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For someone out of the UIUC construct, does X73 mean various levels of algorithms courses? Could you elaborate on their titles or content?

I am looking to self-study for core CS content that I missed out on in school after being largely self-taught, and courses that change the way one’s brain works sound like the right ones to take.

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Yes, the X73 courses were theory based. Something changed after I graduated and now I think CS 374 is the algorithms course, but I'm not sure.

If you want to start with the fundamentals, CS 173 (Discrete Structures) is required of all undergrad CS majors and is the first of the sequence (usually taken as a freshman/sophomore). The book is available online along with problems/solutions: http://mfleck.cs.illinois.edu/building-blocks/index.html

Thank you for pointing out the starting course of the sequence!

That is a very familiar pain to me. I started programming when I was ten and kept up with it since, but my education was not in programming (although I would take courses as it suited me), so I never had any formal training in data structures or algorithms. I have occasionally found that I had re-invented some known algorithm and wondered just how much difficult I would have been spared if I had known about it in the first place.

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