choice between 4 courses

jmk09 · 01-03-2010, 02:30 AM

ok so I still have to choose 1 major course for my spring semester ( electrical and computer engineering major) and I want to pick a software elective so i have the choice between these 4 which one shoudl I take although none are related to the gaming industry..also if more than 1 are helpful If you can tell me which one to pick first in my coming spring semester that would be great ( i can't take yet the operating systems course yet coz it has a pre requisite course that i still haven't taken, i'm taking it in spring) also the last course ( eece 636) is a graduate course that my current data structure and algorithm teacher is encouraging me to take but i'm afraid that a graduate course might have a big work load for me :

EECE 430 Software Engineering 3 cr.
A course that teaches students the formal processes employed for carrying out software projects, including the design, development, testing, and deploying of practical software systems. Students are exposed to the realities involved in developing software for clients and the requirements this imposes on quality, timing, and coordination. Students will develop hands-on experience with practical tools used in real-life applications. The course requires the completion of a group-based real-life software project.

EECE 431 Design and Analysis of Algorithms 3 cr.
This course covers techniques for the design and analysis of efficient algorithms. Topics include: sorting algorithms including merge-sort, quick-sort, and counting-sort; median and order statistics algorithms; sorting lower bound; divide-and-conquer design strategy; polynomial and matrix multiplication algorithms; balanced search trees; hash tables; augmenting data structures; number-theoretic algorithms; dynamic programming; greedy algorithms; graph algorithms including graph traversal algorithms and applications, minimum spanning tree, shortest path algorithms; introduction to NP-completeness and intractability; selected topics.

EECE 432 Operating Systems 3 cr.
This course covers the principles of operating systems and systems programming. The topics discussed in class are processes, threads, concurrency and synchronization, scheduling, deadlocks, memory management, file systems, i/o devices, parallel and distributed systems, and security. The course will be accompanied with hands on assignments involving contemporary linux kernels.

EECE 433 Database Systems 3 cr.
This course covers the nature and purposes of database systems and an introduction to data modeling: entity relationship model, relational model with relational algebra, relational calculus and SQL, integrity constraints, file organization and index files, and normalization.

EECE 636 Software Validation and Programming Practices 3 cr.
This course introduces the basics needed to understand automation techniques for the verification of computing systems. It also introduces modern programming practices such as aspect oriented programming and design patterns. Various state-of-the-art design and validation techniques will be discussed as well as their application to modern programming practices. The students will have the chance to practice and possibly advance these techniques in projects that will expose them to modern software engineering practices such as eXtreme and Agile programming.

jmk09 · 01-03-2010, 02:32 AM

actually it's 5 courses looool

Adrir · 01-03-2010, 07:05 AM

Whichever suits your interests. They all sound useful.

tsloper · 01-03-2010, 08:41 AM

How to make a decision:
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/m70.htm

jmk09 · 01-07-2010, 01:27 PM

Thank you but I think it's the gathering information part that i'm trying to figure out here so how can i use this choosing table without having gathered imformation ?

thank you very much though this will come in handy!

tsloper · 01-07-2010, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmk09

Thank you but I think it's the gathering information part that i'm trying to figure out

1. Go to your school's guidance counselor.
2. Read the stuff on the school website.
3. Contact the department running the course and get the syllabi.
4. Ask other students who've taken those courses.

jmk09 · 01-08-2010, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsloper

1. Go to your school's guidance counselor.
2. Read the stuff on the school website.
3. Contact the department running the course and get the syllabi.
4. Ask other students who've taken those courses.

These were the first things i did...but the department is in no way related to gaming so i thought that one of these courses is more related than others...like i said my teacher recommended me the graduate course but i was hoping that i could choose another one amongst the other 4 for the time being just to get my foot a bit more into software since i've been dealing mostly with hardware.
students also wouldn't understand what i want since they also don't know the link between these courses and game programming.

tsloper · 01-08-2010, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmk09

These were the first things i did...but...

OK, good luck making your decision.

Zooch · 01-13-2010, 09:50 PM

If I had to give bad advice, I would shy away from the Design and Analysis of Algorithms since that typically requires you to know quite a bit of programming (a good understanding of data structures) going into the class.

The reason I call this bad advice is because I don't really know the first thing about you. Good luck in choosing.