On Wed, Dec 20, 2006 at 06:55:14AM -0500, Gabriel J. Michael wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm a senior GVPT major graduating this Spring, but I've always been > interested in computers and electronics. I have a lot of practical experience > with the two; I've held progamming jobs where I worked in Perl and VBA, I > once wrote a driver in C for a magstripe card reader connected via the > parallel port, I'm decent with a soldering iron, familiar with Linux, etc. My > problem is that I don't really understand any of the theory behind the > projects I play with, so I'd like to maybe audit a CMSC or ENEE course for > the hell of it. Any suggestions? Keep in mind that I've only taken up to MATH > 141, and I've neven taken a formal programming course (unless you count > Pascal in high school...) > > I see there is CMSC 198A, "Special Topics in Computer Science for Non-Majors" > - anyone know anything about that?
I believe 198A is basically a catch-all class for independent research projects (it has no course description). The problem is that all of the non-majors cmsc classes are probably not worth your time. If I were you, I would try to take one of the CS placement exams to see what programming courses you can place out of. If you're interested in theory, I would recommend CMSC250. It is very math based, and despite the requirement of cmsc131, has very little programming (someone who has taken the class more recently than I did should speak up if I'm wrong). If you don't place out of the first programming class, I would still try to talk to the instructor of CMSC250, explain your situation, and see if they won't let you audit the class. Also, what do you mean by "you want to learn the theory"? Theory to CS people means more like math and algorithms and proving properties about algorithms (that's what I assumed above). If you mean something different, then I can recommend something different. - Rob .
