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

4.4
stars
2,243 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 515 Reviews for Mathematical Thinking in Computer Science

By CHIRANJEEV A

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May 8, 2020

The Course was excellent. I loved it.

By Ekeocha N I

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Jun 17, 2024

It was stressful but worth it!

By Md S S

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Jan 16, 2023

Good Course for basic concepts

By Riya G

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Aug 18, 2020

amazing for beginners like me!

By A A

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Sep 15, 2019

very useful and impressive

By Aryan B

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Jul 12, 2020

Quite good for beginners!

By AMEY G

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May 24, 2020

very good and intuitional

By Deleted A

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Oct 29, 2020

Shen is a great teacher!

By JAYANTH B

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Aug 28, 2020

very useful. thankyou

By Quyph

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Oct 12, 2022

It is good course

By Abhijeet S P

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Sep 14, 2020

good experience.

By Abu M A M S

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Jul 24, 2020

very good course

By Edson E L Z

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Jul 5, 2018

muy practico!

By Yiming J

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Jul 12, 2019

Too simple

By Gourav C

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Feb 2, 2019

very good

By VAMSHI V K

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Sep 11, 2021

done

By AJAY S

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Sep 9, 2021

GOOD

By 121910316019 C G S

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Jan 9, 2021

good

By Thành N K

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Jun 26, 2019

good

By David G

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.