<p>earlier i posted that i was torn between rice and cmu's scs.
its been a while and I have made up my mind. that is, RICE is where i'm bound for college</p>
<p>so, ive done some research and looked at the list of courses offered at rice in the hopes of finding some interesting intro courses ahead of time. a few, especiaily ones related to computer science, caught my attention. that is, COMP 140: An Integrated Introduction to Computation and Problem Solving, COMP 160: Introduction to Computer Gaming.</p>
<p>has anyone taken either of those courses? if you have, i would appreciate some feedback
;)</p>
<p>n also, if your so gracious and happen to be a cs major at rice, what did your freshman year schedule look like?</p>
<p>I’m not a student, but wanted to point out that the CS curriculum was changed recently. You might be interested in reading this: [</a>" + artTitle.replace(“-”,“”) + " - " + “The Rice Thresher” + " - " + “News” + "](<a href=“http://www.ricethresher.org/news/computer-science-curriculum-change-1.2113694]”>http://www.ricethresher.org/news/computer-science-curriculum-change-1.2113694)</p>
<p>Not a CS major either, but I would recommend emailing the professors (if listed) and asking them questions. Hopefully, they won’t be too busy and will have some time to discuss them with you.</p>
<p>My understanding is that COMP 140 (Intro to Computation and Problem Solving) can be taken by anyone, COMP 160 (Intro to Gaming) is designed for those with more experience in programming. D took COMP 140 (and I sat in on a class on Parents’ day). She loved this class. It turned her on to CS and is now a CS major. She had NO programming experience before hand. I thought the prof (Rixner) did a great job when I sat in. The class I saw was very much a programming/logic strategy lecture - no coding involved. All coding is done in homework and lab settings. I believe it was all in Python.</p>
<p>You’ve probably seen the curriculum:
<a href=“http://compsci.rice.edu/emplibrary/bachelor_requirements_2011.pdf[/url]”>http://compsci.rice.edu/emplibrary/bachelor_requirements_2011.pdf</a>
That is the new curriculum and has several changes. The “suggested” course schedules posted on the Rice site need to be updated to reflect the new curriculum. For example, you will take COMP 140 or COMP 160 in the fall and a new course COMP 182 (algorithmic thinking) in the spring.</p>
<p>It appears that a typical COMP 140/COMP 182 student is introduced to programming with Python, moves to Java to introduce OOP and only later enters into C/C++.</p>
<p>I’m glad you decided to come to Rice :D! It’ll be fun!
I took COMP140 and most people find it a lot of fun. I heard from some people it’s hard but if you’re fairly good at CS you should be able to handle it 
And I wrote that CS curriculum change article :D! yay!</p>
<p>thanks a bunch! the article helped a lot with choosing Rice over cmu.
are you a cs major by the way?</p>
<p>An interesting tidbit I just learned about Rice’s CS department – of this year’s graduating CS majors, 5 will be working at Microsoft. For a small department, Rice certainly has caught the eye of Microsoft (turning into a feeder program for the company).</p>