Minor in CS at UW

[uwactsc]

Hello. I am currently 2nd year actuarial science student at UW. I have a question about course requirement for minor in computer science.
I took CS 115/116 which uses scheme and python (non-object oriented programming courses) and to minor in cs, i need to take CS 230 and 234 which requires object oriented programming experience AND Java (which I never used before). I was wondering if I am able to handle those 2 courses with background in cs 115 and 116 (I know these are the pre-req but I just wanted to make sure).

Thank you!

[Prabhakar Ragde]

It will depend on the instructor. The department is supposed to change those courses so that they are based on 115/116 and not the old Java courses. Whether they will or not is another matter. In general, the CS minor courses are neglected. You can substitute CS major courses (in which you will learn more) but you may have to pay extra fees. It's not a very good situation.

[uwactsc]

Thank you for the reply Prof Ragde.

So what you mean is my background of cs 115/116 will not be sufficient enough to handle current curriculum of cs 230/234? (since it assumes background which i do not have).

I think in order me to substitute for the cs major courses, I do need to take cs 136 since I think that is the pre-req for cs 240/241 (cs-core).

If I knew about these information before, I would have took 135/136 instead. How unfortunate =/ I just assumed cs 115/116 would automatically consider me to minor in cs in later years.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

I'm not saying that 115/116 did not prepare you for 230/234. I'm saying that you can't count on it, because there is no one really paying attention. The instructor for 234 last term used Python, but probably didn't know much about what 116 actually taught. The instructor for 230 this term appears to be using Java.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

Oh, one more thing: 135/136 would not have prepared you for 230/234 in Java, either. 136 uses C. They would have prepared you for 240-241-246-251, but it's not clear that that's the best solution for someone who wants a CS minor. The best solution is a proper CS minor sequence. Furthermore, the same thing I suggest can happen with 230/234 can also happen with the major courses. For example, the 240 instructor in the fall term insisted on using Java, even though no one taking the course had been exposed to it in university.