Courses over Winter Break

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hello all,
I am a freshman in CS and have had a good, although somewhat boring, first semester. This semester has been more of me getting my gen-ed classes out of the way and I am going to take more in-depth CS classes next semester. However, I feel that I should get a head-start on learning some more advanced content and was planning to take a MOOC (massively open online course, for those who don't know) over the winter break. There are several courses available and I was wondering what would be most beneficial for me to take.</p>

<p>Courses:
Databases (Important stuff but something I could easily learn down the road)
Malware Analysis (Interesting content, especially considering my interest in computer security, but not as applicable)
Computational Investing (Not as useful academically, but I recently started trading stocks and this could be useful, as it covers writing python scripts to analyze market trends, setting up simulations, etc.)
Functional Programming in Scala (Not sure how useful functional programming is, but I did some Scheme a while back and thought it was pretty cool stuff)</p>

<p>Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.</p>

2

<p>Bump…</p>

3

<p>Final bump… anyone?</p>

4

<p>Is the MOOC free and are you going to transfer credits?</p>

<p>I would say just take/ look into the free, readily available online classes/ resources on those topics first. Then you can see what interests you with no risk.</p>

<p>If there is no risk, then do which ever one looks cool. Then benefit when you actually take the class.</p>

<p>Due to co-ops, this winter break will be the first time I get to go back for a year, and I’ll only be there for 2 weeks. Enjoy your breaks while you can in my opinion.</p>

5

<p>MOOCs are free, Seirsly.</p>