What class in college did you get the most out of? • Hacker News Board

Re: What class in college did you get the most out of?

#21

Post by alex_c » Fri, Sep 21, 2007, 2:20 AM UTC

Operating systems and compilers/compiler optimization.

Computer graphics, but that's not necessarily interesting/useful to everyone.

U of T has a 4th year course called "Computer Architecture" which brought together concepts from almost all the other computer courses and which I enjoyed immensely.

Re: What class in college did you get the most out of?

#22

Post by creynolds » Fri, Sep 21, 2007, 2:33 AM UTC

Forget the class, find the best teacher. (Just reiterating what people are saying here) My best class was Entrepreneurship II, just because the teacher was great and taught from personal experiences.

Re: What class in college did you get the most out of?

#23

Post by steve » Fri, Sep 21, 2007, 2:34 AM UTC

Senior project, of course.

Most all of the undergraduate courses focused on analysis. I hated that! Let me design stuff already!

Re: What class in college did you get the most out of?

#24

Post by yters » Fri, Sep 21, 2007, 3:13 AM UTC

A classical education instead of GE: intense reading of the classics, 6-9 hours of intense discussion/debate with your peers, & a thesis every semester.

Re: What class in college did you get the most out of?

#25

Post by kingnothing » Fri, Sep 21, 2007, 3:15 AM UTC

I thoroughly enjoyed Business Law, Microeconomics, and an intro to Psychology course. Everyone should probably take psych and an economics class in order to understand people and the world in which we live. B law was great for critical thinking and I learned a good bit about the law as well.

Re: What class in college did you get the most out of?

#26

Post by bluishgreen » Fri, Sep 21, 2007, 3:20 AM UTC

For me the best way to learn has been to do projects in the subject. Not a class. Never. If it is new math, I need to work out some interesting problems using it. Everything that I know I learnt on my own. Some interesting teachers helped put the spark. But thats all teachers can do. Spark you. You have to do the burning, for which you basically have to like learning.Just don't care about if it is useful later or not. Thats not how knowledge is structured. Go with the fun. If stat mech is fun, why not.

Re: What class in college did you get the most out of?

#27

Post by kingnothing » Fri, Sep 21, 2007, 3:22 AM UTC

far33d wrote: post #13

rms wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how many credits your OS course was. I have friends at CMU and OS is a 12 credit class. You build a Unix-like kernel from scratch with a partner. An "A" in OS guarantees a six figure programming job at graduation.

It was 1.5. The lab was .5 credit (a class a credit where I went). It was, as far as I know, the only class in the whole university where the lab was a separately credited part. Organic Chem - 1 credit. OS - 1.5

So, for both of you, those numbers don't mean much to the rest of us.

How many credit hours is considered a full time load at your schools?

Re: What class in college did you get the most out of?

#28

Post by far33d » Fri, Sep 21, 2007, 3:45 AM UTC

kingnothing wrote: post #27

far33d wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was 1.5. The lab was .5 credit (a class a credit where I went). It was, as far as I know, the only class in the whole university where the lab was a separately credited part. Organic Chem - 1 credit. OS - 1.5

So, for both of you, those numbers don't mean much to the rest of us. How many credit hours is considered a full time load at your schools?

4-5

Re: What class in college did you get the most out of?

#29

Post by dfranke » Fri, Sep 21, 2007, 3:50 AM UTC

Compilers; Programming Language Principles; Database Implementation.

Re: What class in college did you get the most out of?

#30

Post by rms » Fri, Sep 21, 2007, 3:50 AM UTC

kingnothing wrote: post #27

far33d wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was 1.5. The lab was .5 credit (a class a credit where I went). It was, as far as I know, the only class in the whole university where the lab was a separately credited part. Organic Chem - 1 credit. OS - 1.5

So, for both of you, those numbers don't mean much to the rest of us. How many credit hours is considered a full time load at your schools?

At CMU OS is actually a 36 unit course, which can be converted to 12 credits at most USA schools, where 12 credits is full time, 15 credits is normal, and 18 credits is the max.

So the CMU OS course is equivalent to four normal classes.