Hello!
For this course, a tip I can give is to not be intimidated if others say the course is difficult. There are many people (course assistants, professor, other students) that can help you when you are struggling with the course material, and they are available whenever you need them. What has also personally helped me the most is trial and error: solving problems on my own, and when I make mistakes I remember those mistakes and write the next solution with the mistakes in mind. Also write code both on paper and in python, I write on paper to get comfortable with paper for exams and in python to spot mistakes in the code and better understand what the code is doing. Trust yourself and those around you!
—Fall 2023
Dear fellas,
All the best,
As you are here registered for this course, I hope you will take on it with an open mind and curiosity. If not, I can assure with you that 15-112 will open up many doors for your future accomplishment. So don't take it just to pass. The greatest aspect about 112 is the term project, try to think about it asap, you can start working on your project around half through the semester. And anytime you find something hard, work on it, that maybe an exam question (this is important). The professor and all the TAs are extremely helpful, come to them whenever you are stuck, but not 30 minutes before exam :). Make your journey memorable. The foundations /*mindset and attitude */ that are built now will stay until you graduate, or even further, so try to avoid indolence and bad styles. What is 'bad style'? That is another exam question ^^
—Spring 2023
- Complete homework questions early and review them before quizzes/exams. Homeworks help you practice skills that will be useful for quizzes and exams. While not having the same types of questions, they can help you find patters in ways that you solve problems from the same topics, which helps a lot when you are trying to come up with a solution during an assessment.
- Do past questions. It might be intimidating because of how many questions there are but don't make it your goal to complete everything. Any practice is better than none. There are also ways that you should and shouldn't do the questions:
- While method of doing ROC and Code tracing questions is trivial, you need a specific strategy to practice free response q's. Solving them using a code editor and debugging the code will not help you a lot. Instead, I recommend using NotePad and when you think you have the solution, paste it into a code editor to test it. Tools like vscode simplify code writing a lot and this hinders your ability to write code on paper in a real test.
- Remove all distractions while coding. It's important to 'get in the zone' to focus, so make sure to have all notifications turned off and don't click away onto another tab, as this will reduce your focus back to 0
—Spring 2023