39 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
39 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
<!--@include: ../../notice.md-->
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# Semester 2
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Semester 2 is in my opinion (and the one of many people) the easiest semester in the entire Bachelor's programme for Computer Science.
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This is why I would highly recommend doing at least a GESS subject in this semester already.
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It may also be advisable to pick another course, as you can always drop it if you feel overworked.
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Below some notes on two subjects that are a bit out of the ordinary in this semester.
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The other two courses, Algorithms and Probability (A&W), as well as Analysis I, are well taught, well organized courses,
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pretty much as you would expect. A&W retains the CodeExpert plus written tasks model with Peer-Grading, but now you are on your own.
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## Parallel Programming
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This course course is an example of a poorly taught course at ETH. The exercises during the semester, while interesting, aren't really worth doing
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(in my opinion, as they don't really help much with either the exam or understanding the topics)
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and the entire course can be studied using a summary in just a few full days of work.
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This is also the reason why taking an extra course with a semester end exam is feasible, as there is barely any work that needs to go into this course for most people.
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Furthermore, the slides, especially by Professor Torsten Höfler, are utterly unusable.
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I had used [Azurios' summary](https://azurios.gitlab.io/page/summaries/) for studying PProg and passed easily, without ever reading Prof. Höfler's slides.
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Reading a summary obviously won't suffice, you should also practice using old exams, as the content and difficulty has stayed fairly consistent over the last few years.
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They provide the questions in both German and English and you may also answer in either language.
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**However**: Be sure to still follow this course along to see if you understand things.
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## DDCA
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DDCA is a course with a professor that is quite famous in the programme, due to his energetic lecturing style.
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Furthermore, the entire course is live-streamed on YouTube.
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The course consists of lectures and mandatory (with *sort of* attendance (they don't check that you were there, but you have to be there to get your lab results graded)) labs,
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where you work with a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to develop *small parts* of a full MIPS processor using the Hardware Design Language `verilog`.
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They are quite fun, typically take about 2 hours and account for 30% of the entire course's grade.
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Thus, be sure to always do the labs, as passing this course is quite easy if you get (close to) the full grade in the labs.
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For the exam, make sure to start solving old exams early, as the exam has some interesting exercise types which you need to learn.
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The optional homework also has some of these tasks and they also upload a video explaining how to do many of these tasks.
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