Waterloo CS - Difficult?

[PaulButler]

HTDP is good, but an entire introductory CS textbook can be overwhelming to someone who just wants to get the gist of the language (before getting a more formal introduction in the fall). Someone who learned scheme through TYSiFD shouldn't have any trouble picking up the HTDP subset, and vice versa.

[riveryu]

will Waterloo CS kill my eyes?

[nike52]

riveryu @ Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:53 pm wrote:

will Waterloo CS kill my eyes?

Haha. We should make a thread called how bad is your eyesight. My eyes are like 400 degrees damaged.

To OP, if you want some kind of benchmark, I believe last year's graduation rate for CS was 85%. Go find the 2003/2004 entering average and compare it with your own.
If you're around the average, probably around 80, and you know in your bones that you love compsci, then the only two things that really matter is that you're able to work hard and that you believe you can pass. Also, start practicing your math/compsci.

[Reality Check]

When I start working with Scheme over this summer I don't think I want to get a whole text book and sift through it. I bet it'd just cover a lot of concepts I already know so I just want to get familiar with the language. I'll probably start by completing basic programs just to get a feel (you know the simple average calculators and bla bla just to get a feel for the language) and once I've got that I'll start doing more challenging problems you know. Maybe go through some CCC problems and do them in Scheme or convert some of my final Java ISU's to Scheme. That should take me pretty deep in the language I'd say. I'm not TOO worried about the programming side of UW CS though. I'm more worried about the Math side. Not that I didn't do well it's just I hear from many people that it is challenging so I might try and teach my self of the Math or at least take a look at it.

[nike52]

Two awesome books I'm learning math from and using to prepare for euclid are art of problem solving volume 1 and art of problem solving volume 2. You can buy them here http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Books/AoPS_B_Item.php?item_id=100 79 bucks in total including solutions. Totally worth it. Check out the table of contents they have in volume 2 http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Books/Vol2/toc.pdf The book is as described in the title, it's not like a textbook, they give you the basics and alot of math-contest like problems that will develop your math problem solving skills. If you're stuck, they've got full solutions to the problems.

[Reality Check]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into it.