<p>I want to major in the IEOR department, SEAS 2014, but I have absolutely no comp sci knowledge, never took a high school class about it. Is the seas curriculum designed to teach students like me the concepts from scratch so that they won't be totally lost? </p>
<p>I'm especially worried for gateway, intro to java, and data structures...</p>
<p>I tried opening an AP CS study book but it all looked like greek to me...</p>
<p>gateway is a joke. no CS needed.</p>
<p>about 1/2 of the intro to java (1004) class has no previous cs experience.</p>
<p>for ds (3134) the people who do well are the ones who either a) paid attention in 1004 OR b) are just natural pros at doing code. </p>
<p>pm me if you need more advice.</p>
<p>shockwaveride is right. The introductory course will teach you everything you need, but watch out. If you haven’t programmed before it’s a doozy, probably most difficult course I’ve taken at Columbia thus far. You’ll a learn a lot, but it’s because you’ll be doing a lot of work.</p>
<p>Take it 2nd semester freshman year. Don’t overload your first semester and don’t take it with comp sci kids. IEOR students suck at programming. W3134 is fairly hilarious, given W1004 was more difficult for people new to programming, but IEOR kids still manage to…underperform.</p>
<p>so i’m allowed to take it 2nd semester freshman year? </p>
<p>umm would it actually be possible to take intro to java and gateway at the same time and still get good grades? 
i heard that those are the most time consuming classes</p>
<p>Yeah. It’s completely fine. Gateway is a useless class and not that time-consuming at all. At most 5 hours a week and that’s if you’re completing over 50% of the project.</p>
<p>wait so Gateway isn’t as super difficult and frustrating as everyone claims it to be? that’s a relief…</p>
<p>It’s frustrating because you’ll depend on incompetent members of your team who turn in sub-par work. You’ll have to chase them down, only to receive a half-assed, poorly written piece of crap which you’ll spend the next hour correcting for grammatical mistakes like not ending a sentence with “the”.</p>
<p>Also, your TA is completely random so you might get someone relaxed or power hungry. It’s frustrating to have so many things outside your control, and having nominal authority as the primary facilitator. It’s always best to use honey rather than vinegar to catch flies, but in Gateway, you have no choice but to make nice and hope for the best. Good luck though! If you take the work into your own hands, it will be less nerve-wracking and more of a BS class that takes about 3-5 hours a week to complete in full. Have one good member on your team and you should be fine.</p>
<p>The older generation might not know this, but students are now allowed to pick their own teams in Gateway (gasp, the horror). Too bad they made the midterm exam a killer, got dragged down to an A- because of that.</p>