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Week 2 of Computer Science

"Having spent the last 11 days studying coding and computer science theory I can now claim to be an expert. "

 If only it were that easy.

 I have however, made plenty of progress: coding gets easier every day, the hours fly by as I read, code, debug, search forums, stare blankly, recode, then take a small bow when my program successfully adds 2 integers. I have now written around 20 original programs in Java (original in the sense that I composed them; they don't do anything original).

 The two data science courses on edX (Analytics and Foundations) are relatively straightforward implementations of R (there isn't any programming involved). They provide a good review of intro-level Statistics.

 The Data Science Specialization on Coursera (offered by John Hopkins University) is very challenging, especially the Intro to R Programming. There is a steep learning curve involved in completing the programming assignments. There are 3 parts to assignment 1: I spent Tuesday on Part 1, Thursday on Part 2 and haven't yet completed Part 3.  (For reference, Part 1 comprised 6 short lines of code.) The course is certainly good practice for situations where you might be expected to code in a completely new language with minimal training. A lot of my time is spent hunting in forums and reading help files in an attempt to get rid of those pesky error messages.

 The first course in the Saylor Academy Computer Science pathway took 11 days to complete-I passed the final exam this morning. It took around 30% of the suggested time allotment-I expect future courses will be more challenging.

 I decided not to continue with Computing:Art, Science and & Magic. The presentation was terse, abstract and in the end, opaque. I decided to stick with Java, C and Python for which there are plenty of excellent (and free) resources. It may be a course that I go back to in future after I have internalized the necessary computer science theory.

 I plan to finish the two calculus courses by the end of the month and start a linear algebra course in December.

 One thing that has really impressed me is the camaraderie of  the help forums: there are so many people helping each other out.


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