COP 3014 - Programming I

Tips for COP3014

START YOUR PROGRAMS EARLY!!!! - I cannot stress this point enough. For those of you who decide to take this advice from the get-go, you'll do just fine in the course. These are not like homework assignments in other courses. The amount of code that comprises a solution to the problem may not be very long, however it takes lots of time, thinking, and planning to come up with "what to do, when to do it, and why it's being done". If you're stuck or having problems with any of the homeworks, email your TA for help or... (See the next bullet point).
GO TO OFFICE HOURS! - The Teaching Assistants and myself have office hours for a REASON. This is not an easy course. Do not feel like "if I go to office hours I'm obviously not doing well in the course" -- this is NOT the case and should NOT be why/when students utilize office hours. These are basically open help sessions, and are extremely helpful ESPECIALLY if you've never had any programming experience before (which is the case for most of the students in the course). USE OFFICE HOURS WISELY. You are welcome to attend my office hours, or those of *ANY* TA, not just yours! We try to schedule office hours throughout the week at different times to accomodate as many student's schedules as possible.

READ THE BOOK - The textbook is a great addition to the course notes. Read the sections listed under each week on the course calendar (Trust me, it's not toooooo much to read) -- this can help solidify your understanding of each topic before its taught in class... super helpful.

DON'T FALL BEHIND - If there's a topic you're not quite grasping, don't put off understanding it... in this course, many topics we will learn require a full understanding of previous topics in the course. If you feel like you need more help with a particular topic, that's what office hours are for! :)

ATTEND CLASS - Class attendance is required to do well in this course. Attendance in recitations is also required and there may sometimes be graded excercises for you to complete during recitations.

Practice Programming 20 MINUTES PER NIGHT - Even if it's just making up a silly fun program to impress your friends, practicing coding nightly for less than 30 minutes will greatly improve your ability to learn the language. Write small programs that incorporate the topic we are currently learning in class. It's easy to watch me program up on the projector, but actually sitting and doing it yourself is something that will be extremely beneficial to your understanding of c++. This is not a class where one can not practice the material until right before exams. Students who code even outside the homeworks (doing small example problems, book examples, or coding challenges Melina provides) normally have no problem succeeding in the course.