<p>If you already took 18100 in precollege is it safe to take a sophomore level ECE class in your freshman year?</p>
<p>18240 Structure and Design of Digital Systems<br>
or
18243 Introduction to Computer Systems</p>
<p>How’s mechanical engineering at CMU? BTW, does CMU has a policy about downloading movies/music and stuff?</p>
<p>File sharing is illegal on campus and if you get caught you lose your privileges. However, CMU has its own file sharing program where you can share movies and music with other students.</p>
<p>I got in H&SS but got waitlisted at MCS.
Can I still double-major for psychology and biology, or just minor in biology?</p>
<p>Whew, lots of questions. Uhh… let’s see… </p>
<p>@CMUGUY: Mackey’s just gone for the fall. He’s still a professor, and the most popular one in the CS department by a long shot. The general mantra with Mackey is “take 251 as early as possible and take it with Mackey.” I don’t know much about which profs are good for concepts though.</p>
<p>Freshman Interpretation & Argument (required english course) sections: (You all have to take this course next year, so it would be good for you all to take a look) <a href=“English - Department of English - Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences - Carnegie Mellon University”>English - Department of English - Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences - Carnegie Mellon University;
<p>@Justthedad: Nope. I know someone who just made that exact switch over. CIT is considered a “harder” college than MCS, so it’s a bit easier to transfer than it would be from MCS to CIT.</p>
<p>@ilovepandapanda: Greek life is good, somewhere inbetween harvey mudd and vanderbilt (where the majority of students-ish are involved in greek life). You’ll find there are 3-4 popular sororities and 6-7 popular frats to party at or rush. There are a couple threads in which I and a couple other guys have discussed the greek life more, so try looking around for them. (EDIT: Found it. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/carnegie-mellon-university/893102-greek-life.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/carnegie-mellon-university/893102-greek-life.html</a>)</p>
<p>@garage: Like steelers said, if you get caught torrenting illegally, you’re screwed and it’s a hefty fine. But dTella@CMU is an internal fire sharing network that has a great deal of content on it and it’s likely that you’ll be able to find whatever you need there. That’s the ‘safe’ place to download from.</p>
<p>@jmj: Yes. Talk to your advisor once you get to campus about getting in to MCS. You’ll probably be required to take a couple courses in MCS and then the MCS advisor will look over your progress and approve your double major.</p>
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<p>You also can’t do biomedical engineering as a primary major; it can only be done as a minor or a double major along with one of the traditional five departments (ChemE, Civil, ECE, Materials, or MechE).</p>
<p>Kate-- Mackey is the concepts guy and von Ahn the 251 guy-- neither of which is showing on SOC for next year at all. I heard don’t put off 251…but you need concepts first…do you have any friends who know anything about the person covering for Mackey in concepts this fall…her “rate my prof” ratings sound bad.</p>
<p>What about the ECE question…??</p>
<p>CMUGUY, the SOC only shows Fall 2010 courses currently-- you can’t see Spring 2011 yet, so he might be teaching the course then. Don’t worry, he hasn’t left, as far as I know-- my friend down the hall says he’s planning to take it with Mackey, and didn’t mention anything about him being gone. He’s a resident professor, not a visiting one, so I don’t see why he’d suddenly up and leave unless he wants to go job hunting during a recession. ;)</p>
<p>I haven’t heard much about the covering professor other than that people don’t like her. But I have absolutely no details as to why or how hard her course is. My friend down the hall is a gamer who rarely emerges from his quad so I’ll see if I can actually get a hold of him and ask.</p>
<p>I can’t answer the ECE question because I don’t know the answer! Sorry ): hopefully someone from ECE who’s a little more familiar can help you with that one. If no one else answers I can get in touch with the advisor to ask.</p>
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<p>If the 18-100 shows up on your transcript as a class taken with a grade, then probably. If not, then I doubt it as all CIT students are required to take two intro engineering courses.</p>
<p>@kate and whoever she was responding to: Haha yeah, just to clarify Mackey is indeed a MATH guy and is probably shuddering at somebody mistaking him for a CS guy. He’s really awesome though, and it does suck that he won’t be teaching concepts in the fall, but seriously as a CS freshman you need to take concepts immediately. Von Ahn is also gone, yes, but to be honest, when the homeworks are 20+ hours per week it really doesn’t matter who is lecturing you for the 3 hours that you are in class.</p>
<p>@pandapanda: Greek life is definitely enjoyable, but if you come from an area near a big state school, it is probably not entirely what you would expect. Still, there is a good amount of partying, participation in IM’s, Booth, Buggy, Greek Sing, and community service here and there. Right now (in my fraternity at least) things are pretty quiet after the death of a student at another fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha, over spring break.</p>
<p>I’m also a CS major, so i feel like my involvement in my fraternity has been a really good outlet to the constant work. Almost all of my classes are technical, so for the most part i spend my days sitting in rooms with lots of nerds. While i’m friends with most of the CS majors on my floor, at a certain point it really is beneficial to make friends with more “normal” people, so Greek Life, like any club (other than KGB or CIA, really) is a great way to branch out.</p>
<p>In terms of the workload, it’s definitely rough in SCS. During the fall semester I was able to get by with a 4.0 working fairly hard throughout the week, and then taking friday night and all of saturday off, then just spending all sunday on work. However, this semester the tag team of 15-251 and 15-213 (Computer Systems) has me working pretty much 7 days per week and on 5-6 hours of sleep per night. I still work out regularly and play on IM teams and push buggy, but I rarely can go out even one, much less two nights per weekend any more.</p>
<p>Also, you don’t take 18-243 (15-213 cross-listed) until you have taken 15-123 (Programming in C/Unix). If you are a CS or ECE major and are likely to continue on into systems programming fairly in depth, do yourself a favor and take 15-123 with Kesden. He may very well end up being your 15-213 professor, and he will teach you the most (fair warning, he is also the hardest… but in a good way). I took 15-123 last fall with Hoffman, and it is extremely easy to do well on all of his assignments, but your grade will come down to the midterm and final which is liable to be written by Kesden.</p>
<p>Is it possible for an ECE student to minor in some business courses?</p>
<p>yeah… pretty much no major will use up all of the possible units you are allowed to take per semester, and taking courses in another school basically just consists of registering for that course if there are slots available (which you can pretty much always do so long as you meet the prereqs and it’s not something weird in CFA or whatnot). Then, once you have taken a couple courses in that area there usually won’t be any trouble getting approval for a minor.</p>
<p>Thank you for your reply!</p>
<p>Another question.
I’m struggling to understand the differences between, not the majors but the professions, of Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Will a computer engineer sit in front of a screen all day writing programs, or when it comes to hardware only build computers and nothing else?</p>
<p>I’m not quite sure exactly what I want to do after I graduate, but I am considering the very broad area of robotics, gadgets, and inventions that do not necessarily contain <em>only</em> computerised parts. I mean, I would like to invent and build things, though I have no doubt that computers (and I don’t mean PC, but just general functionality of the “gadgets” and/or behaviour of robotics) will be a big part of what I will build. Wow I hope I’m making any sense lol…</p>
<p>I’m just trying to figure out which one: EE, CE, or the combination that CMU offers, is the right path for me. Any input on this would be most helpful.</p>
<p>I’m admitted to SCS and hope I can swing at least minor in ECE if not double (I am realistic-- this plan will probably fall apart once I get there since there and experience the workload.)</p>
<p>I went to pre-college and my RA was actually really helpful in heads-ups on profs.
I heard take Kesden for 123-- and well, he’s not listed for Fall either. It’s Guardena (who I heard sucks) and Hoffman. Since I have AP’d out of 15111 – 123 is next-- unless you see something else?. Looks like the year of sabbaticals for Kesden and Mackey-- what a bummer.</p>
<p>I heard that concepts should be taken with Mackey in the Fall and 251 with von ahn in the spring-- since mackey is gone in the fall-- is waiting for Spring crazy-- is the replacement really terrible-- will we all be ill prepared for 251 in the Spring. Since von Ahn doesn’t do 251 any more- who is doing that?</p>
<p>So 123 for fall is either Guardena or Hoffman (with kesden best but not teaching)
127 concepts for fall isn’t with Mackey
and
251 in spring is no longer with Von Ahn</p>
<p>Since I already took 18100-- I was thinking about another ECE class in the Fall…your thoughts?Is it safe to take 18 240 in the Fall if I already took 18100? Or is this insanely suicide for a freshman and I should just wait for 240 and 243 in the soph year?</p>
<p>I’ve already APd out of Physics, Chem and Calc too…but don’t want to overload my first year – but ease in – my senior year is not taking too much of my time and I don’t want to shock my brain into overdrive and have it melt.
Was thinking for Fall:
Concepts, C/Unix, an ECE class plus one GE or Freshman English.
Now having second thoughts since both the best profs are gone…</p>
<p>What’s your thoughts?</p>
<p>I basically had the same AP credits coming in that you have (+ maybe some humanities), and what I did last semester was 21-127, 15-123 (hoffman), 76-101 (required either fall or spring), 80-100 (Philosophy for one of my few remaining humanities), 21-259 (3-D calc, you need to take this in order to actually get your AP credit to transfer, and it is a prereq for some CS electives such as graphics). (Two classes, SCS Freshman Immigration Course and Computing at CMU were also part of my schedule, but pretty much irrelevant.) </p>
<p>That worked out very well for me, and following it up with my current schedule, I feel like i’m in a position where I have enough free space that I could pick up pretty much any new major to double in starting next semester and still finish in 4 years without ever having to overload. If you want to jump right into the 200 level ECE classes, my first guess is that they wouldn’t let you. If they do let you, i’d probably discourage it. </p>
<p>My reasoning is that even though freshman fall in scs is 10x easier than freshman spring (thanks to 15-251 and 15-21(1/3)), it’s distinctly possible that you will be shooting yourself in the foot in terms of enjoyment and whatnot throughout the next 4 years. Freshman fall, imho, should be the time to challenge yourself (which, trust me, 21-127 will) but also to meet new people and try new things out. Save the all-nighters for a later semester.</p>
<p>Oh, and in case I didn’t make it clear in my previous post, you NEED to take 21-127 in the fall (regardless of professor), and (given that you pass 127) you SHOULD take 15-251 in the spring. Realistically, von Ahn will not be back to teach 251 (he’s off making millions). One of the main reasons is to simply stay in the “smart, newly-admitted cs frosh” lectures of both of those classes. Say you put off 15-251 until sophomore fall… well you’ll end up in a class with all of the kids who dropped in during freshman spring. Enjoy working in groups with them :)</p>
<p>And go for hoffman. it’s a good class, you learn a lot, and you’ll be well enough prepared</p>
<p>Thanks good advice. I was thinking if the ECE didn’t work out, then I’d just take 3d or dfq.
Yep - knew about CCM and Immigration -didn’t count those as courses.</p>
<p>Why do you think they discourage the ECE classes for freshmen-- maybe spring then? I’m actually afraid I will forget everything…it would then be two years from the time I took 18100 until another ECE class if I wait until I’m a sophomore.</p>
<p>What did you take this spring beyond your two CS classes?</p>
<p>So is 211, 212 or 213 the first killer CS class (aside from 251 which I heard makes 127 seem like child’s play)?</p>
<p>I anticipate major procrastination with work in freshman english-- given that spring is the harder semester-- do you recommend getting it over with in the fall…or will it ruin my fall and perhaps push it to spring?</p>
<p>Darn - so VonA actually left for good…huh, one of the you-tube videos of him says he was happy to turn down microsoft and go to cmu b/c he won one of those major genius awards worth big bucks…guess he got bid upon once again and couldn’t resist-- but can you blame him…millions would be hard to ignore…he can always retire later and return to teaching…CMU major loss!</p>
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<p>Do they still have socialization points in that class?</p>
<p>10 points for taking a shower. (Not really, I think it’s more seminar-related now-- yes/no?)</p>
<p>… no but seriously I hope they’re phasing out the Freshman Immigration class. That’s almost offensive to CS majors to have on the mandatory curriculum. “Since you are in computer science, you probably don’t know how to talk to other people outside of l33t, so we’re going to teach you about life.”</p>
<p>Man, so from the link on english, I can take a class on comics for 76-101? Sweet. Has anyone taken it before, what’s the teacher like? What’s the reading and such? I mean, obviously just not comics. </p>
<p>Also, everyone’s talking about the SCS and all but what about a MechEs’ first year?</p>
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<p>2014, if this is what you want, go for it - it’s doable.</p>
<p>DS started out in SCS, thinking he’d do something in Tepper also; took intro business courses over summer because he couldn’t get in during the regular year, and didn’t really care for it. Decided to try his hand in ECE in summer 2 and loved it - changed over to double SCS/ECE at the start of his soph year, and is still on target for it.</p>