Now - I have worked in the IT field so why would I take up an introductory course in computer science ? Well - how about 'Just like that' ? Yes and then - I was intrigued and honestly wanted a certificate from an Ivy league institution. That I would get one for free was like icing on the cake.
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| David Malan - the course instructor |
We all have dreams - some fulfilled and some not. If I had had my own way - I would be teaching in Harvard / Stanford / MIT / LSE / Princeton / IIM / Cambridge - after I had completed my doctorate and an MBA of course. :) Strangely enough the IITs were never in my dreams. At least this was one of my dreams ! :)
I am not sure how much value the honor certificate has and to me it does not matter now. I had fun doing the course and while I did not expect it when I signed up - I felt like I was in a live class at Harvard. Definitely a bonus !
I have learnt C eons ago and it was like going back to college ! Sorting algorithms - bubble sort ( God thought I had left that behind me! ), malloc, pointers ! :) I struggled .... especially in the memory management zone.
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| Pointer logic / Sorting algorithms were demonstrated with students |
My curiosity first led me to MITs 6.00x ( especially after the 6.002x ) - but I dropped it midway. These were the only 2 courses that I tried and I preferred the Harvard course.
For my project while I first had another in mind - I ended up doing something that was much simpler. I struggled;
not because of the project requirements itself but because suddenly everything seemed to fall apart. My laptop's hard drive started emitting a strange whining sound - which I thought was a sign of an imminent hard drive crash and it became very very very slow !!!
I had to use another laptop - install everything again. I decided to do a mini Android app and this environment is not part of the CS50 appliance. The ADT ( Android Development Tool ) is tedious. There must a lighter version somewhere but I did not have too much time to explore so I went with the one provided by google.
And then the second laptop did not have audio !! LOL .. so while I did the video editing there with my app - I recorded the audio on my mobile and integrated it with the video and cross-checked on my first laptop !
And now of course - since all submissions are over - the whining hard drive sound has stopped on my comp !! Really !!!!! :)
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| Tommy and Rob - two teaching fellows for CS50 |
Anyway here's the link to my project submission - http://youtu.be/sGWY8kxvqfc. It has to be within 2 minutes.
All in all - I had fun ...... Now looking to see if I can deploy this small app in the real world. The php page is after all written inside the CS50 appliance which will not be available to the outside world.
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