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What to choose from CMPT?

bitsbytes
edited November 2012 in General
Hi,

I will come for one year as an internation student and I will take some upper division courses in CS. I want to study as a full-time student so I have take 9 credits/ 3 courses every semester.(Am I right?)

For the first semester I am between these 6.. Which are easier/harder, which demand a lot of assigments, which professor is stricter etc...
I have CS background so I do not have problem with programming assigments.

CMPT  300 - Operating Systems I Steven Pearce OR Arrvindh Shriraman
CMPT  307 - Data Structures and Algorithms  Valentine Kabanets
CMPT  310 - Artificial Intelligence Survey James Delgrande

CMPT  354 - Database Systems I Oliver Schulte
CMPT  363 - User Interface Design Anne Lavergne
CMPT  365 - Multimedia Systems Ze-Nian Li

thanks for your time

Comments

  • ryan
    Hardest to easiest as far as I know.

    -CMPT 307 is the hardest
    -300 with Arrvindh is a fair bit of work
    -354, 310, and 300 with pearce are all sort of normal middle of the road. Not a walk in the park, but not really hard either.
    -363 is likely by far the easiest

    I haven't done 365, but from what I have read it sounds like some of the assignments are hard. So it likely falls around 300 with arrvindh.

    Also I believe full time is 12 credits / 4 courses but I could be mistaken.
  • Raymongulati2011
    Full course load is between 9-15 credits (3-5 courses). I recommend you do at least 4 courses. Usually a 3 credit courses only have 4 hours of instructional time a week. 
  • bitsbytes
    I am thinking of taking 3 courses as most of them have lab hours and also a lot of assigments. I am a little bit afraid as it is a total new country/university for me.
  • bitsbytes
    1)  Is CMPT 307 so hard? Why? Assigments?  syllabus?

    2) Maybe I will take     CMPT  300 - Operating Systems  with  Steven Pearce?
    Arrvindh's hours do not fit in my schedule.. Is Pearce ok too?

    I am thinking of taking only these 3  CMPT 300 307 354.. Is it ok? Generally I am aiming in high marks not just pass.!!

  • ryan
    1) 307 varies a bit. It is generally regarded as one of the harder required computer science courses though. here is a course offering from last year http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~kabanets/307/
    It is all about algorithms, paying special attention to their running times. Pretty mathy.

    2) Pearces class will be easier.

    300, 307, and 354 sounds perfectly reasonable.
  • FogellFogell
    Stay away from 363. Its the most useless, and most time-consuming course ever.
  • bitsbytes
    Unfortynately 307 Data Structures is closed now. My enrollement appointment commences on 2 days. So now I am between 365 Multimedia Systemsand and 417 Intelligent Systems..

    What do you suggest?

    Why 363 is so bad? The descrption of the course is realy interesting.And as I am interested in Human Computer Interaction this course sounds good. Is that bad??
  • bitsbytes
    Sorry I was meaning 310 Artificial Intelligence Survey, not 417 intelligent systems
  • FogellFogell
    edited November 2012
    When I took it I was expecting for it to have a more practical component like actually implementing a GUI instead of just focusing on designing one. So I found a lot of the material to be dry and trivial. Maybe it has changed since then.
    If you find the topic interesting then go for it. Its an easy A.
    By the way, homepages of certain courses from previous offerings can also be searched from google. You can look at some of the lecture notes there to get a better idea of what that course is about.

  • bitsbytes
    Hmmm, I can understand what you are trying to say. But on one hand you got an A (an easy one?)  and on the other hand you advise me to stay away and that it is the most useless course ever...
  • FogellFogell
    Like I said, since you find the topic interesting you should take it. In my experience, that usually governs how well I do in a course. So my advice is from experience rather than the actual mark I recieved.
    If you didnt share that interest, I would have advised you to work your tail off to get a good mark in that course, like I had to :P
    Hope that clarifies it for you...
  • bitsbytes
    What about CMPT 404 Cryptography and CMPT 365 Multimedia Systems??
  • ofikey
    CMPT  354 - Database Systems I Oliver Schulte
    ^anyone had Schulte as a prof before? Thinking of taking this with a full course load but his ratings are bad - although RMP hasn't always been the accurate.

    CMPT  363 - User Interface Design     Anne Lavergne
    ^taking this, this semester. Its only useful if you find it interesting, if youre taking it with lavergne be sure that you understand the assignment outlines very clearly - as in VERY CLEARLY. They're super easy, but because of that you need to be explicit in what you mean/are trying to show in your assignment. Her midterm seemed fair enough - no marks back yet though cause of the strike so no idea how people did.

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