<p>To any undergrad cs students at uiuc: How rigorous is the coursework? I’m visiting campus right now, and I had just sat in on a Fundamental Algorithms class. I’m taking a data structures course in high school right now, and I actually knew some of the stuff they we’re going over in class (eg, dynamic programming, prim’s algorithm, other graph theory stuff). Now, there was a lot of stuff that was still over my head, but apparently the class was all seniors? Not to sound cocky or condescending, but it seemed like that kind of a course would be do-able as a freshman/sophomore if you came in with some programming experience? Am I just underestimating the difficulty of the course and the parts of it that I didn’t understand?</p>
<p>bump, im in the same position too</p>
<p>Junior in CS here. To get a real feel for the difficulty of CS 473, look at the notes, exams, homeworks, and discussion section handouts here: [Jeff</a> Erickson’s Algorithms Course Materials](<a href=“http://compgeom.cs.uiuc.edu/~jeffe/teaching/algorithms/]Jeff”>http://compgeom.cs.uiuc.edu/~jeffe/teaching/algorithms/) . The averages on midterms is quite low… I know that for CS 446 (machine learning) it’s about 40%, and for CS 373 it was 51% this semester. The people I talk to in 473 say it takes about 20 hours a week to complete the problem sets… perhaps more. The 373 work is quite difficult (homework here: [CS</a> 373 Homework](<a href=“http://www.cs.illinois.edu/class/sp11/cs373/hw.html]CS”>http://www.cs.illinois.edu/class/sp11/cs373/hw.html)).</p>
<p>That said, I have very mixed feelings about the curriculum here. I think the rigor at MIT, CMU, and Stanford is certainly higher, even if UIUC officially ranks along these schools. However, I feel this is because UIUC often doesn’t really force you to learn everything being taught (exams and homework are not too difficult in many classes). But… I think if you take your studies really seriously and actually do a lot of study and recommended reading (example: in CS 473 Erickson’s lecture notes are 800 pages), you’ll be in a good position.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, other than CS 242, and perhaps some classes at the 400 level, the classes won’t make you into a good programmer… for this you absolutely need outside practice. You learn Java, C, C++ in CS 125, 241, 225 respectively but only that which is required to do the machine problems.</p>
<p>I ought to write everything I think somewhere but here are a few things I’d tell my freshmen self, now that I’ve been here a while:
-Make lots of friends, because you’ll eventually have to do group projects with people and the work will eventually get difficult
-In general, avoid the electives that lots of people take (those in Siebel 1404)!.. I’ve taken CS 411 and CS 412 and regret taking both… after taking CS 241/225, if you want to learn a lot take the classes that have limits of 30-50 people, like CS 423, 438, 425, classes under CS 498, etc. The professors I had for 411 and 412 I didn’t really like, so perhaps ask around and/or use ratemyprofessor.
-If you know Java and a little bit of CS theory (like sorting algorithms) (perhaps you took AP CS A or AB in high school), at the beginning of the fall go to past CS 125 web pages, study, then take the proficiency exam for CS 125, because you’ll likely find the class very easy. Really wish I had done this…
-Take advantage of engineering career services and the events at Siebel. You can probably get a lot of interview experience as a freshmen even if you don’t expect to ever get hired for anything.</p>
<p>So as far as rigor, if you’re self-motivated and want to learn, the difference from MIT/CMU/Stanford won’t really matter too much? And so wait, you can place out of CS 125 w/ a proficiency test? I have taken AP CS and according to the site that gets you CS “100” credit (which I imagine means 101, 105, etc?), but I didn’t see anything about being able to place out of other stuff.</p>
<p>@shazeline
by being in the same situation, did you mean that you were also in the fundamental algorithms class this morning?</p>
<p>I haven’t attended MIT/CMU/Stanford, but that’s the impression I get. If the cost is the same though, I think I’d rather be at one of those other 3.</p>
<p>That’s right, you don’t get credit for it automatically, but for some classes there will be a proficiency test offered very, very early in the semester. If you get a certain grade on the test, I believe you get the requirement taken care of but no campus hours or GPA hours.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that even when classes say they have prerequisites, these are not actually enforced on the registration site, and often the prereqs aren’t needed… though if they are, it’s okay because you can just drop until a certain date.</p>
<p>@alecbenzer: haha. i see how “position” could be taken literally in that way. but no, i was implying that i had the same questions as the op</p>