- What did you like the least about the class?
Honestly, I didn’t hate anything about the class. If I had to choose one thing, it would be the overhead on the projects. In this class, whenever you submit a project, you have to ensure that you have documentation, pipelines, gitlab, acceptance tests and just in general a lot more than other classes required. However this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Having this overhead preps us for the amount of work we have to do in work. I just dislike doing it and I’m pretty sure everyone dislikes it too. - What did you like the most about the class?
The very good structure of the class. Everything is extremely organized. The website, information, in class notes and structure all explained very well. Information about any of the class work or tests are explained very well on piazza and the website. - What’s the most significant thing you learned?
Understanding C++ and the semantics of everything in the language. Many of the companies I interviewed for used C++ and without this class, I probably would’ve completely botched most of the interviews. Downing goes into detail about all of the standard information about C++ and compares it to concepts we’ve learned. - How many hours a week did you spend coding/debugging/testing for this class?
8. However, it was often 16 hours 1 week, 0 hours another. This is because I like to complete projects in large sessions to keep my head wrapped around 1 topic for a while. - How many hours a week did you spend reading/studying for this class?
On average 2. I don’t think the class requires much studying since there’s only 2 tests. However this number may jump up significantly when it’s test time. - How many lines of code do you think you wrote?
Maybe around 8k? It’s probably less than around 2k per project, however I don’t tend to count my lines when I’m counting code. Sometimes there are projects that require more and there are some that require less. - What required tool did you not know and now find very useful?
Probably Gitlab. I used Azure in my internship and this reminded me about it. - How did you feel about the two-stage quizzes and tests?
Very good. It tended to take off a lot of pressure during the tests and quizzes. We never really have to worry about our grade, while still forcing us to understand the material. It’s kind of like starting at a 40. You will still fail if you don’t know anything, but you don’t have to worry a lot about it. - How did you feel about the cold calling, in the end?
So much better near the end. Originally I thought cold calls were just simply to make sure everyone was paying attention, but in the end, cold calls were pretty relaxing. Downing helps guide you to the answer if you don’t know it.
