Intro to computer science that bad?

<p>I just went on a CMU admitted students tour and the CS department guy said that the intro to computer science course was for students with no prior experience in programming. He also said that it was a "special kind of hell" and that the class "progressed at the speed of light". Is it really as bad as everyone says? I'm not completely clueless about programming, as in I take AP compsci and know a fair bit of java, but he also said that high school classes are "pretty much irrelevant" for the CS program. Im joining Deitrich for philosophy major and second majoring in cs. Good idea or no?</p>

<p>I made an account just to respond to this b/c I got asked this from my baggers this weekend as well and I’m a CS major here. I think it really really depends. I’m not sure how the double major reqs work, but in my experience the programming classes are definiely doable but depending on how fast you program you can spend anywhere from like 5 to 20 hours a week on assignmens. I’m an average speed programmer so I spend around 10-15 a week on programming portions of assignments. NOTE that here at CMU (not sure how it is elsewhere) after 15-112 (which I’m guessing is the intro to programming class the advisor was talking about), many of your programming classes will also include theory portions. </p>

<p>If you should be worried about anything, worry about the theory classes. I’m currently a freshman so I had to take 151 (aka “Math Foundations for CS”) last semester which was my personal hell since proof writing is apparently not my strong suit. I believe that class was curved 20%. This semester, I’m in 251, which is called “Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science”, and tries to teach you problem solving and the math much of CS is based off of (i.e. markov chains, turing machines, random walks, etc…) I spend around 30+ hours doing homework assignments and just plain trying to understand the math going on in the class.</p>

<p>Tl;dr I wouldn’t be too worried about programming - its time consuming but doable and there’s always always lots of help available. If anything, worry about theory.</p>

<p>15110 is in Ruby and apparently it’s not as bad
15112 is in Python and if Kosby is teaching it, then I heard it’s “hell” but honestly it’s very doable. My friends who have never seen programming in their lives got thru pretty well, AP Comp Sci will help. I placed out of 112 with a 5 on the AP so you can get out of it, but its really a fun class to take</p>

<p>Thanks for the responses! so from what I gather, taking the course itself actually isnt THAT bad. However, how is hard is it to get into the computer science major if you’re not already in the college? Will there be any significant barriers for me as a student from deitrich to double major in philosophy and computer science? I’ve heard rumors that there aren’t many class spots available, and that double majors get last pick. Also,how difficult is it to double major? I’ve heard that the computer science school is especially difficult compared to the other schools. Is it reasonable to say that I can graduate in four years without the courseload crushing me?</p>

<p>There will be no barriers whatsoever in terms of double majoring. There is no application process. You just email someone and ask her to add you as an additional major in computer science and you’re done. The only negative is that you will not get priority admission to computer science courses as primary majors do. I myself am an additional major in computer science, and this can get annoying. However, I’ve always been able to get into the cs classes that I wanted, but generally I had to go on the waitlist until the reserved spots opened up, and sometimes I didn’t get my preferred section. It’s not that big of a deal though, and it will basically be irrelevant once you’re a junior or above and get to register before underclassmen.</p>

<p>In terms of the double major, I think this is very doable. Computer science is obviously a difficult major, and that will challenge you, but adding philosophy on top won’t really make it any more difficult. If you plan your schedule well, then you can double count a lot of philosophy classes as college gen eds, and you can even count some of your philosophy classes towards computer science (for example, 80-311: Computability and Incompleteness). You should be able to do the double major, take an average courseload (for a computer science major, at least) and graduate on time.</p>