Since I’m in my last term here at OSU, I figured I’d go back through a few of my favorite courses and talk about what I appreciated about them:
CS 325 – Analysis of Algorithms
Despite being relatively difficult, courses like this are what set apart “computer science” from “coding”. Algorithms in general typically aren’t complicated to understand when you see them in action. Nor are they too difficult to learn how to implement. But understanding why one algorithm may be more efficient or appropriate than another requires much more than just knowing how to write code that “works”, and that’s what you really learn in this class.
CS 473 – Introduction to Digital Forensics
This course had a really fun progression where each student was basically a detective involved in a fictional criminal investigation. I thought it was a great way to learn the digital forensics process, plus keep students engaged. I also really appreciated that it covered a good bit about the legal system, as well as real-world situations involving digital forensics. It’s hard to truly gauge the class’s difficulty because my IT background already had me familiar with the structure and inner workings of Windows, which let me skip a decent chunk of the material. There is a good amount of writing involved, though, so even someone familiar with all of the course materials would still have a decent amount of work to do.
CS 374 – Operating Systems I
This is supposed to be in contention for the most difficult course in the program, and the way it gets talked about in the online student community built up a good amount of worry in my head. All I heard were stories about how large numbers of students drop out of the course after the first assignment or that it’s a course that should be taken on its own during a term. While I don’t think the learning-related structure of the course was all that great, the actual method of completing the course was pretty fair, I’d say. We were given plenty of time to do each assignment, as well as unlimited attempts to get our code working through Gradescope. It’s definitely one of those courses where you have to go and figure a lot of things out on your own and/or ask a lot of questions, which many students definitely did. I’m pretty sure it had the most active Ed Discussion board of any course I’ve taken. So, yeah, this is more of a meta-favorite course of mine. While I didn’t love the course itself, the rumors made me think it was going to be ridiculously difficult and, while it was tough, it wasn’t as bad as I expected, which was a huge relief.
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