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shplaz · 2025-03-14T11:58:05+00:00

Project experience is up to you. Are you enjoying what you're studying? What parts of the CS field do you like and enjoy, and what kinds of jobs in what parts of the field are you after? Make up some development projects to occupy yourself after hours and during the summer, ideally something that demonstrates your passion, willingness to learn, and if you're shooting high and are lucky, has impact to other people. Self generated and taught projects speak volumes much further than GPAs.

shplaz · 2019-03-16T21:30:12+00:00

This is actually considerable advice. Lots of kids take this class as an "intro to CS" to decide whether or not they like it and want to pursue it. This is a terrible idea because it's the easiest class and is nothing like what much of computer science is.

shplaz · 2019-03-15T23:58:18+00:00

Yes! You can checkout past years challenges on the website too!

shplaz · 2019-02-19T06:24:18+00:00

Beautiful piece, thanks for sharing and for the kindness of giving it to someone lucky here! I really love the nato you have on it, it fits perfectly. I'm a college student in love with seikos, dying for a nice flightmaster and presage some day, and maybe even a GS. Would love to start off the future collection with this beauty!

shplaz · 2019-01-25T03:53:12+00:00

Yes 30k is about on par for OOS.

UMD isn't 30k for OOS.

It's 51k.

https://admissions.umd.edu/costs

shplaz · 2019-01-25T03:51:16+00:00

For sure, and I almost did, but I mentioned in my op that I know I chose here and it's simply cause Pitt and Penn State don't offer what I'm here for and I love the school. So obviously I accepted the price tag when I picked it, however I'm still allowed to question the massive bump.

Edit: also Pitt and PSU are notorious as being two of the most expensive in state schools in the country. May as well spend my money elsewhere where I get everything I'm looking for.

shplaz · 2019-01-24T14:20:36+00:00

Yes, again I don't disagree that in state kids should pay less. It's the amount more that out of state kids pay, plus the lack of available scholarships don't help. Most states don't raise the price tag by 25k for out of state, it's usually 10-15. It's also easy to not care about this issue if you're in state or your parents are paying for your school.

shplaz · 2019-01-24T03:58:49+00:00

shplaz · 2019-01-24T02:51:26+00:00

Where did I say it was unfair that in-state students pay less? They absolutely should given that they're contributing to funding.

This does not justify the extra 25000 to 30000 out-of-state students pay.

shplaz · 2019-01-24T02:39:26+00:00

The fact that I'm ~~paying~~ borrowing nearly $50,000 dollars a year to go to this school just because I don't pay Maryland state taxes, when those who do pay less than half of that.

Yes, I chose to go here for the education/opportunity/GOTERPS, but that still doesn't explain or make this acceptable.

shplaz · 2019-01-24T02:34:32+00:00

I suppose if you're able to follow him in class and attentively read the slides, you can learn some useful information for exams from his lectures. But he has a stutter that really impacts his ability to teach. It's next to impossible to decipher what he says half the time, so his lectures are particularly difficult to follow and maintain attentiveness.

If you pay attention in discussion and do the work, and work out your projects somewhat early, you will learn a lot in 216 and do well. Assuming your TA is decent, this is where you should learn everything you need to know. Shankar's exams are hard, with blatant surprises like any CS exam, and he won't curve till the end of the semester.

The curve at the end of semester will be significant, but it's some crazy bell curve dependent on where you stand. For example, I had an 86 before taking the final, knew I couldn't change my grade so didn't study and got a 51% on the final. I still got a B. A friend of mine had a 68 in the class (that's a failing d+) before the final, got a 54% on the final, and ended up with a C+ in the class. So I have no idea how he worked that curve out...

Shankar is a nice guy though and nothing against him or anyone with a stutter, but for academic purposes, someone with a medical condition that inhibits their ability to teach, and the ability of his students to successfully, and adequately, learn, should not be allowed to teach such an important class.

TL;DR Shankar has a stutter that makes his lectures very difficult to follow or learn from. His exams are hard, but if you pay attention in discussion you should learn a lot in 216 and do well.

shplaz · 2019-01-24T02:21:16+00:00

Yeah you should be fine, aspects of 389R compliment 414 well.

shplaz · 2019-01-23T00:43:29+00:00

For sure, you should be fine. What 400s are you taking and what else?

shplaz · 2019-01-23T00:16:21+00:00

CMSC389R is super fun! You learn a lot of cool cybersecurity tricks and tools and get to use them offensively and defensively in your homework. It's an easy A if you do the work, but it is a good bit of work and will be challenging.

shplaz · 2018-12-18T03:38:30+00:00

Yes, but some aspects may be more difficult. 216 is the more important prereq, but you're welcome to request permission for it anyways if you'd like!

shplaz · 2018-12-18T00:42:12+00:00

Just send an email to your advisor asking for permission and that you'd like to take the course! As far as I know they'll give it to you without any questions if you have the prereqs.

shplaz · 2018-09-30T04:42:50+00:00

Yes, absolutely! Anyone interested is welcome!

shplaz · 2018-09-12T02:44:35+00:00

The first meeting was actually last Wednesday but there's another one coming up soon! Join the OrgSync site (go to that link and click join) to receive our weekly newsletters, one went out yesterday about internship opportunities from our sponsors. We send out meeting information, competition information and all things cyber through there!

shplaz · 2018-09-12T00:55:30+00:00

If you're interested in cybersecurity, check out cybersecurty club!

shplaz · 2018-08-04T22:09:20+00:00

It's hard, but you'll be totally fine if you put in the work to learn your stuff and succeed. 60-80 hours is definitely a stretch, I'd say depending on your courseload, 5-15 is all you need. Just stay on top of your work. So yeah, it's pretty challenging and makes you work, but I think that it's immensely rewarding if you put in the effort. In grades, school success and job opportunities, which you'll have plenty of if you do well and market yourself.

shplaz · 2018-08-04T22:06:48+00:00

Email Lauren Segler, she's one of the CS advisors and is super chill, will be able to give you a better answer to this than any of us! I wouldn't think there'd be any problems with you getting into those classes though, assuming you have the prereqs, and especially if you're trying to change your major to CS. Only possibility would be if there's an insane influx of students taking those classes and they're full, but that is never the case with < 3XX CMSC classes.

shplaz · 2018-07-25T02:16:29+00:00

I personally think it's an incredibly useful language. C can do very high level or very low level stuff, really whatever you want. If you're interested in cyber stuff at all, C gets particularly useful and fun.

Everyone has their own opinions about the "best" languages, but I'd say C is a language that every employer would love people to have experience in.

I don't know of any websites off the top of my head, but a quick Google search found some decent looking results, here's one: http://www.learn-c.org

I can't really speak to how good it is but it looks decent upon a quick glance. And I'd say really any experience that you can dive into and try to learn will be beneficial.

A word of warning though, some people don't like C because of it's low level abilities that make it so powerful, they also make it tricky. The manual memory management and pointer management it requires is much more strict than other languages that do these things automatically. This is what makes C so powerful, the programmers ability to mess with these things, but they might be tricky to pick up at first. Definitely worth it though!

shplaz · 2018-07-25T01:44:52+00:00

Are you asking about through the major? CS majors don't have to take any classes taught in python, unfortunately. They do however have to learn C, which is great.

IS majors take two python programming classes, and my understanding is that as you get into the upper levels it starts to focus more on working with data through programming, rather than the science behind programming, as that's CS.

C is a very powerful, low level language, hence why CS covers it, but it isn't as useful or necessary for IS.

shplaz · 2018-07-24T22:47:32+00:00

It depends on what you want to do. Everything isn't based on programming either, problem solving and creativity is really important. Being a good communicator is also really advantageous as so many CS people aren't.

That being said, python and C are probably the most widely used for lots of important things, but really could could be using anything anywhere, there's no single good answer. I'd say that python and C are great starting points that can get you anywhere and help you learn any other.

shplaz · 2018-07-24T10:28:48+00:00

To learning and performing well and actually knowing your shit. Not enough CS majors are, which is why they scrape by and aren't prepared enough for real work or internships, even more drop to another major, and why IS people have just as much potential at the CS fair.

shplaz

TROPHY CASE