From: Sandeep Koranne
Subject: Teaching CS courses
Date: 
Message-ID: <yzwhfetmzyv.fsf@natlab.research.philips.com>
Hello,
I was reading the thread on teaching CS courses and thought
I would like to share my own experiences in this regard.
I did my 4 year B.E. in Computer Science and Engg. 
at MACT, a Regional Engg. College in India.

Although when we entered the college and saw the curriculum
booklet for all 8 semesters, most of the things like
Compiler-Theory and Automata (yes we were given the booklet in 1st 
semester, to feel that we had made the worst mistake by
taking CSE) seemed way out of our reach.
We were a class of 30, straight out of high-school with the usual
courses in Physics, Chemistry and Maths. Most (almost none) of us had
any formal introduction to computers at that time (circa 1993).

I will outline the main main courses that we took below (per semester)
I am writing this as I now firmly believe that we recievd one of the
most complete and thorough introduction to Computer Science and also
related engineering disciplines.

Sem I:
a) Math Review
b) Introduction to Programming (with Pascal) 
   Lots of programs. 
   I have subsequently "learnt" many languages in very short time
   by trying to write that set of GOLDEN programs that I first wrote.
   Recursion was the MAJOR idea we learnt here.
c) General courses on Physics
d) Humanities
e) Mechanical Drawing
f) Electrical Engineering

Sem II:
a) Mechanics
b) Chemistry
c) Civil Engineering
d) Mechanical Drawing II
e) Course on Manufacturing like Welding, forging

Now this may all seem very irrelevant to a CS guy at that time, but
now I think that an Engineer must have at least an idea as to 
what are the other fields, since CS application are mostly used
in other engineering fields. Many of the programs we wrote as projects
at that time were for our friends in other branches.
E.g. Mesh Nodal matrix solution (in Pascal)

Sem III: 
a) Discrete Maths. by C.L.Liu. One of the best texts I have read.
   Many hours were spent in trying to solve the problems at the end.
b) Electronics (now I am in VLSI CAD and wish I had spent more time on this)
c) Programming Lab
d) Data Structures : Insertion into a circular Queue.........and things like
   hashing to AVL Trees
e) Network Analysis
and some more maths courses

Sem IV:
a) Principles of Programming Languages.
   This contained FORTRAN, COBOL, LISP and ALGOL as examples.
b) Digital Electronics
c) Electrical Instruments
d) Operational Amplifiers and Circuits
e) More programing labs..now with C

Sem V:
a) Theory of Computing. Ullman.
   Pumping Lemma and DFA and NFA and e-NFA and these sorts of thigs.
   NP completeness and Turing Machines.
b) Data Base Theory : Date
c) Numerical Methods in Maths : Range Kutta and things like this
   How many bits does one iteration of Newton-Ralpshon improve ?
d) Humanities II   
e) Computer Architecture : Floating point addition, Cache, DMA

Sem VI:
a) Design and Analysis of Algorithms : 
   Divide and Conquer, dynamic programming, greedy algorithms
b) Microprocessors: 8085 and 8086 Lab and theory
c) Computer Graphics : Bresenhams algo
d) Systems Programming: linkers and loaders
e) Minor Project: I did on Assembly (8086)

Sem VII:
a) Local Area Networks
b) Compiler Design (included assigment on Pascal subset compiler)
c) Digital Communication : PCM, PSK and Coding Theory
d) AI and Expert Systems : Project in Lisp and Prolog
f) Major Project : Mine was on Graph Partitioning

Sem VIII:
a) Computer Networks
b) Software Engineering : Spiral model, waterfall model and
   software metrics 
c) Neural Networks : Backword Propagation and Perceptrons.
d) Project Continued

Maybe this post has become too long.
But I just wanted to write that I think that this surriculum
was sufficiently broad and thorough so as to make all 30 of
us better engineers.
There was no course on C, C++ or Java.
But I am able to hold my own in these :)

So I think languages are just a vehicle, one must know 
not only how to drive that particular vehicle, but more 
importantly "road sense" and on top of that :
"where one wants to go today ;)"

Regards,
Sandeep Koranne

-- 
			"Lets Make Things Better"
ED&T Test, WAY 3.37		     		
Philips Research Laboratories			Botstraat, 7
5656 AA, Eindhoven				5654  NL, Eindhoven
The Netherlands 				The Netherlands
Phone: +31-(040)-27 45250			+31-(040)-2573492
Fax  : +31-(040)-27 44626			 
E-mail: ···············@philips.com 
From: Janos Blazi
Subject: Re: Teaching CS courses
Date: 
Message-ID: <38bbd387_2@goliath.newsfeeds.com>
I am impressed. I recently passed the CS state examination (in Germany) and
I think we covered half of the topics at best, you describe.
Janos Blazi

Sandeep Koranne <·······@natlab.research.philips.com> schrieb in im
Newsbeitrag: ···············@natlab.research.philips.com...
> Hello,
> I was reading the thread on teaching CS courses and thought
> I would like to share my own experiences in this regard.
> I did my 4 year B.E. in Computer Science and Engg.
> at MACT, a Regional Engg. College in India.
>
> Although when we entered the college and saw the curriculum
> booklet for all 8 semesters, most of the things like
> Compiler-Theory and Automata (yes we were given the booklet in 1st
> semester, to feel that we had made the worst mistake by
> taking CSE) seemed way out of our reach.
> We were a class of 30, straight out of high-school with the usual
> courses in Physics, Chemistry and Maths. Most (almost none) of us had
> any formal introduction to computers at that time (circa 1993).
>
> I will outline the main main courses that we took below (per semester)
> I am writing this as I now firmly believe that we recievd one of the
> most complete and thorough introduction to Computer Science and also
> related engineering disciplines.
>
> Sem I:
> a) Math Review
> b) Introduction to Programming (with Pascal)
>    Lots of programs.
>    I have subsequently "learnt" many languages in very short time
>    by trying to write that set of GOLDEN programs that I first wrote.
>    Recursion was the MAJOR idea we learnt here.
> c) General courses on Physics
> d) Humanities
> e) Mechanical Drawing
> f) Electrical Engineering
>
> Sem II:
> a) Mechanics
> b) Chemistry
> c) Civil Engineering
> d) Mechanical Drawing II
> e) Course on Manufacturing like Welding, forging
>
> Now this may all seem very irrelevant to a CS guy at that time, but
> now I think that an Engineer must have at least an idea as to
> what are the other fields, since CS application are mostly used
> in other engineering fields. Many of the programs we wrote as projects
> at that time were for our friends in other branches.
> E.g. Mesh Nodal matrix solution (in Pascal)
>
> Sem III:
> a) Discrete Maths. by C.L.Liu. One of the best texts I have read.
>    Many hours were spent in trying to solve the problems at the end.
> b) Electronics (now I am in VLSI CAD and wish I had spent more time on
this)
> c) Programming Lab
> d) Data Structures : Insertion into a circular Queue.........and things
like
>    hashing to AVL Trees
> e) Network Analysis
> and some more maths courses
>
> Sem IV:
> a) Principles of Programming Languages.
>    This contained FORTRAN, COBOL, LISP and ALGOL as examples.
> b) Digital Electronics
> c) Electrical Instruments
> d) Operational Amplifiers and Circuits
> e) More programing labs..now with C
>
> Sem V:
> a) Theory of Computing. Ullman.
>    Pumping Lemma and DFA and NFA and e-NFA and these sorts of thigs.
>    NP completeness and Turing Machines.
> b) Data Base Theory : Date
> c) Numerical Methods in Maths : Range Kutta and things like this
>    How many bits does one iteration of Newton-Ralpshon improve ?
> d) Humanities II
> e) Computer Architecture : Floating point addition, Cache, DMA
>
> Sem VI:
> a) Design and Analysis of Algorithms :
>    Divide and Conquer, dynamic programming, greedy algorithms
> b) Microprocessors: 8085 and 8086 Lab and theory
> c) Computer Graphics : Bresenhams algo
> d) Systems Programming: linkers and loaders
> e) Minor Project: I did on Assembly (8086)
>
> Sem VII:
> a) Local Area Networks
> b) Compiler Design (included assigment on Pascal subset compiler)
> c) Digital Communication : PCM, PSK and Coding Theory
> d) AI and Expert Systems : Project in Lisp and Prolog
> f) Major Project : Mine was on Graph Partitioning
>
> Sem VIII:
> a) Computer Networks
> b) Software Engineering : Spiral model, waterfall model and
>    software metrics
> c) Neural Networks : Backword Propagation and Perceptrons.
> d) Project Continued
>
> Maybe this post has become too long.
> But I just wanted to write that I think that this surriculum
> was sufficiently broad and thorough so as to make all 30 of
> us better engineers.
> There was no course on C, C++ or Java.
> But I am able to hold my own in these :)
>
> So I think languages are just a vehicle, one must know
> not only how to drive that particular vehicle, but more
> importantly "road sense" and on top of that :
> "where one wants to go today ;)"
>
> Regards,
> Sandeep Koranne
>
> --
> "Lets Make Things Better"
> ED&T Test, WAY 3.37
> Philips Research Laboratories Botstraat, 7
> 5656 AA, Eindhoven 5654  NL, Eindhoven
> The Netherlands The Netherlands
> Phone: +31-(040)-27 45250 +31-(040)-2573492
> Fax  : +31-(040)-27 44626
> E-mail: ···············@philips.com




-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----