Leven D

Poor execution of the Data Science (BDatSci) first year course computer science

Poor execution of the Data Science (BDatSci) course for first years that did not take computer science at school. The mathematical side of BDatSci if hard, but fair. The computer science is poorly managed and not professional. The course did say computer science was not required to take BDatSci. Facts: 1. Students arrived at classes that did not have room for the number of students subscribed to the course. 2. Lecturer's does not take into account that some students did not have computer science. Again, it is not a requirement. 3. While doing online assignment, some of the answers does not fit with the question being asked, so the student is left guessing at why the answer is not correct. 4. In the course material, students are taught how to program Python, but in the exams, they are expected to do problem solving, while they are still grappling with the basics of the language. 5. The tutorials and the course was out of sync, so the student writes a tut test, but the work is only done in class the week after. 6. For their project students are expected to write a complex board game, while they only learnt about functions a week before the project handin. 7. A week before the handin date, the system that should test the project program to see if it valid code, was off line. Meaning students that worked through the holiday did not have any way of knowing if their project was behaving as expected. 8. After the project handin, about half the class got 0 or did not hand in. This is a reflection of a poorly executed course.