Spring 2003
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Intermediate Programming (CSE 120)
Credits: 3
Instructor: Al Verbanec
Registrar’s Description
Systematic programming: top-down program development, documentation, and testing. Introduction to data structures, text processing, numerical methods, algorithm analysis, program verification.
My thoughts: This was a great class. My teacher clearly had a genuine interest in making sure that his students learned. Like English 30, this class was driven almost entirely by programming assignments and hardly at all by tests and quizzes. To compensate for this, he made himself available several nights a week until midnight or whenever students had all their questions answered, whatever came first. Corny as it sounds, I think I learned as much about life and a solid work ethic as I did about programming.
Documents
- Assignment 1 - Performs various functions on a list of words (2 KB, CPP)
- Assignment 1 - Sequences the words (1 KB, CPP)
- Assignment 1 - Header file (973 bytes, H)
- Assignment 2 - Playing around with doubly-linked lists (2 KB, CPP)
- Assignment 2 - Header file (8 KB, H)
- Assignment 3 - Fun with palindromes (807 bytes, CPP)
- Assignment 4 - A world-class maze solver (3 KB, CPP)
- Assignment 4 - A sample maze (198 bytes, TXT)
- Assignment 5 - The first few functions of the final project (6 KB, CPP)
- Assignment 5 - Holiday data (32 bytes, DAT)
- Assignment 5 - Magician data (27 bytes, DAT)
- Assignment 5 - The waiting list (blank to start) (0 bytes, DAT)
- Final project - The best magician scheduler on the market (28 KB, CPP)
- Final project - Holidays (29 bytes, TXT)
- Final project - Magicians (24 bytes, TXT)
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Honors Freshman Composition (ENGL 030)
Credits: 3
Instructor: Gregg Rogers
Registrar’s Description
Writing practice for specially qualified and screened students. Students who have passed a special writing test will qualify for this course.
My thoughts: This class offered me the opportunity to refine my writing style quite a bit. It emphasized clearly making points and backing them up with solid evidence, things I’ve neglected to do at certain times in the past. The class was based almost entirely on writing the five papers (and a revision,) so each one required serious effort and careful planning.
Documents
- In praise of a living person (Steve Jobs) (36 KB, PDF)
- Revision of the encomium, with new arguments (51 KB, PDF)
- Exploring the issue of preemptive military strikes (37 KB, PDF)
- Analyzing the President’s June 2002 speech at West Point (46 KB, PDF)
- Evaluating the feasibility of online voting for IST (48 KB, PDF)
- Recommending a voting policy for IST (35 KB, PDF)
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Organization of Data (IST 210)
Credits: 3
Instructor: Guoray Cai
Registrar’s Description
Introduction to concept of data bases including the storage, manipulation, evaluation, and display of data and related issues.
My thoughts: This class led to a real breakthrough for me. Because of the knowledge of databases that I gained, I was able to think of many ways I could use them myself, including for many parts of this site. I also gained an interest in ASP and PHP, which I taught myself. They are now my preferred way to develop web applications. The class was very high-level at times, but it was a worthwhile experience that really helped me understand what databases are good for.
Documents
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Networking and Telecommunications (IST 220)
Credits: 3
Instructor: James Wang
Registrar’s Description
Introduction to digital network topologies; transmission media; signal modulation; digital packet switching and routing; systems integration; communications management; security.
My thoughts: This class certainly wasn’t easy. Dr. Wang was not concerned with showing us how to set up home networks or, frankly, much of anything practical in nature. Instead, this was at once both a much higher and much lower level look at how networking works. We learned about network architectures, protocols, security, and more from a theoretical perspective, and we really worked on the nitty-gritty aspects of designing networ technologies.
Documents
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Elementary Statistics (STAT 200)
Credits: 4
Instructor: David Wagstaff
Registrar’s Description
Descriptive statistics, frequency distributions, probability, binomial and normal distributions, statistical inference, linear regression, and correlation.
My thoughts: This class was a pretty basic intro to statistics, as you’d expect. We primarily learned how to use Minitab for descriptive statistics and some regression. Much more detailed was covered in STAT 500 during Spring 2005.