Potential Breaktime CSC

Courses (The Details)


Overview

The CSC Department is considering offering several breaktime (either this winter break, or next summer) courses.


The courses would be offered through Cal Poly's Continuing Education program, but they'd be standard, graded, CSC courses, offering credit toward graduation for current Poly students. They'd be taught by CSC professors, and they'd be offered during the breaks, largely online, with an initial set of in-person lectures just after the quarter's end to "kick off" the class. After that initial kickoff, you'd be free to work from anywhere.


The courses would be entirely funded by additional tuition paid by the students to Continuing Ed. This would probably amount to $300/unit.


More details follow. We're interested in your comments and thoughts. Please send Email to Clint Staley cstaley@calpoly.edu, letting us know the following:


  1. Whether you're interested in any of the suggested courses.

  2. Whether you'd be interested in something as soon as this winter break.

  3. What sort of "hybrid" schedule would work best for you. Is it more important to be done with the in-person part of the course quickly, or to have more "sink time", for instance?

  4. What other course topics might interest you.


How This Saves You Money

We recognize that $300/unit is serious money, and is nominally more than you'd pay during the quarter. But, note that the actual cost of 15 units during the quarter includes your SLO living expenses, which are generally at least as high as your tuition, if not higher. Those are expenses you can save by taking online courses during the break. If your real cost per quarter is $5000 in tuition and living expenses, then $300/unit is actually a little less than your normal cost.


But, there's something even more important to consider. We hope these offerings might allow you to graduate up to a quarter early, by accumulating breaktime units over several years. If you did this, you'd get started on your career, pulling down a good salary and gaining experience, three months sooner. Say you earn a $60K salary on graduation. That's $15K you can earn to pay back student loans during the extra quarter you don't have to spend in school. And it's a three month head start on advancing to higher levels in your profession. Or, it's three months you can spend toward a grad degree. In all, the tuition you put toward break time courses could pay you back many times over by graduation time.


Proposed 1-2 Unit Courses

1-2 unit courses would all be offered under CSC 490 Special Topics. They'd include 5 hours of in-person lecture per unit, with the rest of the course done online, plus an in-person one hour final exam on the evening of the first Monday of the next quarter. Possible schedules are below. (Email us with your preferences.)


CSC 490 Advanced Java 1 unit

Java "power-user" topics not normally covered in CSC courses, including reflection, serialization, generics, and object-oriented enums.


CSC 490 C# Language 1 unit

Full coverage of C#, comparing and constrasting with the closely-related Java language. One small C# programming project.


CSC 490 Ruby Language 1 unit

Full coverage of Ruby, along with a small programming project.


CSC 490 AJAX clientside web development 2 units

AJAX development using EXTJS or Jquery. Development of a small AJAX-driven web page.


CSC 490 Advanced Algorithms 1 unit

Solution methods for advanced NP-complete problems, using branch-and-bound. Implementation of a solution for travelling salesman or another NP-complete problem of student's choice.


1-Unit Schedules – one of:

  1. 1 hour in the evenings of R and F of finals week, plus 3 hours Saturday after finals

  2. 2 hours Saturday before finals week, plus 3 hours Saturday after finals

  3. 5 hours Saturday after finals

  4. <Other suggestions welcome>

2-Unit Schedules – one of:

  1. 2 hours the evenings of R and F of finals week, plus 6 hours Saturday after finals

  2. 5 hours each on Saturday and Sunday after finals

  3. 3 hours Sat before finals, 2 hours R/F evening of finals week, 3 hours Sat after finals

  4. <Other suggestions welcome>


Proposed 4-Unit Courses

4-unit courses would be offered only during summer. They'd include 20 hours of in-person lecture during the week after final exams, with the rest of the course conducted online except for a final exam taken in-person at the start of fall quarter. Both of the offerings below are not on the schedule for this year (305 IS offered during the year, but not with a C++ emphasis). These would only be available as a summertime offering.


CPE 437 Web Development

Project-based study of web-based three-tiered applications, including current best practices and tools for design, implementation and testing of browser interface, serverside business logic, object-relational mapping, databases, and web services.


CPE 305 Individual Software Development (C++ emphasis)

Practical software development skills needed for construction of mid-sized production-quality software modules, using the CSC upper division programming language. Topics include inheritance, exceptions, and memory and disk-based dynamic data structures. Students must complete an individual programming project of mid-level complexity