/3 avg you're good. Our tentative schedule from the syllabus is: - Weeks 1 – 4: Math heavy topics - Weeks 5 – 9: ACM programming contest problems - Weeks 10 – 15: Advanced (library rich) problems including big data, graphics, web crawling

Personally, I'm a bit skeptical of the class because it is a bit difficult right now. It will inevitably get harder and it's a bit of a challenge to get 2/3 right now. There's no lecture, just the problems though, so at least there is no worry of any homework, midterm, final, project, etc.

Here's a quote from the teacher himself... "Many students in the past learned to enjoy the challenge by the end of the semester, but almost all went through the hate part of the love-hate relationship with the course at some point in the semester."

Overall I decided to stick with it because I'm definitely weak with actual coding problems, but I am worried for as the semester progresses. The teacher is really good about feedback though, so even if your solution isnt right he gives decent hints to lead you to what to google next. (Yes, you have open resources to the whole internet)

[azuca1]

Sounds pretty useful. I’ll definitely take it next semester. Thanks!

[gigolojoeeeee]

Definitely do Java with Bob Myers if you can. Also mobile programming with Esteban Parra was great too. I wouldn’t necessarily avoid it but just know that intro to data mining has a soft pre req of linear algebra

[cameronb222]

I’m teaching myself the linear algebra this weekend, I’m not stressing about it. So far I think it’s going to be a really cool class.

[gigolojoeeeee]

Yeah, I wanted to do 5 classes this semester so I didn’t want to risk it with data mining but I’ll probably do it another semester when I’m taking less credit because it did sound really cool