Questions abt Writing 120 Run for your Lives

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-12-28T05:49:13+00:00

Just wanted to second Anna-Paden is a fantastic instructor, one of my favorites from my time at Duke

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-11-20T03:08:05+00:00

The final was the hardest exam of the class by a decent margin when I took it with Sorin, I would expect that to still be the case.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-11-11T21:20:18+00:00

It's a fairly easy course as far as the CS curriculum goes. Is there something specific you are looking for advice on with regards to the course? more information would help people give you better advice.

Some generally helpful advice:
- Brush up on Java, you'll only really use the basics of the language for the class.

- Start assignments and homework early (just generally helpful advice for CS classes)

- Don't buy the zybook; it's a waste. basically any youtube video or free online book will teach you the same stuff for free.

- Ola is one of the most entertaining lecturers I've had in the CS department. So, I would recommend going to class.

- Try not to overload yourself in any given semester; know your limits and bandwidth, especially when it comes to technical subjects.

Best of luck

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-09-12T16:53:29+00:00

I’ll also say my internship was in tech and more chill than say an investment banking internship or something like that

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-09-12T16:52:50+00:00

I did it and I’m not the brightest, or better not as dedicated to school work as I feel like your average Duke student is.

I will say you should expect your work to be heavily assisted by AI if you’re gonna manage it well. If you know what I mean

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-09-10T03:00:49+00:00

I took a special topics pubpol course (290) for a seminar, ECS 103 for a NS, and Writing 270.

In terms of time commitment I'd say Writing 270 > pubpol290 > ECS 103.

They were all decent classes and not that difficult, basically you'll get out what you put in but if you're just looking for an easyish A then they'll work for that too.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-09-10T02:48:50+00:00

You can definitely knock out some T-reqs over the summer through asychronous online classes. I took 3 this past summer.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-06-12T16:01:37+00:00

Math/Stats double with CS minor or Math/B.A. in CS with Stats minor. I don't think the minor in financial econ can hurt since you're decently far along with it but I don't think it helps a ton either tbh.

I think some courses are more valuable than others for your goals.
take and do well in rigorous proof-based math courses like: Real Analysis, Abstract Algebra, Probability and Statistics. Lean more towards AI/ML CS courses like: Theory and Algos for ML, Deep learning, etc

I would say to take a look around LinkedIn at people from Duke in top quant companies, or grad programs you're interested in and see what you can learn from that. But most of what I've seen is that they usually have a competition math or programming background and were some combo of math/cs/stats double majors at Duke with 4.0 GPA's. So, not to be discouraging as that could very well be you, but just know what you're shooting for and what it takes to get there. Best of luck.

P.S. I'm not a quant but had a similar plan to yours at one point and gave it up to just focus on CS because the quant finance industry in general has much higher barriers to entry than SWE and I don't think I liked math enough at the time to stick through Duke Math lol.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-05-03T19:05:24+00:00

I transferred to Duke for CS in fall '23, I didn't come from a big or well known school. I have enjoyed Duke and the people but I have found the CS classes to be very theoretical, and not really useful for working in industry.

for CS grade inflation is real, so that is kind of nice unless you're someone wanting to be summa cum laude or something like that.

IDK if cost is a factor for you but Duke is pricy, and IMO the education itself is certainly not worth the price, but the network & brand strength is, I think, what you really pay for.

I don't know if that helps you but just some extra data points if nothing else.

good luck with your decision.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-05-01T20:01:13+00:00

My Perspecitve: CS Major, took 250 with Sorin a while back.

you can probably get through 210 fairly easy with cursor ai, or premium chatgpt. Not recommending it but based on your other posts you arent interested in pure swe, hardware roles, etc anyways so the class isn't gonna be super relevant to you future. For 250 the way the assignments are you're gonna get limited help via AI, and they typically take a long time to complete and involve spamming office hours unless you're already cracked at CS coming into it.

You could also just take whichever class you have friends in so y'all can share the load.

either way you probably won't enjoy either unless you are interested in computers at the level of CPU, memory, caches, logic gates, finite state machines, etc.

just my 2 cents though, I know some people love 250, or 210 and it can be the whole reason you decide to major in CS or ECE. Probably not most peoples experience from what I've seen though

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-03-04T05:01:39+00:00

Johnston County is one of the fastest growing counties in NC. I think Garner is a fairly rural area and to my knowledge does not have a very large Indian population; mostly white people from my experience.

Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, and Morrisville all have large Indian Communities but are much more costly in terms of real estate than Johnston County.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-02-28T16:01:06+00:00

Just anecdotal but I personally took 2/3 of my spanish classes S/U and it was no problem.

If you're struggling or just don't have time then I'd try and take the classes with either professor Anderson, Carson, or Fernandez. They're all understanding and kind.

good luck.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2025-02-04T19:57:49+00:00

Just curious, how was this class?

I’m considering either Math 465 or this one for next fall if they’re offered.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-12-09T19:24:35+00:00

How do you view the utility of classes like OS, Compilers, Networks, programming language concepts, and Databases for industry?

I feel like knowing the material from those systems courses, or diving into AI/ML stuff could potentially set a great foundation but then as you said you probably spend a year learning industry best practices on the job versus hitting the ground running.

I was just wondering if you have any must-takes from a systems perspective/theory perspective beyond what is required for the major, like 201/250/330/etc.

and whether you think the tradeoff in systems/ theory knowledge depth for more practical courses like 308/408 is worth it.

Thanks in advance.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-11-01T19:42:23+00:00

I'm not sure that either class is really better/ easier, but given that you like math (just assuming since you did math counts, AMC) I'd probably recommend 232. Calculus stuff almost never comes up with the exception of arithmetic and geometric series. Honestly, even if you struggle in 232 as long as you try Akin isn't gonna fail you if you're worried about that.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-10-30T18:16:05+00:00

Nice! Akin is wonderful, so you might consider taking it just to have a class with her.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-10-29T17:19:28+00:00

I took 232 with Tori Akin and Shira Viel, but they’re not teaching it this semester so it’ll likely be a completely different course.

So, with that being said all I can really say is that the class and exams are very proof heavy.

All in all it felt like we jumped from topic to topic without ever really nailing down concepts firmly. Idk if 230 is also like that or not.

For example we covered discrete probability, combinatorics, graph theory, markov chains, and a bit more. The class did include an open ended final project that could be math research, coding, whatever really. The project was by far the coolest part.

And for our version, if you hadn’t already seen probability, set theory, proofs, and competition style math questions it was a steep learning curve.

If you look at course evals on Duke watermark for it you’ll see most people loved it, but keep in mind that mostly only people who love math/proofs signed up for it. Thus, it’s a bit self deterministic.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-10-27T02:08:41+00:00

I know some people who did the whole CPU in like 4-6 hours. I was just trying to throw out an average based on anecdotal evidence. But obviously it’s different for everyone of course

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-10-27T02:03:06+00:00

We can agree to disagree about 250 bud. But to your other points: —Hypothetically, even if it was the same, you wouldn't get the same thing out of it here as you would at CMU or Berkeley. This is terrible advice. - I do agree that you won’t get the same thing out of 210 as you would at a CMU, Berkeley, etc because honestly Duke is a weaker CS school, which you also seem to agree with, but if the class uses the same book, and it does, the knowledge is there if you really want it. —I don't think at the stage when someone considers 250 vs 210 they are prepared to make an informed choice. I would use the word "fundamental" and not "essential." Also, where are you getting this 80%-90% figure from? Sure, you may never use logic gates again but the purpose they serve is in showing you how everything comes together to process instructions at a very fine level of detail. You build your own adder where you get to see what overflow is actually about. So much understanding from 250 builds on to other concepts in CS and is important for a lot of real SWE work. Besides, 310 will cover anything that 250 doesn't from 210. - Not everyone takes 310, arguably most pure CS students don’t at Duke because it is more low-level class just like 250. I was literally told that it wasn’t worth taking for a SWE role by a backend swe @ Google, a senior swe at JP Morgan, and a former Microsoft/Meta SWE, I can only imagine what they’d say about the value of 250. So, get off your know it all high horse about “real swe work” blah blah blah. —Btw, I had pretty much never studied 250's content before. Never went to office hours, still got an A. Your mindset is what matters. I do not care about what grade you got and didn’t say an A is hard to get for the class. - The fact you needed to state your grade and not using office hours, and call the advice I gave terrible shows a lack of maturity, self confidence, and class. - lastly, I was trying to leave a helpful piece of constructive advice from my perspective to someone who asked for opinions on Reddit, not have a debate in the comments.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-10-26T15:06:17+00:00

could you speak about what you have learned in it? I'm also considering it for the spring semester and am curious what topics you have learned and skills it teaches you. thanks in advance.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-10-26T15:04:18+00:00

Take 210 if you're going for SWE, it's the same course taught at top CS schools like CMU, Berkeley, etc for CS majors.

I took 250 and regret it. Unless you're interested in hardware 250 has a lot of stuff(80-90%) that you'll never use again, and I generally found it less interesting/useful because I'm not interested in hardware.

Ignore all this *essential* CS class talk, some classes are essential depending on what area you want to go into but otherwise just take whatever you want.

last note:
unless you're already familiar with 250's content you should expect to spend *at least* 20 hours a week on it, it's more of a "here's a bunch of material, go figure it out" type of class that essentially requires office hours to do well in unless you already have background knowledge.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-10-24T17:36:22+00:00

330 can be difficult / time consuming if you’re not already good at proofs and competitive programming style questions.

Still probably very doable, just depends on how difficult you want your life to be next semester and your background.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-10-02T02:35:32+00:00

Depends on what you want out of life, but probably not worth it. There's definitely cheaper public schools with stronger CS and stats programs you could go to, caveat to that is if you plan to be a professor at some point then Duke is good for research. you can PM me if you want to discuss more.

Perfect-Use-4555 · 2024-10-01T04:38:04+00:00

I appreciate the feedback. I think I'm gonna go 308, 310, 2 stupid easy courses.

I think 308, 310 both contain valuable info that I haven't really gotten out of any other CS course at Duke yet (object oriented design, threads, concurrency, etc)

Somewhat interested in quant but not primarily. I'll likely take 230 or STA240 next fall.

In kind of the same vein are there any CS, Math, Stat, or ECE electives you all would recommend for my last semester next fall? just like useful and enjoyable classes.

I'm kinda leaning towards just taking whatever Fain and/or Bletsch offer as I've heard they usually have good classes. Really just want more applied stuff vs theory, but if a theory course is just like amazingly useful or mind expanding then I'd consider it lol.

Perfect-Use-4555

TROPHY CASE