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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Mathematical Thinking in Computer Science by University of California San Diego

4.4
stars
2,201 ratings

About the Course

Mathematical thinking is crucial in all areas of computer science: algorithms, bioinformatics, computer graphics, data science, machine learning, etc. In this course, we will learn the most important tools used in discrete mathematics: induction, recursion, logic, invariants, examples, optimality. We will use these tools to answer typical programming questions like: How can we be certain a solution exists? Am I sure my program computes the optimal answer? Do each of these objects meet the given requirements? In the online course, we use a try-this-before-we-explain-everything approach: you will be solving many interactive (and mobile friendly) puzzles that were carefully designed to allow you to invent many of the important ideas and concepts yourself. Prerequisites: 1. We assume only basic math (e.g., we expect you to know what is a square or how to add fractions), common sense and curiosity. 2. Basic programming knowledge is necessary as some quizzes require programming in Python....

Top reviews

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Mar 25, 2019

The teachers are informative and good. They explain the topic in a way that we can easily understand. The slides provide all the information that is needed. The external tools are fun and informative.

AM

Feb 27, 2021

It is a great course! teachers explain everything with care. While providing lectures there are some popup ques that verify whether you understood that lecture or not. Overall, a great experience.

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426 - 450 of 505 Reviews for Mathematical Thinking in Computer Science

By JAYANTH B

Aug 28, 2020

very useful. thankyou

By Quyph

Oct 12, 2022

It is good course

By Abhijeet S P

Sep 14, 2020

good experience.

By Abu M A M S

Jul 24, 2020

very good course

By Edson E L Z

Jul 5, 2018

muy practico!

By Yiming J

Jul 12, 2019

Too simple

By Gourav C

Feb 2, 2019

very good

By VAMSHI V K

Sep 11, 2021

done

By AJAY S

Sep 9, 2021

GOOD

By 121910316019 C G S

Jan 9, 2021

good

By Nguyen K T

Jun 26, 2019

good

By David G

Feb 5, 2022

Quite interesting, but not very well put together. You'll get a 10 page PDF to read, then a bunch of videos explaining exactly what you've just spent an hour reading, but you're not sure if you can skip the video because maybe there's something new in it. It's as though it was put together by different people that didn't talk to each other and no one checked the flow of the final course.

Also, the coding exercises use an old version of Python, so if you solve them in some IDE and use modern features, then copy/paste your code into Coursera, you'll have to spend time making it work in old Python.

Also, one of the instructors seemed like a very lovely man, but quite a thick accent and a habit of mumbling little assides, trailing off to being inaudible. I found myself rewinding and turning the volume up many times to try and work out what he mumbled.

By Juan P G

Jun 12, 2021

I never quite understood who this course is meant for. The initial videos were interesting and the level of difficulty was such that someone without a strong mathematical background could follow and ramp up gradually. All of a sudden the difficulty increased significantly, the instructor started using Python code, the explanations weren't thorough, and the challenges required coding to be solved. Very strange jump in level of difficulty. I tried to stick with it, but I was not getting what I was hoping out of it, so I gave up on week 3.

By Ricardo Z

Apr 21, 2020

The course content was good, I've learned new things and remembered others. Was nice to practice Math and use all those concepts to solve puzzles and understand the origins of lots of stuff. But the content of the course was not sufficient to me to understand every proposal assignments or content. I had to look others explanations on Youtube/articles to get a better understanding. I think you guys could work more on the explanations. A few times I had to play the videos more than three times to get what you were saying.

By Steven W

Dec 3, 2017

This course is pretty great. You get to play with puzzles thats always fun. I think the course could use some refinement. The material feels a little unfocused. What I'd like is for the course to be focused on induction fundamentally. As a learner I want to be introduced to the concept of induction, build skills in applying induction and, develop intuition in reasoning about induction. The course ends up being a sampler for the rest of the courses in the series and, I think it's worse off because that.

By Dimitry K

Feb 18, 2020

Material is good, but some of the explanations were very clunky and hard to comprehend. Really missed some smoother connections from topic to topic. The quality of explanations are very uneven between the lecturers. Some were excellent, while others - not so much.

Still, I enjoyed the course, and it was a good introduction to mathematical thinking, as the creators intended, I hope.

By Aryan R

Jul 5, 2020

There are some problems with the third-party tool for this course, maybe it would be better off to use quizzes BUT I appreciate the use of puzzles as a complement to this course. The instructors are enthusiastic and knowledgeable. More emphasis can be given on simpler ways to put forward the ideas without tough use of mathematical terms. All in all, this was a good course.

By Akash V S

May 18, 2020

The course was engaging and comprehensive yet a lot of the topics mentioned, especially in the last week, were not explained at all - for example, Big O Notation and time complexity. Moreover, there was an immense disparity between the difficulty in the problems that were to be solved as coursework and the bonus track.

By Dave K

Mar 6, 2022

Interesting ideas. Not always well explained. My biggest question, though, is what exactly did I learn? A bunch of abstract mathematical concepts without anything really tying them togeher. I get how it's discrete mathematics, but that's because I know discrete math outside of this course.

By Animesh S

Jun 23, 2020

It's hard to cope up with someone who didn't study math in the past. Course content is not sufficient according to the problem sets. I had to look for references to the video and then would understand everything completely. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend it for a non-math person

By Aditya D

Jun 14, 2020

The course material is great! Also the way the course was planned is commendable. The course instructors especially Prof Alexander Shen are hard to understand most of the times when they explain a certain concept. The explanations by instructors need to improve.

By Mohamed A J

Dec 7, 2018

It's a very stimulating course, though not caring for students much. The material sometimes should elaborate more on concepts, say in week 6, it should've been clearer to student what are permutations in a clearer sense.

By Omar G

Jul 27, 2020

The course material is great but they should improve the explanations and practice what they go to say before film the lessons. Making too many mistakes while explaining math concepts ends up confusing the students.

By Naveen R

Jul 28, 2020

It certainly was an intriguing course, and there were good puzzles which I have liked. However, I felt a little disappointed because the class ended so abruptly, and I am not sure how much new math I have learned.

By Filip C

May 26, 2020

Очень уважаю Александра Шень, учился по его учебнику, очень нравится его манера преподносить материал. Однако очень разочаровали остальные лекторы. (Уровень английского, материал и манера преподавания)