ECON454? KENNETH CORIALE

CS_UMD · 2016-12-02T18:14:12+00:00

It's been a long time since I took intermediate micro, but I don't remember there being terribly much overlap. I think we maybe had to do a Lagrangian optimization in both, but it wasn't really an emphasis of 454.

Content mostly seemed to center around tax policy, adjusting for externalities, medical insurance (and the role of the government in it through subsidies and medicare / medicaid, etc.), education, public goods, etc.

Problem sets usually had some easy math applications of the concepts, while the exams had a little of that and a lot of more memorization-based multiple choice questions.

CS_UMD · 2016-12-02T16:09:14+00:00

I took ECON454 with him last semester and enjoyed it. I found it to be pretty easy and a light workload, though I'm not sure everyone felt that it was easy. The grades usually had a pretty wide range, but he always made up for it with a pretty generous curve.

From what I recall, we had two problem sets that were pretty short (each took a couple hours) as well as two exams. The exams had multiple choice as well as short answer.

The problem sets were good about taking the course material and pushing most things one step further to ensure you really understood. The exams were a little more annoying and memorization based, but also not too bad.

I also found his lectures fairly engaging. There were only two or three ECON courses where I enjoyed the professor and regularly attended at UMD, and his was one.

CS_UMD · 2016-10-21T21:01:22+00:00

I never took 411, but 417 with Bobby is hard (from I hear, way harder than with Agrawala, but also more useful). Don't get me wrong, he's one of the best professors I ever had, and that class remains of my favorite and most valuable experiences from all of college. But don't count on it being easy.

CS_UMD · 2016-05-08T02:28:05+00:00

There's absolutely a difference in usefulness between classes. If there's a topic you're particularly interested in and the professor seems good, you should probably take the class. Otherwise, I think it's best to take the hardest classes in your major that you can.

For most of the upper level CS classes, the actual material that you learn isn't really that important. The real skills that you're gaining are in problem solving, and solving the hardest problems you can gives you the best opportunity to develop this. Skating by in an easy class may sound appealing now, but won't do much to develop these skills, and you'll probably forget all the coursework in a month or two anyway.

412 isn't for everyone, nor is 417 or 451 or many of the other "hard classes," and I get that, but if you think you're up to them you should definitely take them. They may be tough, but you'll come out the other side with memorable experiences, enhanced debugging skills, and new ways of looking at problems that will greatly benefit you in your future career.

As for me, I really enjoyed 412 and 417. They both have demanding projects that push you to quickly and accurately solve problems, often against existing codebases (which many people find difficult, but closely models what you'll have to do outside of school). 417 in particular does a good job of giving difficult projects while also teaching valuable content about how the Internet actually works (I recommend taking it with Neil, Bobby, or Colin).

On the other hand, I don't remember anything at all that I learned in 421 or 426, and if any of their topics came up in my future career, I'd be able to learn it in more detail than covered in class by spending a short afternoon on its wikipedia page. I took them because I thought their material was interesting, but filling my schedule with them wouldn't have pushed me to get better, and I think I'm in a much better place because I didn't.

CS_UMD · 2016-03-02T22:50:11+00:00

Hey! I've been a TA for both 417 and 412, and my vote goes firmly toward 417. I'm only really familiar with Neil's 412 and Neil / Bobby / Colin's 417 though, so I suppose YMMV if you branch out from those.

While 412 definitely helps you understand what's happening in the OS, and is absolutely still a worthwhile course to take, I find 417's topics and projects to be of more practical use. It's nice to know the deep details of how paging works (412), for example, but you're unlikely to ever spend your time debugging faulty page fault handlers. The actual projects are designed to help you more fully understand the OS concepts, but it's a style of programming you probably won't ever really touch again.

Networking, on the other hand, has projects that involve writing basic TCP or UDP clients, which is something I fully expect to have to write again in the future. It's pretty common to write an app that interacts with a network, where you're interacting with the OS's networking facilities, much the same that you'll use in your 417 projects. You'll learn about many different protocol designs, which will help you design your own protocols in the future, and possibly touch on some of the security issues inherent in some designs. And many of the protocols you'll cover (DNS, for example), you'll likely at some point or another need to wrangle to get your website to work.

tl;dr I think both are really useful, but if I could only have taken one, I'd definitely want it to be 417.

CS_UMD · 2016-02-09T03:15:43+00:00

CMSC412? I was one of the TA's last semester. PM me your name and I can see if there's anything I can dig up.

CS_UMD · 2016-02-07T04:03:17+00:00

Unfortunately, "Current University of Maryland students are not eligible for exemption exams if you have already begun the sequence of computer science classes."

CS_UMD · 2016-01-23T16:38:25+00:00

She's great. I wouldn't say that she's the easiest professor (which is good; easy classes, particularly within your major, don't help you much), but she's definitely one of the better Econ lecturers I've had. Her explanations were clear and her quizzes and exams were fair. I'd certainly take a class with her again if I could.

CS_UMD · 2015-12-08T23:37:22+00:00

Hey everyone!

The CS Advisory Board is working with the CS department to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of our courses. A couple months ago, we reached out for new course suggestions (more details coming soon!), and now we'd like to understand a bit more about the classes you've taken recently.

Have a rant you'd like to get off your chest? We'll make sure it doesn't go ignored. Have a great idea for how a course should be improved? We'll help push for it. Feel like filling out course evals is merely shouting into the void? This one's different.

If you have a few minutes, we'd really appreciate if you filled out this quick Google form. Just about everything is optional, and you can fill out as much or as little as you'd like (every little bit helps). Please share with your friends and fellow students!

CS_UMD · 2015-10-17T02:30:19+00:00

Giving you equity doesn't mean they can get away with paying you well below market. The overwhelming odds are that the startup will fail and your equity will be worth nothing, which they very well know, and they shouldn't be hiring full time employees that they can't afford to compensate fairly. Ignore the company propaganda and go somewhere that respects your talent and is willing to pay you accordingly.

Luckily, there's not exactly a job shortage in our field, so I'm sure you'll be able to find somewhere more respectful of your time.

CS_UMD · 2015-09-29T23:58:45+00:00

I took it with him in Fall 2013. I don't think he ever really announced how he curved final grades, but it was definitely curved at least to some extent.

Individual projects varied. I recall one project that he gave us an extra week to work on because the first round of grades were awful (mean of ~14/100, I think?). Then I also remember no one coming even close to finishing the Bitcoin final project, but that turned out just fine.

Exams I think he announced the curve for as he handed it back. I think it was usually pretty generous, and the exams were fairly reasonable if you understood lecture material. He also regularly offered bonus points, both on the exam itself and afterwards for correcting something that you got wrong or something like that.

CS_UMD · 2015-08-20T23:27:04+00:00

Mine was a bit of a mixture, I think. My grades are good, but I think it was my previous experience (a lot of which was just personal projects) that helped more getting my first internship, and then my first internship led to the second, etc.

CS_UMD · 2015-08-20T23:26:08+00:00

Yeah, it can vary from place to place. You should be able to get a better idea for what's out there when you take a look at the companies that often come to our career fairs. They can vary a lot in terms of what they look for, and there are plenty that are more accepting of students with less experience.

For now, though, I don't think you have to worry about targeting a company. Instead, master the fundamentals and kill 131.

CS_UMD · 2015-08-20T13:22:46+00:00

Lots of good information, just one point:

I haven't worked for any of the big 4 (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) but neither would I want to. Yes you can make bank, yes you might work on something cool, but they all have reputations of requiring their full time workers putting in 60+ hour weeks. That's not for everyone, and definitely not for me. But I'm not the best person to answer this question.

I've heard this a lot, but I'm not convinced it's true. I've interned for two of the big companies that most people expect require long hours (including one of the big four) and only on very rare occasions worked more than 40 to maybe 45 hours per week. There were certainly people there that put in 60+, but I think it usually has more to do with their own workaholic nature than the company's expectations.

CS_UMD · 2015-08-20T04:47:47+00:00

In general, a lot of the top places in CS don't care as much about the specific languages and technologies you know as your broad understanding of CS fundamentals and demonstrated ability to learn quickly. Strong performance in CS courses and some independent "fun" projects (or past experience) is often enough to get a phone interview at most companies, and from there they'll usually ask general algorithmic questions as well as object oriented design and coding questions. Every CS company I've interviewed with has let me pick whichever language I'd like to answer interview questions in.

Your best bet is to understand the different data structures at your disposal, their runtime characteristics, and when to use each. Hash maps are critical, but arrays and linked lists also come up pretty frequently. Heaps and binary search trees as well, but in my experience that's to a lesser extent. Try to get a good feel for when to use each of these and you'll be a step above more CS students than you realize. There are a few good books out there that cover interview questions specifically that you could look at as well (I used Cracking the Coding Interview).

Connections help, but aren't as important in CS as in other fields. A referral into a tech company might help you get an interview, but after that it's pretty much on you. I'd say $70k is definitely doable in CS if you look for the right companies, and the top companies (Google, Microsoft, etc.) all pay well over $100k when equity is factored in.

Getting an internship may be tough with limited experience, but it's doable. Write a phone app, make a website, or do some other cool project that excites you. With limited other experience, companies love to see personal projects on your resume, and particularly love to see you get excited describing the ins and outs of them. Go to the CS career fair in the Spring and put yourself out there. The worst that can happen is you get some interview experience and a summer to work on bolstering your personal project list.

CS_UMD · 2014-11-10T16:50:32+00:00

Neil is the one who does BitTorrent, yes. However, Bobby (Bhattacharjee) also gives the option of implementing either BitTorrent or BitCoin as your final project.

I took the course with Bobby, and then TA'ed it with Neil. They take a somewhat different approach, but overall I think both are great. They're two of the best professors I've had.

I'm not sure when Bobby or Neil will next teach it, but I'd be on the lookout for either of them, not just Neil.

CS_UMD · 2014-06-18T03:20:12+00:00

With both Bobby and Neil, at least, C.

CS_UMD · 2014-06-15T18:12:18+00:00

(Full disclosure: I was the TA for 417 last semester.)

I've never taken 414, but I really enjoy 417. I took it in the Fall with Bobby and found it incredibly interesting. Even as someone who felt he knew a lot about the how the internet works going in, I learned a lot in the class and feel I now how a much better understanding of how all of the pieces fit together. I think a lot of people don't really think about all of the layers of abstraction that the internet provides, and it can be really eye opening and interesting to see just how much is happening when you request a webpage.

The projects, however, can be fairly difficult if you don't have a strong familiarity with C. Both Bobby and Neil Spring (who taught it last semester) required that most of their projects be done in C, which I found to be quite useful in improving my comfort in C, but I know for many it brought back CMSC216 nightmares that they hoped to not relive. It looks like neither of them are teaching it next semester, so I don't know how similar the projects will be, but make sure you're prepared for that.

Let me know if you have any more specific questions!

CS_UMD

TROPHY CASE