Ics4u?

[MiniMac]

How much of a difference is there between ICS3U and ICS4U? I did take ICS3U and ended up with a 75, I know I could have done better, but my teacher wasn't the best. In any case, we learned Java in ICS3U, and for anyone that has taken ICS4U, it would be great if you could share your experience with this course compared to ICS3U!

Thanks in advance.

[Raknarg]

It really depends on your teacher, and your class. For instance, my class I had a legit computer science teacher, and everyone in my class was pretty advanced for an ICS4U class.

Anyways, for me I loved it. Even though I knew more than almost everyone in my class, I still learned things that were really useful, and it was fun.

Of course we did eventually go into Visual Basic, which I really don't like... but hey, it's practical.

So yeah, I had fun and I learned new things. but like I said before, it depends a lot on your teacher. And if you have a good teacher, and you feel you're getting ahead of the class, get him to teach you new things like I did with my teacher

[mirhagk]

You really can't depend on a teacher for computer sciences, and if you find you are, and you're learning everything from the lessons, then you need to rethink it. My school is lucky to have a self-paced program where our work is all from booklets, with all the information needed to learn the material in there as well. Essentially the teacher is just there to give lessons for those who are too lazy to read, and reiterate things for people who don't understand, which frees them up to actually help people.

[crossley7]

I don't think my experience of ICS 4U is relevant for anyone. My teacher didn't really teach us much and we were free to learn whatever language we want to do the programs we wanted. For instance I used C++, my friends used python and the people following course material used Java.

We were also free to code whatever we felt rather than specific little dumb assignments that teach you basically nothing.

[Raknarg]

@mirhagk Sorry, I forgot that the point of having teachers was for them to make money, not to teach students. My teacher is very knowledgable, and I have no problem having him being my primary source for learning computer science.

And @crossley7 if thats your experience, it doesnt mean teachers are useless, it means you had a bad teacher

[crossley7]

I understand what it means. M teacher was useless within the classroom, yet at the same time he was actually the best teacher I have ever had. I never said he was useless. The curriculum is relatively useless (in my school board at least) and my teacher freed me from it.

The best opportunities I have ever received are because of this teacher and I have him to thank for getting me into comp sci in the first place.

[Raknarg]

That's true, actually. But like in anything else, a good mentor is almost irreplaceable. Or at least in my opinion. You learn much faster than you could on your own, especially if they know what they're doing

[Aange10]

http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/mit-challenge/

[mirhagk]

My compsci teacher was probably the best teacher I've had my entire life. Unfortunately our school combines ICS4U/ICS3U so that it can offer it both semesters, and there are 30 kids in the classroom. With 30 kids, and 2 grades, it's impossible to expect a lot of alone time, but he did a good job of making sure that those who needed it got it, and the rest got at least a little guidance. But the course is well designed such that we don't need someone to hold our hands the entire way. My entire school is about giving students responsibility, which ultimately results in students who can handle university and the real life (the first year university drop out/switch programs rate is MUCH lower from my school than it is for most)

[Raknarg]

frig, everyone seems to have had sub-par stuff for all their classes :/ yeah I can see that

[Aange10]

I've never had any classes =/ (Minus Udacity)

[Raknarg]

Never took it in high school, or are you not there yet?

[Aange10]

I'm a junior, it's not offered in my area. I came to compsci because I administered a server on minecraft; Then I broke off and made my own server with a fellow who programmed in pascal. I confided my desire to code, and he introduced me to turing and then Compsci. I haven't heard a lot from him because he's full time at a University.

Everything I know is from finding it myself or from udacity.


Disclaimer* Finding it myself doesn't mean I literally get every link and every bit of information myself. Rather, it's that I intelligently weigh my resources and then go about finding information; Sometimes it leads to google, sometimes my friends list, and sometimes Compsci. Just depends.

[Raknarg]

See, I had never had any interest in programming cause I had never been exposed, so I just didnt care. I was pulled in when we had an assembly at the end of my grade 9 year where we had some teachers explaining some grade 10 courses being offered. When they brought up computer science, the teacher was just talking about how they were going to make games and stuff. I assumed we would be using some software to make games or something. Turns out it was programming. I hated it at first, because it just didnt make sense. A couple weeks later, things just suddenly clicked, and I understood programming for what it was.

It's an art, something I'm well familiar with. I consider myself an artist, and I rationalized the fact that art is no more than a process where you are given any tools you can find to create a desired product in any way you can. I also like to think of it as a creative logic puzzle, which follows the same rules as art. Those together, and I fell in love with it almost immediately.

I don't program as often as I like, but I get really lazy.

Anyways... that was kindof off topic. Point is, my school and my teachers pointed me towards the right direction and helped me a lot. I try to learn from anyone and anything I can.

[Insectoid]

I took compsci in 10th grade just to see what it was about. Now, I was never bad at school; I got decent grades in every class without trying. I was sorta good at everything, but exceptional at nothing. In compsci I was top of the class. I don't think I was especially good at it, just that everyone else was spectacularly bad. But it was so much fun I'd work on it in my spare time and shoot ahead of the class. I'd often finish assignments before my teacher finished explaining what the assignment was. In 11th grade my teacher was lazy and gave us all accounts for the online course instead of actually teaching us. I finished the whole thing in a month. 12th grade I didn't even do what my teacher told me. The class was taught in Java, which I quickly learned to hate. So I learned Ruby and did all my assignments in that. My teacher didn't care.