Ask HN: What are your thoughts on the Syllabi of these online CS courses?

1 pointscaptainzidgel5y ago1 comments

Been out of school for 3 years, working at Walmart and they have a benefit that will basically pay for all my schooling for participating programs.

I've narrowed it to these two programs by virtue of the deadline to apply not being in the next 4 days, but the start date not being 4 months from now.

Southern New Hampshire Uni: https://www.snhu.edu/admission/academic-catalogs/coce-catalog#/programs/V1S14E8tg/none?bc=true&bcCurrent=Computer%20Science%20(BS)&bcGroup=STEM&bcItemType=programs

Wilmington Uni: https://www.wilmu.edu/technology/computer-science-curriculum.aspx

I'd have to take a readiness assessment before applying to Wilmington, so if I fail that it makes the choice easier, but otherwise I don't really know. I would also have to choose a concentration for either program, but that will probably be easier.

Looking at the syllabus, it looks like Wilmington Gen Ed requires less (relatively) higher math, which would be attractive to me because the last math class I took was Alg 1 3-4 years ago and I don't want to get bodied.

What are your immediate thoughts? (I guess I should probably state my education goals - get an employable degree and learn cool stuff along the way, the gen ed might actually be more valuable to me than the CS stuff spending 1 hour lessons explaining what a function is)

1 comments

brudgers5y ago

A word of caution. A lot of college classes start deceptively easy, e.g. "one hour on what a function is" but ramp up quickly to where success on week four's quiz is truly a matter of having done the homework and devoting time to study.

It's better to assume you don't know much about the subject from day one. If the first week studying only takes a half hour, spend the other five and half hours getting ahead on future weeks.

Good luck.

captainzidgelOP5y ago

Thank you for the caution. I will need to make sure my expectations on difficulty are appropriate or mental roadblocks will cause me to give up too easily.

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