Second thoughts about CS?

[CodeMonkey2000]

I am current enrolled in 2A CS at UW. Anyway, I am starting to feel totally lost and bored in CS 241. The assignments are starting to take me a while to do, mostly because I'm trying to figure the lecture material from the slides (which are really disorganized and all over the place). Most of my time isn't even spent on doing the assignments, but rather deciphering the slides. The notes aren't that helpful either. In the class I have no idea what the prof is talking about, so I tend to just zone out. We don't even have a text book that goes over things in great detail. But the worst part is that I honestly don't care for the material. The only courses that I am actually enjoying right now is CS 245, CS 251 and MATH 239. I honestly don't know what to do. I think I want to switch into CO, pure math or some sort of engineering. I mean I really enjoy all of my math courses (math 239 is definitely one of my favourite courses), and I really like the stuff we are learning in CS 251, which is all about hardware. Honestly I have no idea what I should do.

Should I consider switching out of CS? Is this the time? Or is it too early, cause I am basing this on a single course.

[jcollins1991]

Well... Most of the stuff done in class is covered in the textbook thats recommended for the course, and in some cases I think the textbook is better just in the way that it covers the material... And the fact that you find the prof boring isn't his fault considering he's working off someone else's lecture material... About the switching, I'm not sure how that'd go, but if you like hardware you could try the digital hardware option for CS and probably be able to use most of the credits you already have...

[Tony]

If you want a detailed textbook on the subject, The Dragon Book is the way to go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Book_%28computer_science%29

I'm surprised it took you this long to come across a prof that you don't like. There are always a select few. CS241 was one of my favourite courses (great prof). The first time I took MATH239 was terrible enough that I dropped it to take later with a different prof; and enjoyed it much more on the second try.

It might be past the drop deadlines now (typically during the midterms), but sometimes this is a valid strategy for getting yourself through challenging courses.

[Horus]

It's not just you, among my friends, none knows what the prof is talking about. He isn't too enthusiastic about this course, always saying that he isn't the one who organized the course.
Just some bad points I hate about the prof:
1. inability to distinguish "there" and "they're"
2. using acronym that when asked what it stands for, replies "I don't know"
3. things he write on the board makes no sense.

My advice is just go to the tutorials, the tutors teaches a lot better than the prof does. In fact I learned all of the stuff from the tutorial.

[jcollins1991]

You can't completely blame him though, he's only a phd student he's not a prof, and you really can't complain that he doesn't know the acronyms... It's like asking someone from another university what PAC or SLC stand for... And I really don't see why people don't understand his lectures, they're all straightforward and simple (and IMO insanely boring), if anyone would bother reading the textbook you'd know exactly what was going on... No comment on the tutorial thing since I've been too lazy to go to those ><...

[mcpherrinm]

CS241 is a funny class in a few ways. You cover a few rather distinct topics in one class. Personally, I had an excellent lecturer, and it was probably my favourite 2nd year CS course (but it isn't much of a contest). The last assignment with the bonus/contest was fun. (If you haven't heard yet: Make your compiler output the smallest binary size). As well, I found the material on regular and context-free languages interesting, though that can be a bit dry.
My least favourite part was probably the parsing assignments, since it was basically "turn pseudo-code into real code", which isn't intellectually interesting.

Computer Science is a varied enough field that you can avoid any of these topics if they bore you though. Consider these topics a guide for what to take in the future, but don't get ready to bail on CS just yet. Of course, there's always lots of chances to take more CO/PMath courses if that interests you. Take graph theory (co 342) or baby groups (pmath 336) or other courses and see if you like them. It'll be harder to get back into CS if you leave it though, and you can take the CO/PMath courses now if you want.

2nd year CS at waterloo is rocky and frequently disorganized and poorly taught. I think it's definitely the low point. (CS246 is probably my least favourite course ever). If you're interested in CS, but only a little unsure, I'd suggest judging more based on CS341/CS350/CS365/CS370, which IMO are all considerably better courses than the ones in 2nd year.

And don't bail from CS because of one bad prof. That's just silly.

[Tony]

mcpherrinm @ Sun Jul 18, 2010 11:14 am wrote:

I'd suggest judging more based on CS341/CS350/CS365/CS370

And at that point, you are almost done with a degree anyway, so might as well just graduate.

[[Gandalf]]

Tony @ 2010-07-18, 12:34 pm wrote:

mcpherrinm @ Sun Jul 18, 2010 11:14 am wrote:

I'd suggest judging more based on CS341/CS350/CS365/CS370

And at that point, you are almost done with a degree anyway, so might as well just graduate.

A very unpleasant dilemma indeed.

The point is, if you don't act now, you're effectively deciding to stick with CS. Do what your heart tells you.