Comment by rav | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rav | Hacker News Reader

In the syllabus [1] they state that you need to be able to obtain above a grade C on "Problem Set 0" [2] before you take this course.

In my experience teaching 1st year undergrad algorithms, I'd be surprised if the average 1st year student that has just passed an "Introduction to algorithms" course would even be able to solve Problem Set 0.

However I don't think we should delay teaching algorithms until several years into the CS university curriculum. It's too important and central a topic to miss out on. We really need an intro algorithms curriculum that can teach both the basics (as in Problem Set 0) and the algorithms and data structures in the textbook.

[1] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms...

[2] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms...

MIT's discrete math course [1] is listed as a prerequisite for the algorithms course so Problem Set 0 doesn't seem unreasonable in that case.

Requiring an intro programming class and a discrete math class won't require you to delay teaching algorithms for "several years". Maybe just a semester or two.

Universities can also start teaching basic data structures and some algorithms in the programming classes. For example Stanford teaches some in CS106B Programming Abstractions [2] and then goes into more detail in CS161 Design and Analysis of Algorithms [3].

[1] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-042j-mathematics-for-computer-...

[2] https://see.stanford.edu/course/cs106b

[3] https://stanford-cs161.github.io/winter2022/

Pretty common stuff that advanced kids learn in high school in the US[1]. I’d imagine MIT students can breeze through the questions in the Problem Set 0.

[1] Or so I saw in the bay area. Taking AoPS courses and even harder and broader content is pretty standard for kids in the bay area, for good or bad. It’s like there are two countries in the US. One has kids who take 10+ APs by grade 10. The other has schools that have median GPA 0.6. Sigh…

Breeze through is not true though. You can do a search on twitter and will see multiple 6.006 complaints.

The problem set covers the material of 6.0001 and 6.042. I guess you can take both in the first semester and do algorithms course in the second semester.

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