<p>I have no programming knowledge and wondering if everyone else who got in SCS are all computer geniuses and I will soon committed suicide once I get there.</p>
<p>Yes, take kosbie for intro. He’s hard, but hes a great teacher and will get you up to speed. I heard rumors that they are dumbing down his class though…(i loved it, and i came in with NO experience).</p>
<p>Math background, on the other hand…</p>
<p>It’s doable. There are a few people in SCS who have had no prior programming experience. </p>
<p>Though, I’m not going to lie to you. Coming in with no programming experience does put you at a disadvantage in terms of your courses. Try and learn <em>something</em> or some knowledge beforehand. There are tutorials online. Find them and play around with it.</p>
<p>the main concern is that you will find out that you don’t LIKE programming. and that’s the big concern, because i can almost guarantee you won’t really enjoy the math side, the programming is what you have to look forward too.</p>
<p>one of my good friends this year came in with no programming experience, and now he has the amenity of letting me take most of the classes a semester or two ahead of him and then tell him what’s good and not. For the non-programming (theory) classes, you will mostly start out even with everybody else (at the bottom) and for that you are as competitive as anybody. case and point, my same friend beat my score by a substantial amount on our 15-251 (great theoretical ideas in computer science) final.</p>
<p>i had substantial programming experience, he had none, we both get b’s.
gg.</p>
<p>I would recommend that you teach yourself some programming over the summer. It will make a huge difference. (recent CMU alum, who took several programming classes)</p>
<p>I thought that CMU got rid of 15-110 this year and that 15-122 didn’t teach java. That said, the lack of jcomponents with events should defang Kosbie for at least one semester (until he designs a python package that will make your life even more miserable).</p>
<p>That said, if you want to learn a programming language, I think it’s to your advantage to learn python because SCS is on the warpath against java. (Rumors include 15-211 being taught in standard ml. That’s going to be interesting…)</p>
<p>So if you are a freshman and placing out of 110 and 15-121 from AP scores (the old 15-111)?? you would start with 15-123 (c/unix) …but what happens when you get to 15211,212…when is the switch going to be to python from java? 211 still in java? is it going to be in the spring of 2011? ML taught where? is that taught in 212 or should you pick that up on your own before 212?
I assume that most CS majors place out of 121with AP COMP SCI-- so is the class of 2014 caught in a twilight zone-- are we expected to learn phython on our own before next spring for 211?</p>
<p>Weird year -wasn’t there other odd things like Mackey and Von Ahn gone so that concepts and great idea are taught by newbies…
CS Class of 2014 getting screwed?</p>
<p>OH ?? What is 15122? A new course?? Principles of Imperative Computation</p>
<p>I certainly won’t dive into a CS degree without having some idea if I actually liked programming.
At the other end of the scale - how do kids manage to place out of basic classes? Mine got a 5 on AP CS AB (the hard one) as a soph, and will have 3 upper level CS college courses under the belt by end of senior year. Mine is solid with java and knows a few others as well.</p>