STA301 and MTH603 - suggestion to rector

On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 9:12 PM, mc100400650 Zahid Hussain <mc100400650@vu.edu.pk> wrote:

a agree with your suggestion

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 10:28 PM, Muhammad Umair <muhammad.umair.491@gmail.com> wrote:

Assalam o Alaikum

my suggestion about STA301 and MTH603 to rector.

Sir, I was talking to a fellow student and she told me that also give a suggestion to rector about some subjects of MCS. Sir, she told me that many students feel difficulty in STA301 and MTH603 courses. 

Sir, pre-requisites are not taught in VU of these two subjects. For students who are studying in their business study related program e.g. BS-BA, MBA, B.Com. etc. and such students who didn't study calculus before, will face much problem in understanding few topics of STA301 which contain derivatives and integration. Therefore, I think, there should be a course in such study programs too in which basic calculus should be taught.

Now let's come to MTH603 (Numerical Analysis). This is not one subject, rather mixture of subjects. This subject contains almost all other subjects of Mathematics. Calculus, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations are dominant subjects of the course contents of MTH603. Sir, I observed many times that MCS students find this subject very tough and it is because of the fact that its pre-requisites i.e. Calculus, Differential Equations and Linear Algebra and not taught in VU. Sir, to understand how a numerical method for a problem works I think it is much necessary to first understand how that method is applied analytically. Students also need to understand why we are applying numerical method.

I will give you my personal experience too about this fact. When I studied MTH301, I learned most part of the course very well. However, in the very last lecture of this course, there was a topic "Solving Differential Equations with Initial Value Problems using Lalplace Transforms". Sir, I hardly understood this topic and the only reason I inferred after many years is that at that time I didn't even know what actually is a differential equation, what actually is an Initial Value Problem and most important fact due to which I could not understand this topic at that time was that "Laplace Transforms" are part of Differential Equations course and this chapter is usually 6th of 7th chapter in most textbooks around the world i.e. after covering the basic methods of Differential Equations. 

Sir, I want to explain that many MCS students who haven't studied Linear Algebra, Calculus, and Differential Equation will find it almost impossible to get the numerical concepts of most parts of this course. Therefore, I think, this course should be dropped in MCS degree program. There are many other Math subjects that don't have any pre-requisiste and can therefore be added to MCS program without any difficulty. One that is coming in my mind is Linear Algebra. OR, this Numerical Analysis subject can also be replaced by some other CS course that is not in MCS like Computer Graphics, Visual Programming, etc. etc.

I hope you will find my suggestions valueable. 

and he replied as follows:

Your critical analysis and suggestions about the subjects in the MCS

 scheme of studies are very pertinent and extremely valuable. Thank

 you. I will take up the issue with the Registrar and hopefully update

 the scheme of studies as soon as possible (or introduce more

 pre-requisite courses as deficiency courses).

I hope most of MCS students will agree with me about these two subjects. 

--

Regard

zahid hussain

mc100400650@vu.edu.pk

zahid7256@yahoo.com

MBA-3rd Semester

virtual university of Pakistan

Lahore