<p>I think that there was a thread related to good/easy classes at cmu, but it's not here any more....</p>
<p>I'm planning to take 18100 Intro to ECE, 15110 Intro to Programming, 76101 Interpretation and Argument, 99102 Computing@cmu and a calculus course.</p>
<p>Could anyone recomment good professors for any of these classes?</p>
<p>(For 15110, I think I read a thread comparing Feinberg and Kosbie, but I can't remember which one was which, so any help would be greatly appreciated!)</p>
<p>Same classes Im taking. Try ratemyprofessor.com</p>
<p>Thanks! oh, and another stupid question, 33-106/107 (physics) are a graduation requirement, but if I have the AP credit for physics, that means I’ve fulfilled this requirement already, right?</p>
<p>I think you had to fill out some paper.</p>
<p>The information about that was emailed I believe. Check my.cmu.edu .</p>
<p>Take feinberg.</p>
<p>feinberg? i think i chose cortina in the end…</p>
<p>well, there’s a reason why feinberg has a 24 person long waitlist…</p>
<p>I heard he was a bit fast-paced and difficult to keep up with. Of course, if one could keep up, then he or she would learn a lot, I heard. </p>
<p>don’t think I could do that tho ;)i’m a slow learner…</p>
<p>anyone taken classes taught by tom cortina?</p>
<p>“don’t think I could do that tho i’m a slow learner…”</p>
<p>haha if you’re worried about a 15110 class being too difficult, I am supremely interested what your opinions will be about 18100.</p>
<p>Granted, it seems when one is beginning programming, it either “clicks” or doesn’t—I’ve helped non-computer-related majors taking 15100 (the old 15110) with some of the worst code quite possibly ever written, e.g. trying to store the iterating numbers into an array:</p>
<p><<java>></java></p>
<p>public static void main(String args)
{</p>
<p>int index = 0;
int count = 0;
int array = new array[6];</p>
<p>for (i = 0; i < array.length; i++)
{
array[index] = count;</p>
<p>}</p>
<p>System.out.println(" the array = " + array);</p>
<p>}</p>
<p>… And that was the entire program. The person wanted to know what was wrong with the print statement. </p>
<p>Cortina I’ve heard is solid as well; he has a very well-thought out curriculum, although I’m not sure if he requires the student to buy a Java text book (which is a complete waste of money, considering everything is on wikipedia).</p>
<p>I took 15-111 (the class after 15-100/110) from Cortina and I highly recommend him. He has a thorough teaching method and he’s great to go in and talk to. If you have innate ability at programming, then you can get away with not having the book, but I would recommend that you get it anyway. At least in 15-111, Cortina made a point of choosing a text that was not only good reinforcement of his curriculum, but good reference for use beyond just that class.</p>
<p>Hey, any opinions about Kesden or Hoffman, in SCS?</p>
<p>@wildwildwes: yeah, thanks for the advice…I heard 18-100 was a weeder course—I’m screwed :(</p>
<p>I guess you just cope with the workload and somehow get along…</p>
<p>I had Kosbie for 15-110 (when it was 15-100), and he was excellent.</p>
<p>He was hard, but a great teacher. You will be extremely well prepared for the final.</p>
<p>@busdriver11,
Kesden is known for being a “hard-ass” in class. He grades pretty harshly. However, he does teach a lot of information so if you want to learn something during your time, Kesden would be the guy to take if you’re not afraid of a crazy little teacher. </p>
<p>Hoffman is quite the opposite. He is a generally easy teacher. His class will almost guarantee an easy A. However, you don’t learn quite as much, quite as rigorously as Kesden. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t really suggest any of these. If these are the only two teachers teaching the course, then tough luck, but if there is a teacher called Gunawardena that is also teaching the course, take him instead. He is a medium-paced teacher who is very helpful in and out of class. I’ve heard that he grades fairly. However, he does talk with a bit of an accent.</p>
<p>Rarehunter, thanks alot for the info. I can tell you that half of my son’s computer science class is flunking so far (summer session), with Kesden-but we were hoping that things were going to start looking up for the whole class. Sounds like he is fascinating, though. I’ll pass it on, thank you very much and he’ll try the teacher you recommended.</p>
<p>at least for cs freshmen, sections taught by Hoffman are the only ones we’re allowed to take for 15-123 (Effective programming in C/Unix)</p>
<p>even if he is an “easy” teacher, i figure it will be far and away better than my high school CS experience where my teacher gave me a textbook and basically said read this and finish it before the AP in May.</p>
<p>I don’t think Hoffman is that easy, as he really makes his students work with the labs—they can be quite intense. However, it seems lectures aren’t very important?</p>
<p>However, Guna is the man. I thought his accent would be a problem, too, but after the first day there were no worries, as I understood him perfectly. He also responded to my e-mails at basically midnight. I found his labs really fun, especially the bitmap encoder (take a bitmap image, mess it up in an aesthetically pleasing manner, then try to decode it). Yes, the lab took like 20+ hours to complete for me (I changed my aglo multiple times, and then realized the final one I did was way too hard to be doing at 11pm on a Saturday night), but I can now look back at those experiences. I think most people on campus think Guna is the easiest for 15123, but to tell the truth, all CMU professors are apt at teaching, or else they wouldn’t be the ones teaching us.</p>
<p>I feel sorry for the lads taking 15123 with Kesden. Maybe someone here can give those guys a few pointers (er, pun intended).</p>
<p>We just observed a 15-211 class today. Wow, amazing. Very challenging, but what an interesting teacher. This stuff is so detailed and technical, not for computer science lightweights, that’s for sure. I can see why they end up with openings in SCS every year, as it definitely takes a certain type of person to follow this material.</p>
<p>Im taking Intro to ECE right now over summer and it is an extremely hard class. I have Sullivan and it is definitely a weeder course. My other class is Adv. Programming and it is a joke compared to ECE. The average for the first test was a 47%. Only three people passed the test.</p>
<p>It gets easier as you go on, though. Well, it gets really really rough but then switches to binary logic and finite state machines, which is much easier. So, that should give you some hope. And Sullivan does curve the grades at the end… not so much as to be lenient than to not fail the entire class. So, in other words, just survive and you should be good.</p>