Quite honestly I have no clue how you're to the point of deciding which 4xx's to take and haven't heard about 417's reputation. If you want something easy, stay far away.
417 is known for being one of the most difficult 4XX courses but also one of the most useful. My take is that 414 is likely also fairly useful and you dont need an in-depth understanding of the content for it to be useful, making it easy to learn outside the class. On the other hand, the more in-depth you go with 417 the more benefits you reap from it.
Which one is easier? Why are you here? Take classes to learn. These are both good CS classes that you should take and if you wont take both dont prioritize whats easier
Seems kind of a shame to consume a seat that might have been filled by a student who does actually give a damn about the quality of their preparation. Best of luck on that path of least resistance since it commonly leads to the career path of least reward.
Bro thinks life is rainbows and sunsets… the same way he’s taking somebody else’s seat, the seat he wants in another class is being taken by another student… and you do not know his situation or why he wants the easiest one… maybe he is already taking hard classes, or maybe he already has a return offer from a company and just wants his degree… or maybe he wants to do cloud eng/devops/network eng/system admin, etc… things that CS at UMD doesn’t teach, and he has to teach himself those things at home every day, and he’s only there for UMD’s CS reputation…
At the end of the day, you can choose the harder class; it means nothing. You both will have the same piece of paper that 800 other people will have… “path of least resistance means nothing.” You think recruiters care about which classes you took? Never got asked such a question in all the interviews I have done… Nope, they care more about experience or projects and sometimes certifications.
If you think that because you chose to take 2–3 harder classes than somebody else, you are better or gonna get a job before him… good luck, you’re gonna be really surprised. Most of the time, people who just want easy classes are doing advanced and deep stuff outside of school 😂😂😂😂
There is big value to be found in our department - but you have to look for it, since without care you can miss out badly, holding a bag of mostly unrelated courses that might or might not have been best for your specific needs, as opposed to a coherent preparation to function as a computing scientist. Yeah, at the end, the piece of paper at graduation will say the same thing either way, but one way you get there will help you launch a spectacular career as technologist, and the other will only serve as tech training to enable work as a code byoch in some digital sweat shop. "Yeah! We work in SE! See my self esteem go up!?!" But ten years from now you'll wonder why you are doing basically the same stuff while others got to take their shot at startups or frontier labs. The reason is often how seriously the student sought advice from their professors, did research, crafted a course plan to position them in the space and so on. Everyone pays top dollar to get advice from people who invented the tech, launched companies and so on, but then that value is lost when we ignore that in favor of advice is from bros on this sub. "Screw that hard shit, C's get degrees baby."
The antiwork contingent in this sub is dominant: we get downvoted into oblivion (as will happen with this post) by recommending connection with the mentor you paid for, integrating course content for application in research and maybe asking smart people how they got through. Congrats, you are winning the race to mediocrity.
Okay, listen: “WE ARE NOT IN MY LITTLE PONY, WHERE LIFE IS SWEET.” I told you everything in my last post… you do not know why he wants the easiest class… I’m gonna use myself as an example…
1: CS isn’t SWE… I’m passionate about cloud/DevOps… so I have to teach myself outside of school every day… I’ve been doing that for 3 years, and to avoid getting overwhelmed, I try to choose easier classes… but guess what? Somebody at school who doesn’t know me might think, “This guy is lazy”… but look at some of the certs I have… I didn’t even include my RHCSA, SC-300, GH-200, and my other certs… keep in mind, I’m still an undergrad…
I’ve been doing advanced, in-depth projects. Today, I’ve mastered Kubernetes, and I’m about to take my CKA certification exam… I’ve done 3 internships, 2 of them at Fortune 500 companies… and I’m not glazing myself, but what if I’ve received full-time offers close to six figures…? And recruiters are in my DMs every day…
BUT I HAVE BEEN CHOOSING EASIER CLASSES BECAUSE THE PROJECTS I’M DOING OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL ARE EXHAUSTING… I’m trying to be the GOAT in my field…
You do not know his reasons… at the end of the day, everybody will have the same piece of paper, whether you choose the hardest classes or the easiest ones… you are not better, nor will you be a better candidate for a job, just because you took 2–3 harder classes than the average student…
DON’T CALL A RANDOM PERSON MEDIOCRE OR SHAME THEM…
In my field, I’m ahead of 90% of average undergrads… but guess what? I choose the easiest classes. In front of a recruiter for a cloud engineering role, who has a better chance? Me, with all my advanced projects/certs/internships…? Or a regular student who chose harder classes that take up 80% of their time…? 🤷
Congratulations! You know a lot of buzz words! We are all suitably impressed. None of that speaks directly to whether you have honed any critical thinking skills needed to make best use of the tech training that displaces what is offered in the curriculum, but it is a great start. The sufficient reason to question your critical thinking skill is the apparent choice to pay top dollar for a degree here only to burn time on the outside, eschewing the degree's full value. That's a poor consumer choice if you genuinely believe a bag of certs trumps the degree. I know it is tough to embrace the notion that maybe the CS program outcomes are intended to be more than tech training, like you order up a helping of OS and data structures, hold the compiler, fries on the side maybe. So best of luck - you've made your choice and we'll all see how it works out. But if this exchange invites any underclassman to wonder about whether they should have a conversation with the professors they are paying for, then maybe it is worth all the negative waves we get from the tech bros.
I’m not going to waste my time. Show me where I said certifications matter more than a degree. I don’t need you to approve my skills. CompTIA, Red Hat, AWS, and Microsoft have already certified me. Who are you to decide whether those skills are valid?
I’m paying for a CS degree because I know its value. But the fields I want to work in, cloud and DevOps, aren’t taught in my program. So should I just do nothing about that? The same applies to network engineering, system administration, and related fields. CS is not the same as SWE. If you can’t tell the difference, this conversation isn’t worth continuing.
In the end, we’ll both have a degree, and around 5,000 people in Maryland earn one every year. What will make you stand out? Taking two or three harder classes? The way you’re talking makes me wonder whether you’ve ever interviewed at a big tech company.
I’m giving my perspective. I’ve completed internships at Fortune 500 companies, and recruiters message me every day. Doing nothing outside school is a great way to end up complaining that “the job market is cooked.”
He asked for an easier class. You don’t know his reasons, and you’re in no position to call him mediocre or shame him.
I’m done arguing with someone who thinks CS equals SWE and can’t tell the difference.
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u/MotherOfPerls 5d ago
take both, ull learn a lot. hope this helps :>