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What are three ways that the UH ICS program could improve?

If you can think of more than three things, then please limit your response to your top three!

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1. Up front cost of having to own a personal computer combined with having to purchase textbooks. We're in computer science and still having to buy textbooks? It would be great to have (free) widely available resources for classes. 

2 I wasn't really aware until I read through this thread that class availability was an issue. It would be really great to have better class availability during the times when students need it especially core classes!

3. More Professors please! There are a lot of ICS students and way too few Professors to teach these classes. This makes it difficult for both the Professors to get one one time with students and disconnects many students from forming a bond with their Professors.

1) A lot of time is spent`q doing work, assignments, and teaching yourself.

2) Classes are always full when it is time to register or does not fit your schedule.

3) Sometimes office hours are inconvenient and sometimes you won't be able to make it because you have class during those times.

1. More flexibility in ICS classes and their times. Seats in the classes are very limited, as I've only seen one or two classes at max available to register per semester in an ICS class.
Along with that, there is usually only a one-time schedule that is offered, making it hard to adjust for other classes. 
2. The ICS courses definitely require a massive time commitment. Coming into Computer Science, I already had the expectation that all the classes will require a lot of devotion to learning hours outside of class. Despite this, I think any way to lessen the burden on the student when it comes to course load without negatively impacting what they will learn and gain from ICS courses would be nice. Maybe some ICS courses fulfilling our other required core requirements so we have one less non-ICS class to worry about.
3. There needs to be more group collaboration on the 100 & 200 level courses. I know that the introductory classes are a mix of people who have none to little programming experience and people with programming experience, but I think that small group collaboration would push those with little programming experience a bit more and allows them to learn from and discuss with other more knowledgeable programmers. 

1) The amount of extra classes such as the language requirement classes should be dropped or be removed. I switched my major from engineering, where there wasn't a language requirement, and I felt like I could focus a little more on my classes. Taking four extra four credit classes feels like a little too much time I could use for another one of my necessary classes.

2) I like that some ICS courses do cover WIs, but most of them are upper level and I would like to see more ICS courses that offer lower level WIs.

3) A lot of the classes are adopting the reverse classroom style of teaching, and I feel like it would be nice for the professors to at least direct us in the right direction in how to study for these kind of class environments for the quizzes/tests we will be taking.

1. The amount of hours, workload, and commitment needed for each class is sometimes overwhelming.

2. Some grad requirements, like language and FG credits, should be lessened or removed so there's more focus and less stress on the already difficult major courses.

3. As many others have said, there should be a more widely accessible (or free lol) way of learning from expensive textbooks.

1. Sometimes your schedule gets messed up because there's only one teacher teaching a course, so you're stuck with a certain class time because there's only two different sections. More teachers for classes that are currently only taught by one teacher would be nice.

2. The workload for coding-heavy classes can be quite stressful, especially if you're taking more than one class like that. I think if teachers have such a class, they should take into account that a student will probably be taking other classes and manage a reasonable workload. Maybe take several polls on how much hours students expect to dedicate to their other classes as well.

3. I wish that more ICS courses would fulfill more graduation requirements such as WIs and Oral Communication. I feel like the amount of coding we have to do in some classes should fulfill that requirement. I have to take extra WI courses over the summer just to avoid being swamped with extra classes during the school year. It would also be cool if there were more graduation requirements available with HAPs and OCs too.

1. There should be more tutor resources for students who are taking upper level classes. The place I go for help normally only tutor the intro level classes.

2. More professors should teach important ICS courses such as ICS 311.

3. Each class should have more than one TA and ATA with different office hours so people can meet with one of them when they need help.

1) While taking ICS 141 (introductory discrete mathematics course) I was introduced to the "flipped course" teaching technique where you learn the material at home and do work during the lecture. I would suggest moving the "flipped course" methods to later ICS courses instead of having a student teach himself or herself discrete mathematics from the very beginning which is a lot to digest on your own. 

2) Throughout my first year of taking ICS classes, I utilized my teacher's and teacher's assistant's office hours. It is common for a student to have a problem that requires a lot of time from the teacher or teaching assistant. This gives a disadvantage to other students who came for office hours because there can be times where a teacher or teaching assistant finally finishes helping a student, but the majority of the time dedicated to office hours is gone. I would suggest a more fair distribution of time between teacher and student, or maybe even more office hours. 

3) The third suggestion I would make is to increase class availability. This is an issue I am seeing in a course I am taking right now which is 311. Since there was only one section being held this semester, the class that I am in has a large number of students, more than usual and still even has some on the waitlist. This might affect some students due to the difference in the student to teacher ratio.

Three bad things about being ICS student: 

1) ICS student need to spend a lot of time to find the error in code.

2) It's hard to learn how to coding by myself.

3) Easy to mess up my own ideas.

1. Because ICS is so broad, I think it would be nice if it was possible for us to experience various fields before choosing our focused area of study.

2. Another way UH ICS program could improve is to ditch the screencast and come back with in class lecture, I think that would let the class be more involved  in the lesson, watching a video online doesn't feel the same.

3.Another bad thing about being an ICS student is the amount of work hours and work loads that is being pushed on to the students.

1) Not that much classes that cover focuses such as ETH, OC, or WI. Perhaps more classes that could cover these so students can possibly stay focused in the ICS branch and not need to take a class like IP364 to cover the focuses.

2)Definitely the general cost of the ICS department from the books to getting a personal computer for classes.

3)More classes in specific studies like web development and security, maybe even project management.

1. Making classes more affordable by using free online resources instead of textbooks.
2. Having more sections for some courses available so students don't have to worry about conflicting classes.
3. Emphasizing teamwork and learning how to share code (ex. github) earlier in the ICS programming.

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