Baruch MFE No undergrad C++, what certificate good prereq for Baruch?

[cliff]

Good afternoon,

I am very interested in the Baruch MFE but lack C++ coursework or experiece. Is there some sort of C++ certification that I could pursue that would satisfy the pre-requesite?

Thank you for your time and help


[Comment From MikeMike: ]
With regard to C++, I note that the application process portion of the website asks for "one undergraduate course or completion of a certificate degree." Can you give examples of some certificate degrees that would be suitable, or that have been accepted in the past?

 

[SimonZheng]

If you still study at college, it's an easy way to take a C++ course.

 

[DominiConnor]

I was wondering if the MCSD in VC++ counts ?

 

[cliff]

If you still study at college, it's an easy way to take a C++ course.

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately I completed undergrad several years ago. Do you or anyone else know of any options for learning C++ that would be recognized to satisfy the C++ pre-requesite for Baruch?

Thank you again for your help.

 

[DominiConnor]

I tend to aim people at a mix of the books by Daniel Duffy and Bruce Eckel, but C++ requires that you write code.
No book and no course (including mine) is anything like sufficient.
You must suck in data, screw with it, and get it stored somewhere to serve some purpose.
Doesn't have to be a good purpose, but you have to fix your own bugs, and develop scar tissue for when it turns on you.

 

[SimonZheng]

Learning C++ requires you to read, write and debug code by yourself. According to Meyers's books, C++ is a multiparadigm programming language including pure C(procedural), Object-oriented C++, template C++(generic programming) and STL. It's good to start from one piece of subset. As I known, Most of students took C++ course at college before joining program. A few of students have a few years of professional programming experience. Good C++ understanding will help you survive in MFE program.

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately I completed undergrad several years ago. Do you or anyone else know of any options for learning C++ that would be recognized to satisfy the C++ pre-requesite for Baruch?

Thank you again for your help.

 

[amanda.jayne]

Hi Cliff,

With regards to in-person C++ courses there are limited options in NYC as far as I've found.

If you have no background in C++ (or another high-level OOP language), Id suggest starting with C as going straight to C++ can be a little overwhelming. I took the Intro to C programming course at NYU-SPCS prior to joining the MFE and found it to be an adequate foundation to pick up the basic nuance of the language (I now TA the course) with some self study and the C++ refresher we took over the summer, Ive had no problem keeping up.

Programming is best learned by actually sitting and coding/debugging. How you accomplish this, whether through self study or in-class shouldn't matter. More important than a certificate is whether you are confident in your ability to be able to use the language as a problem solving tool. We use it quite extensively

A great C book is Stephen Kochan's Programming in C compared to opther programing books, its actually quite bearable to read.

At the Baruch refresher we used Walter Savitch's Problem Solving in C++ and covered most of the book in 4 weeks.

Know the basics of pointers, structures and classes and try to get your hands on a copy of Savitch. If you're comfortable with the better part of the material contained you should be plenty prepared.

@Dominic I believe MCSD only exists for C# and .net these days (please correct me if Im wrong)

 

[Lyosha]

I would suggest something similar to what Amanda suggested, only slightly different. I would suggest you start with a course in a higher level language like Java, instead of a lower level one like C. The reason is that you learn better practices and techniques which will help you more in life than knowing how malloc works...

Since you clearly lack C++ experience, you will want some form of hard empirical proof that you are not 100% green to the subject. A course will go a long way towards achieving that.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

' The reason is that you learn better practices and techniques which will help you more in life than knowing how malloc works..."

Yes and no is the answer to this question.

These days we use 'new' or smart pointers, but if you know malloc then you really understand.

The software world is no that far advanced yet that we can ignore the hardware issues, especially for critical applications.

You learn software principles in C; X% of all applications in the world are in C, where X is a biggish number.

 

[Lyosha]

Yes, and if you know assembly you understand even more... I mean you can go on down the rabbit hole forever. At some point you have to make a cutoff and say "I really don't need to know this" and leave the assembly to the guys who write the compilers.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

No need for assembly, C is almost as fast.

The point I was trying to make is that a knowledge of how memory, cache and multi-processor work is very usefu(vital?) for parallel programs.

You can live without this knowledge of course. Then that's fine as well.