<p>Our D is starting her first Co-op session this fall. She is a ChemE and after taking a FYE course which included some programming she decided she'd like to learn more about Computer Science and decided to attempt a minor in it. To do this she signed up for an online course while she co-oped. No problem except that since we are OOS that one online course costs over $4000. My idea for her was to drop the class and the desire for a minor and if she interested in learning about computer science to enroll in a MOOC, either through MIT's OCW or Coursera. It would be free or at least considerably cheaper and in my opinion a minor would do little to further her career as a ChemE. I was looking for opinions. Thanks.</p>
<p>$4k for a single course is really not worth it if it is a strain to your budget.</p>
<p>Minors in general are more useful for what you learn than as a distinction. Learning it by self-study or by a MOOC isn’t too bad of an idea. Just make sure there’s enough structure to the course to teach style and to review the more tricky details of programming. The real problem might be if/when she wants to take higher level courses (i.e. a course on algorithms) where you need prereqs within the school, but even that can be managed, albeit with a bit of difficulty.</p>
<p>NeoDymium. This is very belated but thanks for your response. She is dropping the class. She still hasn’t given up on her goal of a CS minor but she’s going to attempt to work it into her regular semesters if she can. We’ll see.</p>