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Original post by skittleo And does anyone know, if you transfer colleges, do the dropped classes from your first college show up on your final transcript?

Probably. I think it depends on when you dropped them. If you dropped them after the end of the drop period, so that you get a 'withdrawal', I'd assume they do.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. Taking that class in college really sharpened my mind and improved my ability to think about things more logically. Symbolic logic has actually sporadically been very useful to me in helping break down and think about complex algorithms and relationships. (The class can be tough, though...I was no ace student, I dropped it once as well.)

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And does anyone know, if you transfer colleges, do the dropped classes from your first college show up on your final transcript?

I think it depends on your institution. At UMD the policy was something like if you drop within the first few weeks, it doesn't show up on your transcript, otherwise it does. I'd bet it's similar elsewhere.

As for horrible college class stories...I took an art history class once. I had to drop it, lest my mind melt further watching the professor show us picture after picture of various art objects and say little more than "oh, now isn't this a nice piece of art..." and "this is also a very lovely work of art..." The class was 75 minutes long. I wanted to die.

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Original post by skittleo I'm a week into CSE 260: Discreet Math and this class is utter hell! It's a constant task of proving facts you already know using strange letters and symbols that don't get used outside of Discree Math --- not even in say a hardware design class! Over half the people in my class are taking it for a second time because they failed it.... ugh.

For one, the point of the trivial proofs is for the exercise in proofs. Also, what symbols are you referring to? I can't recall any symbols in my discrete math course that I didn't also use later in an algorithms or later math course (though, my memory may be faulty).

I have to chorus with lancekt in that these kind of courses (really any symbolic/theory course) prove to be an effective grinding wheel for one's mind.

Yeah my first programming class in college.
First day of class teacher was already covering advanced data structures.
By the second week of class the teacher was already covering the entire grammar of the programming language and needless to say everyone in class was lost!
And yeah as long as you drop your class before a certain date it shouldn't show up on transcript. Look it up in your college catalog it should tell you the dates.

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Original post by mhamlin Quote: Original post by skittleo I'm a week into CSE 260: Discreet Math and this class is utter hell! It's a constant task of proving facts you already know using strange letters and symbols that don't get used outside of Discree Math --- not even in say a hardware design class! Over half the people in my class are taking it for a second time because they failed it.... ugh. For one, the point of the trivial proofs is for the exercise in proofs. Also, what symbols are you referring to? I can't recall any symbols in my discrete math course that I didn't also use later in an algorithms or later math course (though, my memory may be faulty). I have to chorus with lancekt in that these kind of courses (really any symbolic/theory course) prove to be an effective grinding wheel for one's mind.

Agreed. Are you referring to the backwards 'A' and 'E' that are read "For all" and "There exists"? If so, they may not be used much in your Computer Science curriculum (apart from the for part [said only slightly tongue-in-cheek]), but you can bet they'll show back up if you take any more advanced math classes.

Horrible college stories? There's always the one about my first roommate freshman year. He was a large guy who attended boxing practice daily. One of the things he did not attend daily was the shower. I was lucky if he bathed once a week, despite his boxing practice and large amount of general BO. His laundering habits were even worse. In the entire semester I roomed with him, he did his laundry once. There was a huge pile of dirty clothes next to his bed; I think he was expecting them to clean themselves with heat and pressure. Sometimes I would hide a battery powered air freshener in the middle of them (true!), only to hear it scream for mercy in the middle of the night (not quite as true). I'd pass the quarter hour I had between classes when he was gone to Febreeze the pile and his bed. He never said anything about it.

It got so bad that I developed a severe allergy to his stench. Friends stopped coming to visit. I had a brief respite when he got jailed for drugs, though.

Then he came back. It was the middle of the night, and I swear up and down that it was his smell that woke me up.

Our room was right next to the front door, where the security guard would sit and inspect room keys. People stopped walking by our side of the hall. The security guards started bringing their own cans of air freshener.

There was also the paper he had me read over for his neuroscience ([attention]) class...

-jouley

I am currently in the second half of a Survey of Computer Science class taught by an older professor. The class isn't hard, and he's a nice guy who seems to know his stuff, but he keeps going over the same things repeatedly. He's taught us things like numeration systems and the difference between OOP and procedural several times already.

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Original post by skittleo I'm a week into CSE 260: Discreet Math and this class is utter hell! It's a constant task of proving facts you already know using strange letters and symbols that don't get used outside of Discree Math --- not even in say a hardware design class! Over half the people in my class are taking it for a second time because they failed it.... ugh. If you have any bad college classes and stories with them, share them now. I need to know what NOT to take! And does anyone know, if you transfer colleges, do the dropped classes from your first college show up on your final transcript?

Actually, hardware design is where I used discrete math the most in college. I taught my mother discrete math when she took it to finish her degree. I use discrete in my daily programming job to decide if I really want to take the hard-coded path or not. Sometimes I use it to prove to my boss that, yes, I really do need a new computer and three monitors.

In short: LOL U NOOB!

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Original post by skittleo If you have any bad college classes and stories with them, share them now. I need to know what NOT to take!

Things not to take:

1. Shit from anyone
2. Dining hall food
3. Fluid dynamics

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Original post by skittleo I'm a week into CSE 260: Discreet Math and this class is utter hell! It's a constant task of proving facts you already know using strange letters and symbols that don't get used outside of Discree Math --- not even in say a hardware design class! Over half the people in my class are taking it for a second time because they failed it.... ugh.

Don't worry, Discrete Math is a breeze once you get used to the operations. It's like learning a new language and once you learn the what the symbols do and how to solve the equations you'll find out that they're really very simple. I found them similar to solving a first or second degree regular equation.

Last crappy course I took: Quantum Physics. Not that I wouldn't find it interesting but this old professor couldn't explain shit and hit it off with some of the ugliest math I ever saw. Deriving the Schrodinger equation when you don't know some basic quantum formulas is hell.

I thought I loved math until I ran into Galois theory. Isomorphisms, inner automorphisms, outer automorphisms, endomorphisms, bijective homomorphisms, ring homomorphisms, diffeomorphisms. I suppose it all makes perfect sense if you speak latin, but for me there were just way too many morphisms.

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As for horrible college class stories...I took an art history class once. I had to drop it, lest my mind melt further watching the professor show us picture after picture of various art objects and say little more than "oh, now isn't this a nice piece of art..." and "this is also a very lovely work of art..." The class was 75 minutes long. I wanted to die.

I'm in the same situation right now. All the teacher does is talk for 90 minutes, describing art. No class discussions or anything just the teacher rambling about some painting. By the end of the lecture more than half of the class has fallen asleep. Unfortunately, the course is requirement for me.

Most of the advanced math classes I took weren't to good. I remember my linear algebra prof was told to use Matlab in class to explain the concepts better to engineers...it looks like he need us to explain Matlab to him.

Information theory was real rough..I had three years in industry rotting my math brain and decided to take information theory when i went back to grad school. We got to practical coding theory stuff like Huffman and the prof said "we are going to skip this because it is just application of theory....."

Don't worry though. If you have problems, then take less classes and sit in on the subject a semester before you take it for a grade...you will be better prepared for the hard classes that way.

I went to a small college in the midwest a long time ago. I had about a B+ average. The only course I ever failed was an introductory Political Science course that was taught by a Korean professor who was notorious for tough grading. My own failure was not worth talking about, but there was a story about him that I later heard from some of the guys who were seniors when I was a Freshman.

This guy had taken the same course. He turned in his first paper, having done about as much work as he usually did on Freshman papers and it came back with an F.

So on his next paper, he decided to really work his ass off. He did tons of research, footnoted everything, had a bunch of references, etc.

When he got the paper back, written across the bottom was:

"Much improved. F+"

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Original post by Ra Things not to take: 1. Shit from anyone 2. Dining hall food 3. Fluid dynamics

Fluid dynamics rocks!!! (my dog's name is going to be Navier)

No... Never take a class called "Controls." There were things in there that just went right over my head.

BTW... The best class I had was one called "Drilling and Blasting." It had a lab hour. We blew shit up.

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Original post by subflood Quote: As for horrible college class stories...I took an art history class once. I had to drop it, lest my mind melt further watching the professor show us picture after picture of various art objects and say little more than "oh, now isn't this a nice piece of art..." and "this is also a very lovely work of art..." The class was 75 minutes long. I wanted to die. I'm in the same situation right now. All the teacher does is talk for 90 minutes, describing art. No class discussions or anything just the teacher rambling about some painting. By the end of the lecture more than half of the class has fallen asleep. Unfortunately, the course is requirement for me.

I'm also in taking an art history class. I must be lucky because it hasn't been too bad so far (I've done one semester and recently began a second semester of it). The teacher does tend to talk a lot, but there's also a lot of classroom discussion. A lot of the class (probably half) actually focuses on the effects art had on history, religion, etc, and the effects history, religion, etc had on art. These parts are, dare I say, actually interesting on occasion. At times it almost feels like I'm taking world history or something.

I went to a community college near Wichita to play ball and took a course on Human Sexuality while attending. It was a pretty in depth class as far as discussions go but they were pretty worthless discussions, the type of discussions that 7th graders hold back on because they know how repulsive and illformed their ideas of sex are and because...well, they're stupid and know that they'll be laughed at.

Most of the class discussion gave my fat horsetoothed slob of a teacher a chance to catch the class up on her latest sexual escapades with her husband, who probably had bigger breasts than she did. (/shudder) However, it was interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) to note how open ended discussion on sex usually returned to the same damn topic every time, 'doggy style'. Apparently that was the sexual premise or the thematic of the class throughout the year. The sum of all our discussion led us to one thing, 'Doggy style'. Not necessarily that Doggy style was good or bad, or that it was pleasurable in its execution...but just 'Doggy style'. Every time it was said there was damn near ovation with applause and aplomb erupting throughout the room...(stfu please!) ...

'All inclusive' discussion in the case of this particular class, probably wasn't a good idea. This got me to thinking...is there a point where open ended discussion becomes bad? Perhaps I can excuse the validity of these discussions as the far removed in -breeding intellectual whims that are only to be found in a community college out in the country...However, I don't really look upon the class as a failure and I believe that the class is indicative of larger scales though I hope to God I am wrong. If so, the class made me realize that many humans don't look upon sexuality as a spiritual vehicle necessarily but rather as a means to experience the physical manifestation of flesh to its fullest for mere moments, and thats it...To me, sex seemed like much more...

If anything, the class made me realize how many humans don't care much to think, but rather to fuck and move on to the next victim... There is a sort of serialized demeanor within that which disgusted me. The level of detachment to the process of sex itself made me look upon other people in a very disgusted way for a bit of time. Not to be elitist, I just found myself becoming repulsed with the mere simplicity and monotonity of it. Sex is awesome but that is not all we can do and certainly not all we should think about and even if it is, there should be more to sex than the physical side of it. To think that fucking is the sum of our abilities as individual humans limits us to feeding from mere troughs...It was disgusting to consider these thoughts at the time...However...

What I realize now after sitting with those thoughts for awhile (long after my days at that college) is that we are all bound to our animalistic nature and its nothing to be ashamed of. It is actually quite delicious to savour our animalism as long as we are also honoring our minds as well, when time permits!

Point being of all this being, what started out initially as a horrible realization on the decadent state of humanity was more of a miscalculation, that was self corrected through application of real life experience. What first appeared to be horrible ending up being beautiful...College was a bit strange for me I suppose.

My discrete match course in college was right after lunch. The professor's lectures were so boring that 3/4 of the class fell asleep each period. The professor himself was kind of interesting, before teaching, he worked for the CIA doing cryptography.

Computational Geometry and BioInformatics were two classes I took in grad school where I had no idea what they were talking about half of the time. Still managed to pass both classes though.

My freshman roommate had to be my worst college experience though. Worst roommate ever!

CSE 260? Discrete math? This wouldn't be the University of Pennsylvania would it? [smile] If so, I took the same class a few years ago and while it was difficult, it's not that bad. I managed to squeeze a C out of it even though I never studied and had practically zero interest in the material (I'm more of an applied math person, and all the theory just bored me to tears). CSE 262 (Computation, Complexity, and Automata) is a lot more fun if you get a chance to take that one. Well, if you're a CSE major you'll have to! It's another hard one, but once you understand the core concepts it's smooth sailing for the most part.

I recommend you take a few graphics courses to balance your load. If you can program simple 3D application in OpenGL and understand basic graphics techniques then you've pretty much guaranteed yourself an A in CSE 460 (Computer Graphics). CSE 462 (Computer Animation) is a little more difficult since it covers more complex things such as transformations, curves, IK, dynamics, etc., but it's still a lot of fun. CIS 665 (GPU Architecture, I'm taking this one currently) is all shader programming, both graphics and general-purpose. It's a lot of fun as well.

If applied math is more your thing, try CSE 313 (Computational Linear Algebra) or ESE 304 (Optimization of Systems). I use things I learned in those classes pretty much all the time, especially linear algebra. ESE 303 (Simulation Stochastic of Systems) is fun since you get to code up a bunch of system simulations in Excel using VBA. It's also a lot of statistics, which I find a lot of fun.

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Original post by Rain 7 Most of the class discussion gave my fat horsetoothed slob of a teacher a chance to catch the class up on her latest sexual escapades with her husband, who probably had bigger breasts than she did. (/shudder) However, it was interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) to note how open ended discussion on sex usually returned to the same damn topic every time, 'doggy style'. Apparently that was the sexual premise or the thematic of the class throughout the year. The sum of all our discussion led us to one thing, 'Doggy style'. Not necessarily that Doggy style was good or bad, or that it was pleasurable in its execution...but just 'Doggy style'. Every time it was said there was damn near ovation with applause and aplomb erupting throughout the room...(stfu please!) ...

Not a college story, but it reminds me of A Game of Thrones. I stopped reading it because it seemed like every other chapter ended in horse sex. I still mean to go back because I hear the horse sex lets up a bit after the first half or so, but then I learned it wasn't a trilogy and actually has no planned ending so it's less appealing to me.

Anyway, the only bad classes I had can be attributed to professors who didn't care about intro level courses or bad professors teaching intro level courses. Come to think of it, I don't really have any horrible college stories, unless "horrible" is refering to my (lack of) story telling ability.