Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Principles of Computing - Abandoned

I dropped the PoC class. I just came to the realization that I really needed to bone up on Discrete Mathematics before going any further in Computer Science. I found myself increasingly out of time every week, and cutting the math-heavy homework to focus on the mini-project. I'd rather be able to do both and really deeply understand the material than just trying to scrape a decent grade.

I really liked the idea of using the MIT courses, but without a set of answers to the problem sets, it is not clear to me how useful it is. It seems like such a good course too. The recitations and the exams *do* have solutions posted. Perhaps I can find exercises to fill in the gaps.

This seems to be my only option, as Coursera doesn't appear to have anything that will fill my needs any time soon. Doing a quick search isn't turning up any alternatives of the same caliber of the MIT course. Bleh. What is frustrating is that there does appear to be a site with links to solutions, but all password-protected. Rats.

This site had some suggestions ofr courses as well as books. I thought this Discrete Mathematics Book by Epp looked promising, but for $200, I'm going to have to think seriously. Amazon does allow for rentals. Maybe there is a cheap version from the library? The other books in pdf on this site needed Haskell. Not sure I want a programming and mathematics combination.

Hm. It was a lot easier at university. Classes were pre-determined, and all anyone had to do was sign up, pay the crap load of money for the class and books and fees, and then make it through. Piece of cake :)

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