5 ms·

About a third of his class needs to switch to a more challenging course. Every university should have a way to "place out" of introductory programming classes,

About a third of his class needs to switch to a more challenging course. Every university should have a way to "place out" of introductory programming classes, just like you can place out of introductory (natural) language classes if you have previous coursework or are a native speaker. This should be done by demonstrating proficiency in the skills that will be taught in the programming course.

Eliezer 18y ago
Well, sure, if universities were there to teach things, they'd invent ways to teach you using fewer classes. If universities are there to make you take classes until you get a piece of paper, why would they care?
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- neilc 18y ago
  Except that this is a pretty common practice: at most reputable schools, if you can demonstrate you don't need to take an introductory programming class, you can switch to a more advanced class.
  - llimllib 18y ago
    what schools? (I ask because I hope that my school was "reputable" but that was certainly not the case)
    - lincolnq 18y ago
      At Brown (where I went for undergrad), you are normally tracked into an intro course, but if you can convince a professor of a higher-level course to override the prereq, then you can take whatever course you want. I have the sense that most universities will do this given enough prodding; you are, of course, paying them tens of thousands of dollars a semester. Sometimes there won't be an official documented procedure, but I would be surprised if you were qualified for a particular course but couldn't talk your way into it.
      - sofal 18y ago
        I've found that students who breeze by in these introductory classes have no desire to skip over them. Easy semesters are hard to come by. College students generally don't have the attitude of "I'm paying so much for this so I'd better get something worthwhile out of it". They are there for the paper, and they don't feel like rocking the boat. They know this and the system knows this. They are normally so inundated with work from other classes that they're forced to take as many shortcuts as possible.
- albertcardona 18y ago
  ... and charge you for it until your pulled-out pockets can't drop any more coins, or you bank doesn't give you more loans (which is even worse). In my 3rd year undergrad, "Informatics" class was teaching us how to use a mouse and close a window. That, after 2 years of requiring computer-typed project reports, and numerous labs involving computers in numerous ways (labs was the best part of the whole degree, we even got to inject dyes into rat brains and then section and image them). That was (is) the Biology degree from the University of Barcelona.
qqq 18y ago
My first day of programming in college I read the syllabus and told the teacher I'd already done everything on it. They let me switch to the next class.
- froo 18y ago
  My "Introduction to Programming" course I did at Uni dealt with Ada shudder and I remember the very first things they were trying to teach were how to open, close and save files under Windows. I played Quake 3 for first 2 weeks during that class while I waited for something of actual use.
  - jk4930 18y ago
    What's wrong with Ada?

Eliezer 18y ago

Well, sure, if universities were there to teach things, they'd invent ways to teach you using fewer classes. If universities are there to make you take classes until you get a piece of paper, why would they care?

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
neilc 18y ago
Except that this is a pretty common practice: at most reputable schools, if you can demonstrate you don't need to take an introductory programming class, you can switch to a more advanced class.
- llimllib 18y ago
  what schools? (I ask because I hope that my school was "reputable" but that was certainly not the case)
  - lincolnq 18y ago
    At Brown (where I went for undergrad), you are normally tracked into an intro course, but if you can convince a professor of a higher-level course to override the prereq, then you can take whatever course you want. I have the sense that most universities will do this given enough prodding; you are, of course, paying them tens of thousands of dollars a semester. Sometimes there won't be an official documented procedure, but I would be surprised if you were qualified for a particular course but couldn't talk your way into it.
    - sofal 18y ago
      I've found that students who breeze by in these introductory classes have no desire to skip over them. Easy semesters are hard to come by. College students generally don't have the attitude of "I'm paying so much for this so I'd better get something worthwhile out of it". They are there for the paper, and they don't feel like rocking the boat. They know this and the system knows this. They are normally so inundated with work from other classes that they're forced to take as many shortcuts as possible.
albertcardona 18y ago
... and charge you for it until your pulled-out pockets can't drop any more coins, or you bank doesn't give you more loans (which is even worse). In my 3rd year undergrad, "Informatics" class was teaching us how to use a mouse and close a window. That, after 2 years of requiring computer-typed project reports, and numerous labs involving computers in numerous ways (labs was the best part of the whole degree, we even got to inject dyes into rat brains and then section and image them). That was (is) the Biology degree from the University of Barcelona.

qqq 18y ago

My first day of programming in college I read the syllabus and told the teacher I'd already done everything on it. They let me switch to the next class.

froo 18y ago
My "Introduction to Programming" course I did at Uni dealt with Ada shudder and I remember the very first things they were trying to teach were how to open, close and save files under Windows. I played Quake 3 for first 2 weeks during that class while I waited for something of actual use.
- jk4930 18y ago
  What's wrong with Ada?