CS50 alongside a Software Engineering degree — useful or redundant?

Posted by Annual_Yam_8609@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 7 comments

I’m currently in my second year of Software Engineering, but I feel like my programming fundamentals are weaker than they should be.

I want to focus more seriously on JavaScript because I’m interested in frontend/backend/full-stack development, but I’m also considering taking CS50 to strengthen my fundamentals.

For people who took CS50 while already studying CS or Software Engineering: did it actually help, or did it feel redundant?

Would you recommend doing CS50 now, or focusing on university classes and JavaScript projects first?

[-]

zugzwangister@reddit

If you are going to be successful in software engineering, you should be able to teach yourself everything you need to know from an introductory class.

Going back and taking a class like this when you're in your second year seems like an enormous waste of money.

You can probably find the syllabus. Follow it on your own.

[-]

Annual_Yam_8609@reddit (OP)

Its free if you don’t do it for certificate which I don’t need

[-]

Outside_Complaint755@reddit

There is a free certificate as well. Payment is only required for the "Verified" certificate, which is generally only needed by people whose employer sent them to EDX for training.

[-]

EntrepreneurHuge5008@reddit

Redundant if your plan is to go through all of CS50[X | P | T | W | SQL | CS | B | AI | L | G ].

You should be able to just skip to the assignments for practice, or just zone in on the specific topics you feel you're weak in, but otherwise, it's all still just freshman-level classes.

[-]

BeginningOne8195@reddit

If your fundamentals feel shaky, CS50 can actually help fill those gaps, but don’t let it replace building projects alongside it.

[-]

CS50 is pretty solid for fundamentals even if you're already in a SE program. I did it during my third year and it actually filled some gaps that my university courses kind of rushed through. The way they explain memory management and data structures is really good.

Your uni classes probably cover similar topics but CS50 has this different approach that might click better. Plus it's free so worst case you just stop if it feels too redundant. I'd say do both - start CS50 and work in JavaScript projects on side. The C programming in early weeks actually helped me understand what's happening under the hood when I write higher-level code later.