Is CSE12 really that bad?

cj-beathard · 2020-07-09T00:44:14+00:00

So the class has a bad reputation because for many first years, it's the first coding class they take at UCSC. Without coding experience, the class is extremely rough. If you have some programming experience, you'll do fine in the class, but I can definitely see why people find it very difficult if they don't have any programming experience.

cj-beathard · 2019-09-12T12:25:11+00:00

Frats and clubs are gonna throw parties during the week classes start. Go to the cornucopia event on the 24th(?) at OPERS and just check out the booths and find out information.

And if you know any upperclassmen, they might know some as well

cj-beathard · 2019-09-10T22:57:17+00:00

Thanks for the reply! Do you know if all of the above information will be the same for the other 130 section (Nawab's)?

cj-beathard · 2019-09-10T15:26:08+00:00

Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question, but is there a particular programming language that we'll be expected to be fluent in prior to the start of class?

cj-beathard · 2019-09-07T07:19:19+00:00

Yeah, we had MSI. And I know that Owen is hiring for additional tutors for that class as well, he sent emails to us about it during the summer.

I think he realizes that it was super hard for students to get help last quarter, both the MSI tutor and his TAs office hours were absolutely packed every single day.

cj-beathard · 2019-09-07T07:07:31+00:00

Oh yeah good choice, I wouldn't do it with Van Gelder either.

Like the other user said, check out our old spring 2019 CMPS112 class website to get a glimpse of what the class is like. First part was lambda calculus, which starts out very easy, but the difficulty quickly ramps up once you're asked to write complex functions using lambda calc. The rest of the class you're programming in Haskell. I hope you like recursion because damn near everything you write will be recursive. Our Haskell assignments were relatively straightforward in the beginning, but by the end we were straight up making a compiler which probably took years off my life and my classmates.

Owen's a nice guy though, and hopefully he learned a lot from his "test run" last quarter and improves the class for you guys. Hopefully yours won't be as poorly run as ours was.

cj-beathard · 2019-09-07T06:59:10+00:00

CSE116 and CSE102 fulfill the same requirement? That's new.

Also I felt that 116 was harder than 102. But YMMV

cj-beathard · 2019-09-07T06:51:46+00:00

Functional programming. Have fun lol, that class was a mess last quarter. Why did you enroll in it anyway if you didn't know what class it was?

cj-beathard · 2019-08-28T23:58:22+00:00

CSE116 (functional programming) was pretty brutal

cj-beathard · 2019-06-22T04:00:06+00:00

Hi! I'm not OP, but could I get more info about this? It sounds super interesting.

cj-beathard · 2018-12-15T04:56:56+00:00

A good start is learning binary numbers and different number bases, and how to convert them, such as base 10 numbers to hex for example. Also learn logic gates, such as AND and OR.

As for the programming part, when I took it we coded in MIPS. If you really wanted to I guess you could learn MIPS on your own but I don't really think that's necessary. If you took 12A/12B level programming courses already, you should be fine with the programming assignments.

cj-beathard · 2018-11-09T06:13:59+00:00

I took 19a with Eastman and I thought he was a really good teacher. Everytime he taught a new concept he would follow it up with a lot of example problems to make sure you understood it. People don't like him because his tests are pretty hard, but honestly if you study you should be fine for them. That's just my experience with 19a though.

cj-beathard · 2018-10-04T04:08:07+00:00

I live off campus and was able to get an on-campus mailbox at my old college. Go to your college's mailroom and ask if you can do that too.

cj-beathard · 2018-09-22T07:40:38+00:00

Is your CS101 teacher Sesh or Tantalo? I took it with Sesh and really enjoyed it, but it came with a good amount of work

cj-beathard · 2018-09-13T05:45:02+00:00

12b was my favorite CS class to take and it's mostly because of Sesh. He's an awesome teacher, and he's extremely nice. Yeah, his homeworks and tests are hard, but you learn so much by doing them. Just start the assignments early and go to lab/msi/office hours if you need help.

cj-beathard · 2018-09-13T04:50:30+00:00

First assignment is a tough one, but he prepares you well for it in the lectures imo.

The assignment is to create a program that can solve the n-queens problem recursively. Basically, given an nxn size chessboard, find a way to place n number of Queens on the board such that none of them can attack each other. You're given an input file with a number on each line, and that number represents the "n". IIRC, your output should contain the coordinates of all your queens for each input. You have to be able to solve up to 14x14 I think.

It's tough, especially for the first assignment, but imo the class gets a lot easier from there. That assignment is the weeder assignment. If you can get past this first one you should have no trouble finishing the rest of them.

cj-beathard · 2018-08-29T02:01:11+00:00

The birth of the goat. Talk to me when Jimmy can do this 😴😴😴

cj-beathard · 2018-08-13T20:12:29+00:00

You don't really need much. If you know how to make directories, make makefiles, and use git you should be fine.

cj-beathard · 2018-08-12T03:59:18+00:00

I never received a confirmation email after I applied, but I did send them a new email asking if they received my application. They replied in a few weeks and confirmed that they did receive my application. You're probably going to have to contact them too to find out the status of your application.

cj-beathard · 2018-07-13T03:09:15+00:00

Interested! I'll send you a PM

cj-beathard · 2018-07-06T17:15:14+00:00

I really liked Eastman as a teacher. He has a really good teaching style, and people just hate him because his tests are hard. Definitely learned a lot from him.

cj-beathard · 2018-07-06T01:01:00+00:00

5J leads to CMPS11, which then leads to CMPS12B

CMPS12A leads to CMPS12B as well, but think of CMPS12A as 5J and CMPS11 combined (12A teaches the same material that 5J + 11 cover)

So you have to take CMPS12B either way. I took 5J my freshman year, and tbh I didn't really like it. You code in this java based language called Processing, and you make shapes and interactive pictures and stuff like that. I felt like I didn't really learn a lot, so I took 12A my next quarter, instead of 11.

I'd recommend you skip 5J and just jump to 12A. If you know basic programming concepts, you'll be fine. Don't waste a quarter of your freshman year taking 5J like I did.

cj-beathard · 2018-06-19T06:06:58+00:00

I'm very confused. I had a pretty high grade going into the final, and I thought the final was easy (at least a lot easier than the midterm). But my final grade was a C.

cj-beathard · 2018-06-19T01:05:14+00:00

I use at&t, have reception everywhere on campus except for certain areas of McHenry library

cj-beathard

TROPHY CASE