<p>I'm taking Intro to Computers for Scientists and Engineers (it's essentially a Matlab class) in the fall and am just curious as to it's difficulty. I'm pretty computer savvy and have a little experience with basic programming if that helps. Thanks!</p>
<p>Impossible question, you might want to ask on the subforum for your school (or the Facebook page) where people may have familiarity with the course in question.</p>
<p>I like MATLAB. It’s much friendlier than Mathematica, in my opinion. Not sure if that helps…</p>
<p>I can’t find any forums for my school, but it’s a CC if that helps. I guess I should rephrase my question, “How hard is MATLAB to learn?”.</p>
<p>Matlab is a pretty easy language. Very similar to C++.</p>
<p>I’m sure you’re not taking a MATLAB class. You are taking a class on programming and using MATLAB as the language. MATLAB is easy, maybe even trivial, and can be learned in an hour. Learning to program well using abstraction (functions, structures, etc) is worthy of a whole course.</p>
<p>Should you take a programming class before you take a class titled matlab? Since that’s the name of the class I assume it’s all you do but I don’t really understand what it is or how I should prepare</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s necessary. This kind of class is pretty much a no prerequisite class, though you certainly need to know matrices at the high school level.</p>
<p>Charlies87star and ClassicRockerDad - It’s not titled “MATLAB” (it’s titled “Intro to Computers for Engineers and Scientists”), but from the looks of the outline (<a href=“http://www.raritanval.edu/uploadedFiles/academics/course_outlines/ENGR108.pdf[/url]”>http://www.raritanval.edu/uploadedFiles/academics/course_outlines/ENGR108.pdf</a>) MATLAB is the main focus of the class.</p>
<p>I just looked at the outline again, it seems like it focuses on using MATLAB and using it to solve engineering problems. I’m guessing it’s gonna be kind of like an Engineering Graphics class, with MATLAB instead of AutoCAD and problem solving instead of designing.</p>
<p>I can see now how it could be subjective depending on the school, I was just wondering if MATLAB itself is a tough program to use, but from the looks of it this should be a relatively simple class, especially because I’m taking this class later in the program than I was supposed to and I have all of the first 2 year engineering math under my belt.</p>
<p>Depends on the teacher. Mine was hard because we had really hard homework. The language is pretty similar to c++</p>
<p>As programming goes, MATLAB is pretty simple - as a high-end language it has a ton of built in functions and lots of documentation, so if you cannot program in MATLAB, you cannot program. I would hope that the course also gives you some C++ or such, as otherwise you may not have enough going forward in an engineering career.</p>
<p>I was in a level 500 computer science class this past spring- I was the only engineer among computer science people. Anyhow, the class was talking about how easy Matlab was, similar to C or other structured languages. </p>
<p>But, you know, I have a good analogy I generally apply to Matlab- its similar to swinging a hammer. Its easy to learn how to swing a hammer and to also learn how to code in Matlab. However, learning how to use the hammer or Matlab code takes time, practice, patience, and effort. Both are tools and learning how to use them is the real trick… not just learning how to swing it…</p>