<p>Do not take the honors CS courses unless you've had serious prep before hand. Don't even think about it.</p>
<p>Bailey is smart and funny and British, but I honestly don't respect him as a teacher. I took CS211 with him last semester, and it was a chore. He seemed chronically underprepared, and at several lectures he would write an entire program on the chalkboard, which takes him about 20 minutes (out of the 50 minute lecture), and we would have to correct the various coding mistakes while he's writing, when he could've just written the code up the night before and put it on the computer. He never seems to consult his assignment decisions with the TAs, as a lot of the times the TAs were bewildered with the projects themselves. I remember this nightmarish thread synchronization project in which the TAs couldn't fix the bugs. And he doesn't seem to listen to complaints either. I mean, second-to-last project he assigns us a MIDI project that virtually nobody did completely right , which was useless and had nothing to do with the stuff we learned before and was just incredibly hard considering he posted no notes up about the subject at all, and we had to look at his MIDI code and figure up what that monstrosity actually did. And guess what he assigned for the next project? He wanted us to add on more complex things to the MIDI project, when most of us couldn't get it working right in the first place! He also put his office hours in the early hours of the morning, knowing clearly that most of us will never wake up that early for it. </p>
<p>what kind of things need to be known for CS 211? I have a lot of prior experience with JAVA and have AP credit, so I'm not sure if I should take that honors intro course or just go right to CS 211.</p>
<p>If you have AP credit and feel comfortable with Java, go with 211. I was hesitant about making that jump at first and I decided to take CS 1130 (or 101J - a 1 credit autotutorial course) to refresh my memory, but within about a week of 211 I already felt up to speed with Java and 1130 wasn't really necessary. I'd suggest giving 211 a try, and if it seems like too much, go down to 1110.</p>
<p>The honors intro course generally isn't offered, as far as I know.</p>
<p>During orientation you'll get a personalized list of AP credit you're eligible for. You can then talk to your adviser about what to do. At least that's how it went for me last year.</p>
<p>For example, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to accept AP credit for calc until I got my scores over the summer. I filled out the form saying I wouldn't accept, but later discovered that I got a 5. I talked to my adviser during orientation, and he told me I could drop MATH 191 (which I was pre-enrolled in) and add MATH 192.</p>
<p>I already sent in my engineering form and i didnt sign up for any AEWs but now im kind of regretting that. can i sign up once i get there? if im not officially enrolled can i still go for the extra help?</p>
<p>You can sign up once you get there once the add period starts. And as I mentioned in the AEW thread, you don't have to enroll so you can come and go as you please. Its also a good idea to see if more than one fits in your schedule to go and check both out before you enroll- you'll probably prefer one set of TAs over the other</p>
<p>Tsenguun: I came to Cornell having no idea what I wanted to do and having no prior programming experience. I think half of my fellow CS majors came in this way and we are all doing fine. Don't worry; just take the classes in sequence as recommended and find out for yourself if you really want to do CS or not. Wordup32 is right, though. The grade distributions of CS100 are quite interesting: students either do well in 100 with little effort (and a large portion of these end up being CS majors) or they try hard and barely squeak by. This effect can still be seen in 211, where it's not about programming skill but understanding of some basic CS theory.</p>
<p>mal3889: I think you should just accept the credit. If you have it, why lose it? If you don't think your understanding in the area is good enough, you can always just take the class anyway. I accepted credit for PHYS213 but didn't feel ready, so I took the class. Turns out I already knew all the material in that class so I dropped it (the pain of going to labs outweighed the possibility of a free A/A+).</p>
<p>AEWs are somewhat useful classes but far from necessary. I took the ones for math 192, 293, and 294 and it seemed more of an extra section (or whatever they're calling them these days) than anything else. Their main usefulness was providing test review before prelims, but usually those are open to anyone who wants to go anyway. The 1 credit you get from these classes is pretty useless as well, but I guess they're a good way to solidify your understanding of a class.</p>
<p>For everyone worried about what classes to take: just register for whatever you feel comfortable with. You can always add/drop if a class is too easy/hard/boring/whatever. If you want to take multiple ENGRIs, go for it. Most of the engineering degrees can be completed a semester early with proper diligence and if it takes multiple intro classes for you to figure out what you want to do, I highly recommend doing so. Its better to find a major you like early on than having to switch between unrelated majors in your junior/senior year (I know of people who have done the latter...not a good idea).</p>
<p>"I think you should just accept the credit. If you have it, why lose it? If you don't think your understanding in the area is good enough, you can always just take the class anyway. I accepted credit for PHYS213 but didn't feel ready, so I took the class. Turns out I already knew all the material in that class so I dropped it (the pain of going to labs outweighed the possibility of a free A/A+)."
You can take credit for classes, and then take the class anyway? Really? So for example, if I get credit for Calc 1910 with a 4 or 5 on the AP, and I accept credit, but I don't think I'm ready for 1920, then I can take 1910 again just for more practice or whatever, but if I find it to be a waste of my time, I could just drop it, and still have the credit, and then take 1920 next semester?</p>
<p>Also, I haven't even been able to narrow down what class to choose for ENGRI and its due tomorrow. I'm choosing among:
ENGRI 1200: Introduction to Nanoscience and Nanoengineering,
ENGRI 1100: Lasers and Photonics,
ENGRI 1110 Nanotechnology,
ENGRI 1170 Introduction to Mechanical Engineering,
ENGRI 1270: Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Engineering</p>
<p>If you take more than one ENGRI, the second doesn't count for credit? Is that true?</p>
<p>C# isn't generally taught, most people and professionals use C++. Cornell only teaches Java and Matlab though, from what I've seen. </p>
<p>Also, the general concepts in all programming languages are the same, however the syntax and ways to do things are generally different. </p>
<p>I know Java really well, and so I can understand C and C++ programming by reading the code, but I wouldn't be able to sit down and program something unaided.</p>
<p>Thanks for answering most of the questions we'd asked before towerpumpkin. Can someone answer battlecruisers question about taking credit for classes and then dropping them if we feel they are unnecessary? Also, if I do accept credit for a course, what sort of grade do I get for it and how does it contribute to my overall GPA? If I take and complete a class that I took credit for, will the grade I get from the final exam for that course count for anything?</p>
<p>If you accept credit for an AP/IB class, you get the credit but you do not get a letter grade. This credit also does not count towards your GPA but only towards fulfilling graduation requirements. As I said before, I took a class even though I had accepted credit for it, dropped it, and I still retain that credit. Really, Cornell is very flexible about all of these things. They really don't check if you're <em>allowed</em> to take a class or not; adding/dropping a class is a pretty automated process. I've even taken classes for which I don't meet the prerequisites and as far as I can tell, Cornell doesn't even realize this. I believe if you take a class that you have credit for, then the grade you receive is posted to your transcript. That particular requirement remains fulfilled and nothing else changes.</p>
<p>From what I've heard, C# and Java are pretty similar--if you can program well in one, picking up the other is just getting used to the syntax.</p>
<p>There is no set IDE for Java. You can choose to use whatever you want. However, different TA's and professors will give different recommendations.</p>
<p>100 teaches in this crappy IDE called DrJava. For 211 and up, they don't actually specify an IDE but Eclipse seems to be popular among a lot of the TAs and other students.</p>