So have been putting of doing the standard computing course: computing for engineers (ENGG1811); Computing 1 (COMP1911) or Higher Computing 1 (COMP1917).
Reason is that, although reasonable at computers, am afraid of it being intense programming languages and computer architecture type work. I am afraid.
- Which of these is the easiest? (guide is ambiguous)
- What sort of programming do they cover?
- What preparation can you do to get a head start?
1911 is definately easier than 1917 since 1911 covers the same content as 1917 just slower to give you more time to learn content. ive not done 1811, but i believe that if you do 1811 and want to do more computing, the next step is 1911 which implies a hierarchy of
1917 > 1911 > 1811
i think 1811 teaches visual basic. 1911 and 1917 both cover C
1911 and 1917 cover syntax, so basically you learn that if you this then the computer will do this and if you type that then the computer will do that. its very much like you are using MS Word and you are learning that if you press the "
B" button, then your words will become bold, and if you press the "
I" button, your words will have an angle and if you press Ctrl+shift+left arrow key, you highlight a word
head start, well you can go and start learning the languages yourself. its not hard, but there are a lot of bad tutorials out there and the compiler aspect can be a little weird. here is the best tutorial though
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
final advice would be to relax, the computing courses have no assumed knowledge, they start from scratch (they usually make a joke that if you dont know how to use a mouse or keyboard, they will teach you that too) and the courses are not really hard core at all, thats a misconception, especially when you consider that a lot of 1st years take one of these computing courses so it cant be too hard
