What class in college did you get the most out of?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=57687

by aswanson • 19 years ago

13 58 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

If you would recommend one or two classes to anyone, what would they be?

rms5• 19 years ago

I've had three full years in college now and I was thinking how sad it was that I couldn't think of a single class that I would actually recommend to anyone. But then I remembered that I got 3 credits for going to China for two weeks and writing 25 pages about Lenovo with 3 other people. I would recommend that class.

german• 19 years ago

I would not recommend any class, but surely I would recommend a few teachers, the kind of teacher that let you think by yourself, that inspires you to create something new. The kind of teacher that teaches you something but encourages you to find a better way.

I think that's the point. Classes are as great as teachers make them! So find a great teacher and you'll have your best class ever.

aswanson3• 19 years ago

The right friends do this too.

wyday• 19 years ago

Linearity: You need a friendly helpful teacher for this one. The class comes in use when you need to solve multiple iterations of a particular calculation. For instance, triangulation is a cinch now that I've taken Linearity.

English literature: It's fun to read the classics and compare them to how politicians and blogs cherry pick and bastardize quotes.

rickcecil• 19 years ago

But, I would say, you have to take it with the right teacher...someone who pushes you to find your own understanding of the literature. This usually doesn't happen until the 300 and 400 level courses.

gwenhwyfaer• 19 years ago

I was always in the library, because I had no interest in what I was being taught, and (I didn't realise it then, but) I couldn't bear being in a roomful of people for lectures. I wish I'd done something like an Open University (is there a US equivalent to this organisation?) course instead.

far33d5• 19 years ago

Operating Systems.

And if you have a chance to TA, do it. You learn a lot more by teaching than you do by being taught.

rms5• 19 years ago

I'm curious how many credits your OS course was. I have friends at CMU and OS is a 12 credit class. You build a Unix-like kernel from scratch with a partner. An "A" in OS guarantees a six figure programming job at graduation.

far33d5• 19 years ago

It was 1.5. The lab was .5 credit (a class a credit where I went). It was, as far as I know, the only class in the whole university where the lab was a separately credited part.

Organic Chem - 1 credit.

OS - 1.5

nostrademons3• 19 years ago

I'd also recommend the other two of the "big three" computer science electives - Compiler Design, and Computer Graphics. You can skip most of the rest of the CS major, but no matter how good a programmer you think you are, you'll get something out of those 3 courses.

And I'll second the bit about TAing, though my experience was in physics rather than CS. Being a physics lab TA is cool...you get to play with all sorts of stuff. (Heck, taking physics labs is cool, though the lab reports are not so cool.)

rms5• 19 years ago

My school, the University of Pittsburgh, somehow tricked the accreditation board into thinking that our physics computer labs (where we solved problems that were typed into Excel) were equivalent to an actual physics lab.

far33d5• 19 years ago

I was a graphics geek in college... you could skip it, but you'd be skipping some really fun code.

But OS... if you don't know that stuff you're basically worthless.

aswanson3• 19 years ago

Is Statistical Mechanics worth learning?

moonman• 19 years ago

This class involved bantering about nothing and and absolutely everything at the same time. It was a small class (usually 3 unique friends that I had just met). And the format was twice a week/discussion. I think it was called: Late-night/post party/stupid drunk/socio-political seminar 101. Take it. Seriously.

axiom• 19 years ago

Most useful: Linear algebra, Numerical methods, Stats and probability

Most interesting: Control systems, Abstract algebra, Real analysis, Complex analysis

Of course my definition of "useful" is not necessarily yours. I'm much more on the research side of things, and having a solid mathematical foundation is absolutely essential there. My advice for taking courses in college: take courses that you know will be useful, but you will not have the time to teach to yourself. If you're a true nerd you will learn all the really useful stuff on your own anyway, and you don't need university for that.

nostrademons3• 19 years ago

I had a bunch of courses that I really liked in college:

Tonal Harmony and Counterpoint, aka "Harmonize this melody in 4-part harmony" - where you find that there are intricate rules to music, and what you hear on the radio is the result of centuries of evolution in what's considered "acceptable" music. (Or, if you listen to punk rock, the result of breaking nearly every rule for kicks.)

Intro Geology, aka "Rocks for Jocks" (it's funny though; the English-major jocks always struggled in this class, while us one or two physics majors were like "pish, this is easy") - where you play with lots of rocks and go on lots of field trips. I found it surprisingly interesting.

Sustainable Agriculture, aka "This hippy bio professor got a grant for teaching enviro-friendly stuff" - where you learn that there is shit in the meat, and we're all gonna starve when the oil runs out.

Also really liked my philosophy courses, General Relativity, Game Theory, and perhaps Mathematical Logic (though I found that one really hard).

ericb• 19 years ago

I took a class titled "Entrepreneurship" when I was in college about 10 years ago. Every other week a different entrepreneur spoke. The founder of Jolt Cola came in and told us "we love water [as a market]--it comes out of the tap, and you can sell it for a dollar a bottle." He also showed us one of their big-sellers: Americola--sold ONLY in Japan, with a picture of the Statue of Liberty on the can. That was the moment I realized how twisted marketing can be.

Goladus2• 19 years ago

If I had one recommendation, it would be to keep practicing any math you learn while in college. If you're like me, you basically had math classes every semester from when you were 6 years old until the end of college, and you take for granted how much you will be able to forget in 5 years without practice.

The classes I got the most out of aren't the ones I'd necessarily recommend. Whether I got a lot out of a class depended on lot on what the rest of my schedule looked like at the time (besides variables like professor and class makeup). If I was taking 12 credits, I'd tend to get a lot out of all of them. If I was taking 18 plus being a treasurer of a singing group and planning a trip to Europe, I wouldn't learn as much.

Sometimes, I'd get a lot of knowledge out of a class, but the perspective and wisdom wouldn't come until later. I learned how to write a fugue in '18th century counterpoint.' Like the Zelda one on this page:

http://www.goladus.com/music/musicpage.php

But it wasn't until I'd been out of college a few years that I figured out how to write a coherent piece that was longer than a minute or so (not counting fugues, which I could still write if I wanted to).

Here's some more: http://www.myspace.com/gadolus

As you can see I really have no idea how to promote music. That might be something I'd recommend a music major learn about.

Others, like Theory of Computation, I loved but because I didn't find any use for it in the first few years after college, I forgot a lot. I still get the basic concepts of nondeterminism and context-free grammars and such, but I'm having to basically relearn all the useful stuff.

aswanson3• 19 years ago

>As you can see I really have no idea how to promote music.

On the other hand, unlike many people who do, you know how to make music. Serious talent. How long have you been doing it?

Goladus2• 19 years ago

I started plunking out twinkle twinkle and star wars on the organ when I was 4 or 5 or something. I started saxophone lessons in 4th grade, piano in 5th grade. I 'wrote' one piece as an exercise while taking piano. My teacher gave me a chord progression and I came up with a few patterns that sounded an awful lot like the overworld music in Final Fantasy IV. I stopped piano after 9th grade and did drama and choir instead. I sang in a Vocal Jazz ensemble, and played sax in the Jazz band, and had lots of opportunity to improvise.

In college my introductory computer science classes were really boring and easy, while the introductory music classes were challenging and interesting. Sophomore year I declared a double major in Music Theory. I took composition lessons for 1 or 2 semesters, I can't remember exactly, but I didn't get much out of them. Two of the "Three Short Pieces for Piano" were written in lessons. Writing for class was really hard, because I felt like I had to please the professor, though he tried to tell me to write whatever I wanted. I agonized over every detail, which got discouraging, because usually there was no correct answer. I also had huge confidence problems because of the rigid, mathematical way I thought music should be appreciated. That is, I thought there was no way I could ever come up with anything original, and I thought original==good.

One day a few years ago, after listening to dozens of Mozart pieces dozens of times, hearing how amazing it was, and knowing how many people poo pooh'd Mozart for using predictable harmonic progressions; I said 'screw it, I'm writing a classical sonata and don't care how unoriginal it turns out to be.' I did it because that's what I liked and that's what I wanted to write. I've had a lot of fun since then, though I haven't made any money.

alex_c• 19 years ago

Operating systems and compilers/compiler optimization.

Computer graphics, but that's not necessarily interesting/useful to everyone.

U of T has a 4th year course called "Computer Architecture" which brought together concepts from almost all the other computer courses and which I enjoyed immensely.

creynolds• 19 years ago

Forget the class, find the best teacher. (Just reiterating what people are saying here) My best class was Entrepreneurship II, just because the teacher was great and taught from personal experiences.

steve• 19 years ago

Senior project, of course.

Most all of the undergraduate courses focused on analysis. I hated that! Let me design stuff already!

yters• 19 years ago

A classical education instead of GE: intense reading of the classics, 6-9 hours of intense discussion/debate with your peers, & a thesis every semester.

kingnothing2• 19 years ago

I thoroughly enjoyed Business Law, Microeconomics, and an intro to Psychology course. Everyone should probably take psych and an economics class in order to understand people and the world in which we live. B law was great for critical thinking and I learned a good bit about the law as well.

bluishgreen• 19 years ago

For me the best way to learn has been to do projects in the subject. Not a class. Never. If it is new math, I need to work out some interesting problems using it. Everything that I know I learnt on my own. Some interesting teachers helped put the spark. But thats all teachers can do. Spark you. You have to do the burning, for which you basically have to like learning.Just don't care about if it is useful later or not. Thats not how knowledge is structured. Go with the fun. If stat mech is fun, why not.

dfranke• 19 years ago

Compilers; Programming Language Principles; Database Implementation.

jamiequint• 19 years ago

Advanced Microprocessor Interfacing and Communication (AKA Robotics!)

zaidf• 19 years ago

My AP Eng. teacher had a one-one talk with me on day 2 of class about her expectations--and how much I had slacked on the first homework assignment. For once a teacher that didn't rubberstamp everything you turned in. I went from hating English to loving that class.

Alex39172• 19 years ago

Not a specific class, but I've really enjoyed taking the various speaker series. These are one credit classes where we just get a different speaker each week. This semester I'm actually taking Women & Entrepreneurship. It's basically 60 women and me. They like having me around though so it works out.

far33d5• 19 years ago

I'm sure you like having them around more :)

viergroupie• 19 years ago

Theory of Computation - this was really a grab bag of discrete math. We covered a little of automata theory, complexity, graph theory, and even abstract algebra. The problem sets were really hard, it felt like weight-lifting for my brain.

Molecular Biology - the material itself was a bit dry, but taken as a whole it completely changed my understanding of life as a dynamic process.

altay• 19 years ago

oil painting. taught me to look at the world in a whole different way. and inspired me to change my major.

(i'm not saying this to win points with PG. i actually find hacking pretty different from painting.)

more generally, stretch out into different disciplines. these days, most of the interesting stuff happens at the intersections. plus, you'll meet a lot of interesting folks whose paths would never cross with yours otherwise.

kirse• 19 years ago

1) Technical Writing 2) Project Management

A tie for most useful... Both courses have been far more practical than my actual technical capabilities. The first one taught me how to effectively tailor my ideas to my audience, and the second taught me how to take an idea from start to finish.

rkabir• 19 years ago

Human Intelligence Enterprise: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Compute...

wlievens• 19 years ago

My Compilers introductory course. But that's probably because I work on a compiler in my actual job right now.

I also really enjoyed my computational geometry class.

But the first poster is right: good teachers are at least if not way more important than interesting classes.

brianmckenzie• 19 years ago

History of Science.

Granted, it's not a math or CS course, but nothing has better informed the way I think about problems, technical and political. It might as well be called 'History of Problems'.

pramodbiligiri2• 19 years ago

Absolutely! It's a shame that students never learn how "science" evolves.

Retric• 19 years ago

Nod, I loved "History of Math" it traced the methods people used to solve problems though time.

The strangest part was how interconnected mathematical understanding is with the rest of society. EX: Try and run a bank without basic algebra.

pramodbiligiri2• 19 years ago

I'd recommend Discrete Math, Economics, History of Science.

davidw• 19 years ago

Italian, because I wanted to go live there. It was one of the best and most important things in my life, as I met my wife there. Learning a language and living "somewhere else" is a great experience - and I think the two should be combined. Learning a language feels pointless until you have real, live people in front of you, that you can communicate with only if you can speak their language.

cdr• 19 years ago

How much you get out of a class depends a lot upon the professor, I think.

I got the most out of my Software Engineering courses - Testing, Usability, Systems, etc.

They are usually team-based, are reasonably rigorous, and have generally good professors.

awt2• 19 years ago

Creative Non-fiction

Alex39172• 19 years ago

After an entire semester of that class I still fail to grasp what exactly a non-fiction essay is. So far as I could tell, it's only an essay if you write about how your parents were alcoholics, how you were beaten as a child, or how you live with a terrible illness. Needless to say no one liked the stuff I wrote and I didn't do very well.

awt2• 19 years ago

I think it is just recounting "the facts" in narrative form.

leahn• 19 years ago

Data Structures and Algebra. Data Structures hold a nice start for algorithms and Algebra will teach you how math works, and ends with cryptography.

henning• 19 years ago

"Topics in X" courses where you pretty much got to do whatever you wanted and then you wrote a report and gave a presentation about it, exploring what you wanted to with advice from the professor.

Somewhere in there is an argument for constructionist education a la Piaget et al.

samb• 19 years ago

I only went to college for 2 weeks, but I enjoyed sculpture. Everything else seemed like a bad joke.

gills• 19 years ago

History of Imperialism

Ethics

Remember that cheesy line from Spiderman about great power bringing great responsibility? In the event that great intellect allows a person to attain wealth and/or power, I would sleep better at night knowing that person understood some past mistakes of the wealthy and powerful, and they had at least considered some of the collective guidance of humanity.

If the question were constrained to CS, then I would say Compilers. But that's a loaded answer, since it damn near requires a CS degree to truly appreciate compilers.

If you want to have fun and know yourself better, take a class in art or music.

henryw• 19 years ago

acting 1, history of modern arts, public policy in econ, game theory in econ, finance, and lots of math

nfriedly• 19 years ago

Patterns of leadership; without a doubt.

The programing classes I took I was correcting mistakes on the teachers test. I know programing.

Patterns of leadership was a class about dealing with people (read 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' for an idea of what it covered). This was a class where I learned an incredible amount.

gqgy• 19 years ago

Introduction to Marketing and Securities Law.

What class in college did you get the most out of?

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