SDC CS306 Computer architecture experience

[hsufeng]

If you think about studying computer architecture, it seems like study.com is the cheapest option... so considering the budget, there is no choice.
Before I started this course, I saw a lot of negative reviews, especially about Assignment 1. I received my Assignment 1 grade today and am wrapping up the course, so perhaps I can share a few experiences.

If you just want to get credit for this course, I think homework 1 is a pretty time-consuming option... If you can get 90% on the quizs and a perfect score on homework 2 (which is easy, they give you detailed feedback on the homework and you just submit it again based on the feedback), then you only need a 70% on the final exam to pass this course. Does 70% seem difficult? I thought so too when I started this proctored exam. I had taken the proctored exam for the history of the Vietnam War before. The style of the questions at the end was very different from the style of the quizs, and I thought it was very difficult. But in fact, the content of the CS306 proctored exam is basically the simplest concept analysis. I even think it is easier than the usual quizzes. Because there is no question in the quiz that asks you to choose what the component image of XOR and AND is. So if you practice many mock exams, you will get a good score on the proctored exam.

If you take a proctored exam and then find out that you are a few points short of passing... and then have to do homework 1. Then maybe you can refer to my experience. They were actually pretty lenient on assignment 1... I was pretty sure my ALU didn't work at the end, but they gave me full credit anyway... (which means as long as you draw the main structure, they'll at least give you some scores...

1. In the first stage you need to come up with some new structures, here I suggest you write some 8-bit Boolean operations, because this is easy to implement in the following logisim, then you can easily get all the points in the first part. You can choose 9 simplest structures to implement. If you have no idea how to draw these structures, and don't know how to verify whether your final structure is correct, you can refer to circuitverse. This is what I learned from reddit, and I believe if you are planning to take this course, you have also seen that post. This website will give you a lot of 8-bit structures, and you just need to draw them according to them.

2. The second part of the table is easy to score. You can easily find how to complete it from the website. Then draw the MUX, the control unit and the last ALU. My suggestion is to refer to the 4-bit structure they give. You will find that the MUX is a selector, and then refer to the 4-bit structure. For the rest, you can completely repeat the 4-bit image, just change the input and output to 8-bit. Maybe this is not the correct answer, but it is enough if you want to get the points... I really hope they can give me a correct structure for reference, but apparently they don't spend too much work on this assignment to give feedback.

This course is not as good as I expected, there is not enough connection between the parts, they just put the material together loosely. The first hardest homework, they did not give a more detailed tutorial to explain many details, so many people will buy other courses to learn how to draw ALU... but fortunately they do not have high requirements for homework. So be it, at least we were able to get credits cheaply and learn something...even if the experience wasn't good.

[LevelUP]

Next to Calculus, that is the toughest course if you are doing a CS degree. 

The additional assignment made the courses a lot easier. 

You are better off doing this course at Study.com than at TESU or WGU.

[homeschoolmom1]

Which courses were made easier by the new assignments? Intro to Programming and Data Structures and Algorithms? Or Computer architecture?

Wouldn't Discrete Math be harder than Calculus for most people?

[LevelUP]

Which courses were made easier by the new assignments? Intro to Programming and Data Structures and Algorithms? Or Computer architecture?

Wouldn't Discrete Math be harder than Calculus for most people?

Math-wise, Discrete Math is extremely simple. There are only a few simple formulas you need to memorize, and they give you an online calculator to use. In addition, the math part only makes up around 25% of the final exam.

The hard part of Discrete Math is that there are lots of concepts to learn. The concepts don't build on top of each other, so if you have trouble with one part, you can skip ahead and come back to it later.

[AllThose299s]

Which courses were made easier by the new assignments? Intro to Programming and Data Structures and Algorithms? Or Computer architecture?

Wouldn't Discrete Math be harder than Calculus for most people?

The additional assignment for Computer architecture makes it a lot easier to pass, previously it was only 1 assignment that (my memory fails me on this part) had like 4 different parts to it, I don't recall them really covering Logisim much or almost at all when I took it, here's my review on it. So, you have a lot riding on needing to do well on the assignment in case you don't do well on the final. I felt that the practice exams were close to what the final score outcome would be.

When I took Calculus a year later, I also ranked it as a 10 out of 10 on Difficulty level which is the same as what I ranked Computer architecture, however looking back, I feel that Calculus via SDC is probably harder than Computer architecture. Discrete Math on the other hand, is much more fun than Calculus - it does cover a lot and there were some flash backs to the frustration I had with Computer architecture, but it's much easier than Calculus via SDC (I can't speak for Calculus via Sophia and it wasn't an option when I took those courses)

[homeschoolmom1]

Which courses were made easier by the new assignments? Intro to Programming and Data Structures and Algorithms? Or Computer architecture?

Wouldn't Discrete Math be harder than Calculus for most people?

Math-wise, Discrete Math is extremely simple. There are only a few simple formulas you need to memorize, and they give you an online calculator to use. In addition, the math part only makes up around 25% of the final exam.

The hard part of Discrete Math is that there are lots of concepts to learn. The concepts don't build on top of each other, so if you have trouble with one part, you can skip ahead and come back to it later.

I see. One more question: I have a high schooler currently working on Algebra II. Do you think that doing Discrete Math before Calculus would then be a good idea?

[LevelUP]

Which courses were made easier by the new assignments? Intro to Programming and Data Structures and Algorithms? Or Computer architecture?

Wouldn't Discrete Math be harder than Calculus for most people?

Math-wise, Discrete Math is extremely simple. There are only a few simple formulas you need to memorize, and they give you an online calculator to use. In addition, the math part only makes up around 25% of the final exam.

The hard part of Discrete Math is that there are lots of concepts to learn. The concepts don't build on top of each other, so if you have trouble with one part, you can skip ahead and come back to it later.

I see. One more question: I have a high schooler currently working on Algebra II. Do you think that doing Discrete Math before Calculus would then be a good idea?

Calculus has nothing to do with Discrete Math, so you can definitely do Discrete Math first.

For Discrete Math, you only need a very basic understanding of Algebra, such as solving equations like X+7=10. You should also know how to input such equations into an online calculator.

An example formula you must memorize in discrete math is the combination formula. The question will give you the values of N and R, then you just have to plug it in and get the result. 


There are less than 10 formulas you have to memorize so it isn't that hard.

[smtGate]

Yeah, study.com CS class are not good. If anyone want to learn CS, then youtube and othe resources are a lot more helpful.

CS306 Computer architecture is hard, it should have been spilt into three classes, digital design, computer architecure, and digital logic or something like that. 

The two assignment do make the class easier to pass, since it is easy to get 100 on the quizes.

Assignment 2 is easy, if you have any experience with binary numbers and number conversion.

Assignment 1 is hard, I spend two weeks learning how to use logicism and watching hours of youtube video to finish it.

I spend a lot of time on the two assignment. I was able to get 100 for both assignment, but I really think assignment 1 is more digital design, than what someone would learn in a computer architecture class in an actual college.

[legenwait4itdary]

If you think about studying computer architecture, it seems like study.com is the cheapest option... so considering the budget, there is no choice.
Before I started this course, I saw a lot of negative reviews, especially about Assignment 1. I received my Assignment 1 grade today and am wrapping up the course, so perhaps I can share a few experiences.

If you just want to get credit for this course, I think homework 1 is a pretty time-consuming option... If you can get 90% on the quizs and a perfect score on homework 2 (which is easy, they give you detailed feedback on the homework and you just submit it again based on the feedback), then you only need a 70% on the final exam to pass this course. Does 70% seem difficult? I thought so too when I started this proctored exam. I had taken the proctored exam for the history of the Vietnam War before. The style of the questions at the end was very different from the style of the quizs, and I thought it was very difficult. But in fact, the content of the CS306 proctored exam is basically the simplest concept analysis. I even think it is easier than the usual quizzes. Because there is no question in the quiz that asks you to choose what the component image of XOR and AND is. So if you practice many mock exams, you will get a good score on the proctored exam.

If you take a proctored exam and then find out that you are a few points short of passing... and then have to do homework 1. Then maybe you can refer to my experience. They were actually pretty lenient on assignment 1... I was pretty sure my ALU didn't work at the end, but they gave me full credit anyway... (which means as long as you draw the main structure, they'll at least give you some scores...

1. In the first stage you need to come up with some new structures, here I suggest you write some 8-bit Boolean operations, because this is easy to implement in the following logisim, then you can easily get all the points in the first part. You can choose 9 simplest structures to implement. If you have no idea how to draw these structures, and don't know how to verify whether your final structure is correct, you can refer to circuitverse. This is what I learned from reddit, and I believe if you are planning to take this course, you have also seen that post. This website will give you a lot of 8-bit structures, and you just need to draw them according to them.

2. The second part of the table is easy to score. You can easily find how to complete it from the website. Then draw the MUX, the control unit and the last ALU. My suggestion is to refer to the 4-bit structure they give. You will find that the MUX is a selector, and then refer to the 4-bit structure. For the rest, you can completely repeat the 4-bit image, just change the input and output to 8-bit. Maybe this is not the correct answer, but it is enough if you want to get the points... I really hope they can give me a correct structure for reference, but apparently they don't spend too much work on this assignment to give feedback.

This course is not as good as I expected, there is not enough connection between the parts, they just put the material together loosely. The first hardest homework, they did not give a more detailed tutorial to explain many details, so many people will buy other courses to learn how to draw ALU... but fortunately they do not have high requirements for homework. So be it, at least we were able to get credits cheaply and learn something...even if the experience wasn't good.

Thank you for the feedback on the course. I am taking it now and I struggle with the assignments. I was wondering if you could help me a bit. In SDC lessons then built a half and full adders however, adders are available in the Arithmetic library in logisim. Is it possible to use the items from the Arithmetics library for the assignments? Thanks!

[legenwait4itdary]

Hi all,

I just recently did a course. Still need to do some quizzes and take the final but I got 50/50 on both assignments.

Assignment 2 is easy. Make sure you show all the steps, though. For every calculation I did I showed all the working out.

Assignment 1 is more tricky but doable. You can use arithmetic in logisim which make stuff such as comparing numbers easier (you do not need to play with it with gates). I did initially but it was becoming to complicated. The assignment is by no means easy but I found it actually pretty fun. I enjoyed doing it. But what's in the lessons might not be enough. I watched some Youtube vids and many things you will be able to work out yourself. As I said, it is pretty fun and if you are doing CS it means you probably like logic so you will find the assignment fun as well. All my circuits and ALU worked in the end so I was pretty proud of the accomplishment.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.