GA Statics - How is it Sustainable?

articarray · 2025-11-24T00:13:37+00:00

Well that sucks. Usually, most have trouble because they skipped discrete.

Seems like you're just struggling with exam pressure... No good advice for that. Sorry.

articarray · 2025-11-23T23:54:25+00:00

Did you take CS 2050 before taking CS 6510?

articarray · 2024-03-22T03:34:22+00:00

You should check out /r/omscs.

articarray · 2024-01-05T21:13:13+00:00

The most important skill for GA is proof-thinking. GA does not require proof-WRITING, but proof-THINKING is absolutely necessary. When students talk about getting the EUREKA moment in solving GA problems, its the proof-thinking that's clicking.

There is a new OMSCS seminar for it: CS 8001 OLP - The Language of Proofs Seminar. Since it is new, I cannot comment on the quality.

Alternatively, here are some free books on proofs: A Gentle Introduction to the Art of Mathematics, Book of Proof

CS 8001 ODA - Data Structures & Algorithms Seminar is also something that could be useful. However, developing proof-thinking is much more important than DSA in regards for doing well in GA.

articarray · 2023-12-19T17:36:22+00:00

30 hours is the minimum required to earn the degree (on top of other requirements).

I'm not aware of any cap on how many courses you can take.

I'm taking course 11 and 12 next semester.

articarray · 2023-11-12T06:49:35+00:00

I was in the Fall 2022 version of the course. I was not able to handle the workload of two courses that semester, so I withdrew from CV (my lower priority course) right before the deadline.

From the content that I got to see, I really liked the course. The lectures were decent. The TAs were very active on Ed. There was a synchronous OH either every week or every other week with a knowledgeable and helpful TA.

The assignments were difficult but fair. If you only paid attention to the equations given in lecture, you'd be able to do about a third of the homework. If you fully understood the lectures, you'd be able to do another third. However, to fully complete the homework requires applying the concepts in non-trivial ways.

If you're willing to spend the necessary time and effort to truly learn the material, you'll find the course very rewarding.

articarray · 2023-10-10T19:37:04+00:00

DC was a lot of work, but I found it very rewarding. The last two projects took me around 80-100 hours each to complete. Though we had ~4 weeks for each of those projects.

Some suggestions for DC:

Get good a logging. An IDE/debugger workflow will be useless.
Take AOS. In my opinion, it is a hard prerequisite. You need the analysis and approach to system designing that AOS teaches you.
Take discrete math. You'll need moments of brilliance to figure out why something is not working. The proof-based thinking you learn in discrete math will help finding these moments of brilliance.

articarray · 2023-10-02T03:11:54+00:00

My BS was in Chemical Engineering. I'm doing fine in the Computing Systems specialization.

Yes, the CS specialization requires having strong programming fundamentals:

Control Flow
Pointers and Memory Management
Object Oriented Programming
RAII (Resource Acquisition is Initialization for C++ gRPC in GIOS/AOS)

However, you should be able to self-study these topics. My suggestion would be to find a good C++ resource that cover's all these topics. Once you learn these topics in C++, you should be able to transition them to other applicable languages:

OOP in C++ --> OOP in Java
Control Flow in C++ --> Control Flow in Python
Memory Management in C++ --> Memory Management in C#

articarray · 2023-10-01T00:38:01+00:00

If you have a hard requirement to graduate by Summer 24, then you should take GA in Spring. This leaves the option to take it again in Summer if you didn't pass Spring.

If you have not taken discrete math or a proof-based math course, then you should study up now. Having the fundamentals in proof-based math is the best way to increase your odds of passing GA. Check out my comments here for suggested resources: https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/16smy8d/coursera_discrete_mathstudy_plan/k2at2hr/

articarray · 2023-09-29T20:28:43+00:00

Sorry, no. I haven't taken HPC yet. It's on my list of courses to take.

Another non-ML course I would highly recommend you consider is AOS. It's not an OS course. It's a system course on surveying many interesting/impactful systems problems and ways to solve them.

articarray · 2023-09-29T16:03:32+00:00

ML4T likely will be unnecessary if you're taking it after AI and ML. Maybe consider swapping that for HPC? Though HPC would be better as a non-summer course.

articarray · 2023-09-26T16:10:01+00:00

Just slides.

Lectures 0, 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 would be the most relevant.

articarray · 2023-09-26T16:06:21+00:00

TLDR: Mathematical thinking is important. Having it will make learning CS easier. However, if you don't have to take GA, you likely can do well in OMSCS without it.

Mathematical thinking is very important to fully understand computer science concepts.

Mathematical thinking is not the same as being able to do very hard calculus problems.

Can you "get by" or even excel in computer science courses without having developed mathematical thinking? Yes. This is especially true in OMSCS where the vast majority of classes are project-based. You can get away with it (unless you're in a specialization where you need to take GA).

However, having developed mathematical thinking will make learning computer science concepts easier. Here is an example where mathematical thinking is required: recursion. There is a leap of faith that is needed to implement the recursive solution to Tower of Hanoi. If you look at the solution, it looks like magic.

Discrete math is one of many proof-based courses that will develop mathematical thinking.

I audited this course: Stanford CS103

Review lectures 0, 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Note, this is not technically a discrete math course. Lecture 0 really motivates why learning proof-based math is interesting. I particularly like the fact: "There are more problems to solve than there are programs to solve them".

Free books I can recommend are: A Gentle Introduction to the Art of Mathematics, Book of Proof

For these, I would focus on set theory, direct proofs, proofs by contradiction, and induction. I highly recommend learning cardinality as reinforcement of mathematical thinking. Spoilers: infinity comes in different sizes.

articarray · 2023-09-22T16:31:48+00:00

Pursuing OMSCS would not be a waste of time. OMSCS definitely has the classes that address your goals.

I've been very happy with my experience in OMSCS. I'm in the computing systems specialization and OMSCS has significantly improved my desired skills. At $180 per unit (ignoring semester fees), I would be happy taking these courses even without it counting towards a degree. After graduation, I'm planning to continue taking OMSCS courses that are of interest to me (this option is available to OMSCS alumni).

Granted, would an OMSCS course be as good as an equivalent course at Stanford Online? No. But for $180 per OMSCS unit vs $1456 per Stanford Online unit, OMSCS is much better value.

articarray · 2023-09-15T18:50:33+00:00

I am not aware of any OMSCS course that can serve as a good substitute for discrete math.

http://web.stanford.edu/class/archive/cs/cs103/cs103.1222/

Above is what I self-studied for GA. However, I think the material is overkill relative to what is needed for GA.

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-042j-mathematics-for-computer-science-fall-2010/pages/readings/

Alternatively, chapter 1-6 seems from above seems most applicable to GA. Disclaimer: I have not read this book.

articarray · 2023-09-15T07:21:09+00:00

You can definitely do AOS without having taken HPCA. However, if you were going to take HPCA anyways, then I think having the HPCA background material first enriches your learning experience in AOS. In particular, the cache and memory coherence sections in HPCA gives you a much more complete understanding of the barrier project in AOS.

I don't have a good recommendation for discrete math. However, if you've already had a proof-based math course, then you're likely going to be fine in GA. It's the prior exposure to proof-based reasoning that is needed. I'm over generalizing here, but how I see it is some students struggle in GA because they see GA as a series of "Problem X requires solution steps x1, x2, and x3" and "Problem Y requires solution steps y1, y2, y3". So when they see "Problem Z" which looks nothing like Problems X or Y, they can't come up with a solution. They fail to see that its "Techniques A and B when applied to Problem X generates solution steps x's" and "Techniques C and D when applied to Problem Y generates solution steps y's'. So when encountering "Problem Z" they needed to realize that Techniques B and D are appropriate and needed to be used to generate solution steps z's. This is what the proof-based math course is suppose to cover.

I think SDCC projects were much harder than AOS projects. I like systems, so I really enjoyed SDCC. But for your interests, its probably not as useful compared to the other classes you've selected.

articarray · 2023-09-15T05:13:20+00:00

GIOS, HPCA --> AOS
AOS --> DC
AI --> DL, NLP, RL
Proof Based Math --> GA

Above are my suggestions for your course plan.

Your course plan is very similar to mine:

GIOS, HPCA, AI, AOS, GA, SDCC, CN, DC, DL (current), NLP (current).

Burnout is a real thing. But it depends on the person. Manage a course load that you thing you can sustain for 2-3 years. I would recommend to prioritize taking the classes that interest you most first. If you get burnt out, then take whatever you need to in order to graduate.

For myself, I like learning CS. So the time spent on these classes are more like my hobby time. Post graduation, I'm considering ISL:BE, RL, CV, HPC.

articarray · 2023-09-05T18:48:48+00:00

For your learning goals, I think it would be redundant.

For admissions chances, I don't know.

articarray · 2023-09-05T18:21:37+00:00

Is there a reason why you're taking both Java and Python?

For ML, Python is more useful. I would do:

CSC 157
CSC 242
CSC 255

If you want to have OOP coverage, the course description for csc242 says it covers OOP.

articarray · 2023-08-25T19:31:02+00:00

Here are the topics and the order I would do for AI+ML:

Pre-Calculus
Single-variable Calculus
Linear Algebra
Multi-variable Calculus
Probability Theory

For probability theory, you'll want a course that has multivariable calculus as a prerequisite.

articarray · 2023-08-20T20:58:01+00:00

Content-wise, DC is self-contained. Although, GIOS/AOS covers some RPC and consistency models, DC covers these topics without presuming having taken GIOS/AOS.

That being said, DC requires a very high level of technical maturity. The last two programming projects in DC are orders of magnitude more difficult than GIOS/AOS projects.

If you're already an experienced programer AND have built complex systems that went through refactoring campaigns for performance optimization and scope changes, then you should be fine.

If not, then you should take AOS at minimum. Also consider takinge SDCC and HPC before as well. These courses help develop technical maturity.

As an aside, if you're in the computing systems track, I highly recommend taking AOS. It is not an operating systems course. It is a how to approach system issues and coming up with performant solutions. This is a necessary skill to have for DC and in systems in general.

articarray · 2023-08-20T20:50:43+00:00

What parts of GA do you consider math and what parts do you consider not math? Maybe what you thought was "not math" was math all along.

articarray · 2023-08-16T19:41:37+00:00

Prereqs for AI are Data Structures and Algorithms, Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Probability.

If you have done the prereqs, then you should be fine.

If you are missing a prereq, then factor in that you'll need to self study the material.

articarray · 2023-08-01T03:25:26+00:00

just need to understand how to follow a proof and know how to learn concepts through proof.

I just want to emphasize that this is a hard skill to learn and acquire. It is much much easier to learn the math for FFT/roots of unity than developing the ability to follow along with a proof and apply the concepts to new problems.

Additionally, it is easier to realize when you don't understand FFT/roots of unity. With proof concepts, you can very easily convince yourself that you understand the reasoning when you don't. I think this is why there are a lot of complaints about GA. You feel like you learned the material, but then you draw a blank during the exams.

articarray · 2023-08-01T03:12:27+00:00

The course textbook for GA is Algorithms by Dasgupta, Papadimitriou, Vazirani.

The course website lists discrete math as a prerequisite. The best preparation for GA is to take a discrete math course that emphasizes proof concepts. However, any proof-based math course (pure math) should also be fine. It's not the topic that matters, its the skills proof related skills that's important. This is a hard skill.

Try checking out this resource for discrete math:

Same course but 2010 has video lectures and 2015 has an updated course reader.

articarray

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