NEW CS Curriculum/Requirements?

<p>Hi,
I posted this a few days ago under another thread by someone else asking about people with no CS experience.</p>

<p>There's rumors of a new curriculum....but nothing on the SCS pages ...
Since most of us come in with APCS credit for 110 and 121-- what's the plan with the new curriculum since 123 is supposedly being phased out?</p>

<p>Anyone have a link or can explain what's up? Is the new course from SOC? What the heck is 15-210 mentioned at the end of this description- -there's no course with that number? 211,212, 213....</p>

<p>15122 Principles of Imperative Computation
Description:</p>

<p>For students with a basic understanding of programming (variables, expressions, loops, arrays, functions). Teaches imperative programming and methods for ensuring the correctness of programs. Students will learn the process and concepts needed to go from high-level descriptions of algorithms to correct imperative implementations, with specific application to basic data structures and algorithms. Much of the course will be conducted in a subset of C amenable to verification, with a transition to full C near the end. This course prepares students for 15-213 and 15-210. </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) or is the plan now the new 122 class? ...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-- where and when are we being advised to pick up ML and Phython?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

<p>Freshmen don’t register for courses until late late July/early August, so they might not have finished drafting it up yet. Who knows. All the courses I can see on the CMU course registration listing seem to be your typical fare - 15110, 15121, 15123, et cetera. None of those new courses are on there, or if they are, they’re not visible to upperclassmen. </p>

<p>They’re not just going to throw you guys to the wolves if classes are changing. They’ll let you know full well in advance and give you someone to contact if you’re having trouble figuring it out, so my advice for now is to just enjoy the summer and wait it out :)</p>

<p>soon enough you’ll get an email from jacobo to start the painstakingly slow registration process. His literature tells you everything you need to know, but you have to be patient. One of my friends is a TA for 110 next semester, and it is in Python. Other than that, I haven’t bothered to look at what is changing.</p>

<p>like completelykate said, don’t worry about it. enjoy your summer</p>

<p>Well, don’t expect anyone here to know too much about the changes. Unless one of us is a TA or knows a TA, we’re pretty much as much in the dark as you are. However, one thing is for certain: at CMU you are pretty much ever really expected to learn a language on your own if you follow the standard curriculum. So I suspect that there will be some sort of change so that 15-211 can accomodate Standard ML when the switch comes (info from a TA).</p>

<p>There is one thing I disapprove of: switching 15-123 with 15-122. This “safe C” idea really doesn’t sit well with me. The point of C is dynamic memory allocation and pointers, but apparently you’ll all be thrown into the 15-213 fire without a complete grasp of the power (and dangers) of C.</p>

<p>What’s 15-150?
It’s not in the course catalog nor being offered in the Fall on SOC.
Is this another new course in addition to the 15122?</p>

<p>Jacobo refers to the course in his advising memo in the stick figure diagram.</p>

<p>[SCS</a> Freshman Advising](<a href=“http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jxc/advising/]SCS”>SCS Freshman Advising)</p>

<p>So if you have previous AP credit for CompSciAB would the fall look like this:
Concepts, the new course 15 122, and then pick three other courses of interest …?
I already AP-d out of chem, calc, physics (like most cs majors I presume) and took an ECE intro in pre-college…
Guess I should try to get rid of GenEds? Any advice on which ones have tests only and no papers (I hate to write papers!)</p>

<p>Any advice on which freshman english profs or topics to avoid or take?</p>

<p>From my personal experience, you’re going to write pretty much the same amount of papers no matter which Interp & Arg (the mandatory English) class you take. However, your choice of class will influence what types of reading that you get. I took the one on Piracy, and I found that I got a mix of papers that ranged from the strictly academic to the loosely colloquial. My friend, who chose the comics one, ended up reading a lot of (surprise!) comics.</p>

<p>I am assuming that since you don’t like papers, you also don’t like reading papers. Then my advice for you is to avoid the ones that deal with social/political/philosophical issues like social equality, and gun for the ones that analyze more “mainstream” issues like internet speak or (as mentioned above) comics.</p>

<p>Also, avoid World History if you can. If there was ever a really annoying paper writing class, this one would be it.</p>

<p>Thanks Anselmo</p>

<p>What about the Econ classes or Music technology-- are either of those based on writing papers or just tests?
Intro to Religion?
How about the philosophy intro? Papers or tests?</p>

<p>Does anyone know what the 15-150 class is all about?</p>

<p>I was thinking about taking more physics classes (APd out of the first two) can I take them pass/fail ?</p>

<p>Intro to Religion & Philosophy are both paper classes. Econ’s a test class. I would suspect that Music tech is a test class as well but I don’t know for sure.</p>