Brown CS 190 Summer Placement Test/Course - What are others' experiences?

brownbearz
Thu, 13 Jul 2017 00:42:09 +0000

I made an account just to comment on this. First of all, as a current undergraduate student at Brown studying CS, I am so sorry that this has been your daughter’s experience. This is not at all typical of the Brown CS department and I’m horrified to hear that this is happening (as I’m sure most of my peers would be).

CS19 is commonly touted as the “accelerated” introduction to computer science, as it allows you to skip a second semester of introductory CS - this is the first year that they’ve had a summer pre-course and clearly things are not working.

*** If the feedback that you’re discussing is coming from UTAs, tell her to email the MTAs and CC the head of the department immediately with screenshots of the feedback attached. ****

This is unprofessional, the TAs should be trained to know better than this, and the professor should be held accountable for this behavior. At no point in my own experience have I ever had a TA make a personal attack on me and it’s beyond sickening that this is happening before your daughter has even stepped foot on campus as a freshman.

CS19 is not the only available programming course. CS15 (Introduction to Object Oriented Programming) and CS17 (CS: An Integrated Introduction) are the two largest introductory programming sequences. Both cover the same concepts (albeit in slightly different ways) and both fulfill the same pre-requisites for upper level computer science courses. I strongly, strongly encourage your daughter to give one or both of these a chance during shopping period. CS19 has a wildly different course culture than any other class in the department and I’m angry and frustrated that it’s affecting students before they’ve had an opportunity to see what the department is truly like.

I appreciate that you’re trying to turn this situation into a learning experience, but this should never have been a situation in the first place. Your daughter, regardless of how hard she is or could be trying, should be supported 110% by her TAs the same way that every other undergraduate in the department is. I’m honestly at a loss for words right now. This is not acceptable, this is not the department that I know, and I’m so unbelievably sorry that this has affected how your daughter feels about CS.