<p>Hoping there’s a CS person here that can answer this.</p>
<p>At my son’s school, Discrete Math is a pre-requisite for Data Structures. He’s planning on taking them concurrently next semester. Is that going to present any problem for him?</p>
<p>He should ask the professors who teach the courses. Data Structures is one of those courses that could be a lot of things.</p>
<p>That probably depends on his math background prior to this. Has he had at least pre-calculus before? How strong is his algebra background? A strong math student can survive this kind of placement, however a weak student is going to drown.</p>
<p>He’s strong in math and programming. He’s taking Calc II this semester and is doing well. He’s going to talk to his professors, but I wanted to get some opinions.</p>
<p>I suspect that most all CS students have taken pre-calc, and have a strong algebra background. So that wouldn’t distinguish riprorin’s son from the other students.</p>
<p>At a guess, he’d be fine. Whatever Discrete Math he needs for Data Structures, he can probably learn on the fly.</p>
<p>I did a quick search and found several schools that allow you to take them concurrently. He is doing a special independent study CS program so he’s pretty industrious.</p>
<p>It sounds like he’s pretty strong in math, so he should just be watchful if there is any particular topic he feels confused or like it’s totally new to him then he should be sure to get some additional resources or see if the professor can be of help. The main thing is not to let something slide and then find yourself in utter confusion because of the math.</p>
<p>There are 3 students in his CS class now, and I suspect there won’t be too many more in the Data Structures class. I think he’ll have the support he needs.</p>
<p>He took Algebra and Geometry in HS concurrently so he has a little experience in taking classes out of the normal sequence.</p>
<p>He could talk to his advisor, or to a prof or TA who teaches the Data structures class for advice. If he does enroll in both, he could give a heads up to the instructor and ask for an idea as to what discrete math topics he will need. D thought discrete math was pretty easy, and she is an adequate but not super math student.</p>
<p>They would not list one as a prerequisite for the other if they did not feel they used stuff learned in the first course in the second course. Some schools don’t let you register for a class if you have not already completed the prerequisite class. So talking to an advisor and/or professor is probably the right thing to so.</p>
<p>I’d be more concerned with the fact that there’s 3 students in a core CS class. Campus recruiting is going to be virtually non-existent if that’s representative of the size of the graduating class.</p>