Should I Take a Java Course to Boost My Career Prospects?

[mr_coffee]

Hello everyone. I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions.

Well I should be graduating this spring if every went to plan. But of course it didn't. I started going to school in 2003 as a Software Engineering major, got hurt took a year off for recovery, went back to school as a computer engineer, took all the maths and EE courses/physics I didn't need because I soon found out I hated EE and Computer Architecture which made me switch back to Computer Science (not software engineering because its not offered here).

Anyways, now I have to take a lot of other classes, such as 2nd language, and some more stat classes. Well with all the classes that now don't count for anything and then ones I still need to take I still need 44.5 credits to graduate ~ 2 years.

Well they are offering a course in java that I could take but its not required since they just changed the comp sci curriculum (but it is required for the upcoming freshman/sophomores).

At very beginning I was very excited to hear a class in java was finally being offered, but now I feel if I take that class, it will take up too much time and take away from my 400 level cse courses (java being only a 200 level course).

Perhaps if I had free time I could just teach myself java because I have programmed in it before its just been about eh, 3 years. (all the programming I've been doing in my other classes have been in C/C++/VHDL/ASM). I can learn languages very fast but I find I don't have any free time at all to just sit down and start a programming project not related to my classes.

I was going to take the course as a refresher but now I'm having second thoughts. Should I take the course so on my next co-op when they ask me if I'm comfortable with Java I can say yes without any doubt in my mind... or should I just focus on my core classes such as A.I., Operating Systems, Data structures, computer graphics ( and refresh on java when the time comes when I need to use java on the job) ?

THanks any advice would be great!

 

[neurocomp2003]

might as well spend your time buildng a renderer or AI Api or rebuild STL.

OR learn C#

 

[mr_coffee]

good idea! :)

I already did a lot of rebuilding the STL in C++, it was quite hellish but I think your right, I need to spend time on bigger and better things and just refresh.

Thanks!

 

[neurocomp2003]

yes STL was a lot of...mmmm fun i still don't get half the #define flags for it though. Too many for platform independency. Its allocation functions were the most pain to understand.

For AI: build a NNets or GeneticAlgos or AStar or FSM or decision or ALL IN ONE...there's quite a few open source algos out there...the biggest difference compared to Graphics or Datastructures...is you need a good Test bed (IMO).

Graphics just start with geometric primitives and branhc out to either ROAM, Scenegraphs and animation or cllassical dynamics.

Data structures...mmm pick up a graph theory text and go through allt he problems.

 

[D H]

My advice is to learn something new. You will find a 200-level cone you alourse in a language that is very similar to but simpler than C++ very, very boring.