Hi,
I have been watching the video lectures named in the title by Abelson and Sussman and was wondeing what level they are at?
Malcolm
views:
302answers:
6
A:
At Columbia I did it Sophomore year - note I was late switching my major from EE to CS. I suspect at MIT it is freshman year. That was a long time ago and I have no idea what it is now.
Tim
2008-12-28 05:58:25
Note that this was one of my favorite courses and I still have the book. The book is also one of my favorites. It took me a long time to stop thinking how ugly my C and C++ code was compared to scheme.
Tim
2008-12-28 06:21:12
A:
I am a student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute(an hour west of MIT) and I took a class that very similar to this one 3rd quarter freshman year. It probably varies a small amount from school to school and depending how much credit you have from high school.
devin
2008-12-28 06:02:24
+1
A:
It's the first Computer Science course taught at MIT, and CS majors (at least) take it their first semester in general; it's effectively a prerequisite for everything else.
Charlie Martin
2008-12-28 06:05:46
+5
A:
When originally conceived at MIT, 6.001 was used as the first course. It was deliberately ambitious and difficult in order to discourage people from entering the major. (At that time over 30% of all MIT students got degrees in the EECS department.) In recent years MIT has changed the model and is no longer using Abelson/Sussman in the first course.
I have always thought the book is really about how to express a very wide range of important ideas in Scheme. Therefore, if I were to teach from that book, it would be a capstone course for seniors who would be better positioned to appreciate the very elegant expression of familiar ideas. First-year students have to be very hard-working indeed to grok both the unfamiliar ideas and their expression in Scheme.
Norman Ramsey
2008-12-28 06:07:53
Someone recommended I read the Little Lisper the summer before taking the class. I took 6.001 freshman year, which was pass/fail. I don't recall it being difficult. 6.002 I recall as being difficult.
Steve Steiner
2008-12-28 07:20:29
Some universities call this a "weed out" course. The first class in the major is purposely hard to weed out the people who are only browsing the curriculum. You're left with only the people who are really interested.
Bill the Lizard
2008-12-29 20:22:31
+1
A:
6.01 is a base course for the CompSci course.
Here's a schematic showing you where they see the new 6.01 fitting into the picture: http://www.eecs.mit.edu/ug/newcurriculum/SBEECS_6-2.html
Apparently the new 6.01 is not the same as the course you did online but the course number indicates its foundational position.
duncan
2008-12-28 06:08:34
A:
I took 6.001 freshman year at MIT.
I think it has changed now, as mentioned in earlier responses. But I think it was an excellent introductory class, covering the huge potential of computer programming, while showing both the complexity and the many ways of dealing with that complexity. Freshman 6.001 was one of the top classes I took there.
abelenky
2008-12-28 08:09:03