On Thu, 04 Nov 2004 13:49:38 -0700, stuporglue <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > <Someone Wrote> > I agree. CS 142 has definitely been one of the easiest classes I have > taken at BYU. It was in Java when I took it, and no, I didn't take it > one of the semesters that the TA's wrote the projects for the > students, I did them all on my own. > </Someone Wrote>
As one of the people who had done nothing but VB coming into college, and having numerous friends who came in with absolutely _no_ programming experience, i'm going to chime in a bit on this. Personally, I found cs142 to not be overly difficult... Actually, I thought it was easy, and I found the jump from that to cs235 to be difficult. However, my friends who went into it with no programming experience found it rather difficult. I have found that some people (not myself) seem to have an inherent "knack" for programming, while others of us have to struggle to understand the concepts. A lot of this comes from experience, but some of it just comes from how the brain works... I know that currently, cs142 has ended up being a very good weeder course for those people who think they want to major in cs, and then discover that they just can't handle the amount of work, or they just don't like it. However, for some people that I know, it was a _very_ unpleasant experience. I've also known some people who just wanted to learn about programming, but either couldn't handle the workload of cs142, or had heard enough from people who had had bad experiences... I know that both my introduction to the CS program, and that of my friends, would have been a bit more pleasant if there was a class before cs142... I also think that there ought to be another class between 142 and 235 that helps you make the step between the really basic java programs that you write in cs142 and the larger and more complex programs that you write in 235. I don't think that this class should be mandatory in any sense, but it would be nice to have a stepping stone there... I have found that many classes here at BYU have a tendency to assume that students know certain material that is not covered in prerequisite classes. I don't feel that that's a wise way to start students in classes... Anyway, this has been long and rambling. Sorry... ~Erin -- -- userfriendly.org -- ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
