My C++ CS Class

After teaching myself Python for about a year I decided to go to school for CS. I'm super lucky and got a full scholarship. My first CS class is taught in C++ and even though I know a little bit of C it is a damn experience. We have to code in C++98 in Vim with default linux keys. No strings, no global variables, and the teacher strongly dissuades using Google for help because most answers are above our scope and not in 98. Any thoughts on this curriculum? I get how working like this get us closer to low level engineering but god damn it's definitely an adjustment period.

 

Personally, I think this is dumb, I went through nearly the same thing my first year of college. I currently am in the running to get an internship at Apple and the guy there said literally "Bring all your books and such because you can use them." In the real world, they don't care if you have help, just get the job done. All college is, is memorization.

 

Good luck with your internship man. Looks like I just have to pay my dues.

 

How'd you land a full-scholarship?

 

Much love man, real world isn't college, college is bs on so many levels.

 

Your professor sounds outdated, sorry to hear that.

 

It's interesting, because my prof runs the department and has some insane credentials (CEO of multiple companies, 20+ years teaching experience, lead teams which developed some military and graphic applications for the first time ever.) and supposedly the local megacorps (we have the HQ of three $100B+ tech companies in my city) almost hire graduates on sight. So she must be doing something right. Maybe I just have to deal with a few quarters of weedout classes.

Not to mention you fail the class if you score under a C on any assignment or test :s

 

Tbh I think that may be it, a weed out class.

Tons of people think they have what it takes to be a programmer and they just don't. This isn't to say coding is hard, it isn't, but to make things that are efficient, useful, scale well, and stand the tests of time you need to have at least a small passion for it.

In my first few CS classes 90% of the students failed or dropped out(no exaggeration). Passing on the first try and passing with an A was something all my classmates thought was impossible. It was seriously common for people to take the first 5 classes up to 5 times.

This shocks the students and makes them realize this isn't a joke and if you fall behind you're gonna be left behind. So the ones who want to make it dig in and figure it out.

After these gateway classes my CS classes got easier and more relaxed by far.

So either it's a similar situation for you or your teacher is outdated and it's gonna be a boring as hell 4 years. I had a few assignments that were dated "September 2002" etc and you ask the teachers and they say "oh yeah, I've been assigning this for 15 years".

It's annoying to deal with old technology and have the geezers tell you it's the best when you know it isn't, like C++98 with VIM, that's not what you're gonna be what you use irl. Visual Studio with C++ 11 is what you'll be using. But at the same time, getting down to the metal of things gives you a very valuable perspective that you end up using even on the highest level languages.

 

Thanks for the response man. I'm not super demotivated but pretty determined. Just a little shocking compared to what I'm used to. Not looking forward to next quarter where I take calc 2 and cs 3 congruently. Glad you think it gets easier after.

 

The weed out class in our program was Assembly Language & Machine Code. We used x86 assembly. Some of your other concept classes like Advanced Algorithms may prove challenging too. The thing is, you may never use C++ more than a few times a year depending where you end up working. It's all about the work ethic you build in school. Being able to self start and complete the seemingly impossible task. Just keep your head up and the coffee brewed. Best of luck.

Enjoy the free time school gives you to explore avenues of coding you haven't. You'll miss that time once you start working at a company.

 

update: got 99% in the class, vim still sucks, data structures next

 

Very nice.

Congrats man, glad to hear that. Keep it up.

 

One of my teachers hasn't touched a smartphone or any other smart device in years, apart from his work laptop which he only uses for school related stuff and that's it. Guess there's more funny stuff like that in the IT business

 

I think she's trying to promote a tiny thing yall seem to not seem to get, which is called critical thinking. She's not wrong in trying to get yall to try and think first before working, even more so at the start of your learning journey when almost everything is new to you. What's the difference between sitting down and figuring out how and why a series of c++ functions works, how to properly create and analyse a time-efficient algorithm as opposed to just blindly googling and copying it off the internet? Think about it.

Sure, facebook asks you to google. Of course they do. Because you're already at that level of programming skill. You honestly think the tasks you'll get as a software developer or data analyst can simply be 'googled'? Oh yeah, then why bother going to school amirite? I'll just buy meself a guide on how to use google.com and I'm all set

 

As Ryder mentioned, some companies require that you get the job done, and some require some advanced requirements/skills, and note that experience nowadays has a value more than the degree itself.

Any internship/training will always be useful, C++ is one of the strongest languages out there, I am not with teaching C++ though, but learning basics and fundamentals in any programming language would help you out later on, and most language differ in syntax, and they all derive the same concept and logic.

You might start with Introduction to Programming I/II, Math 101/2, followed by Object oriented programming (OOP) then Data Structures (DS).

Keep on practicing and never ever rely on your lectures/e-book that you were given at the University, they teach you fundamentals which is good & correct, but you will always have to think out of the box, and stay updated with the latest news & technologies.

We can all learn how to code, but not compete, use Google/Stackoverflow for questions related to programming and github in case you have some issues constructing your code.

Use VSCode (for Node) - Jetbrains products (for Java/Python), learn how to use git versioning (Github/Bitbucket) alongside SourceTree, these are common and helpful tools, also make sure how to use public/private key, encryption/decryption use PGP and GPG (check the difference, as it is worth it to learn it), encryption algorithms are nice

If you need any help or if you have any questions, feel free to hit me up!

Best of luck buddy