It’s registration time! Choosing classes is both exciting but stressful, so here are a few recommendations that may be off the beaten path, just just as exciting:
ART 286 Design for the Internet, (22426) Jack Toolin, 3 credit hours — Undergraduate
Though this is technically an art course, the focus of this class will be centered around web development, just from an artistic perspective. “This course provides students with basic skills with which to design and code their own websites on the Macintosh platform. Focus is on the construction and design of screen interaction and navigation, and design for media-specific limitations. Instruction includes basic xHTML, and CSS structure, text, graphics and animation-introducing applications for the production of those various elements as well as their particular challenges,” according to the Schedule Explorer.
CS 398 Software Engineering, (22360), Christelle Scharff, 4 credit hours — Undergraduate
Dr. Scharff, a professor who has been highly involved in a range of software engineering, will be teaching the “principles of software engineering including requirements, analysis, design, coding, testing, verification, and maintenance.” Other focuses will include looking at the “strength and weakness of alternative software development processes.” The class will incorporate team work and effectively improve a student’s communication skills.
Data Structures/Algorithms, (23591), Sung-Hyuk Cha, 4 credit hours — Undergraduate
Learn about “concepts of abstract data types (ADT) including stack, queue, priority queue, hash table, and binary search tree.” Work through “problem-solving with the ADTs and tradeoffs of ADT implementation with arrays and linked lists.” Also, Cha will be teaching “basic sorting and searching algorithms and algorithm run-time analysis.” Personally recommended by senior CS major, Salvatore Torcivia.
Web Scripting, (23269), TBA, 4 credit hours — Undergraduate
“This course provides students with an introduction to scripting languages for use on the Internet and includes a client-side scripting language and a server-side scripting language. Students will use JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL to develop interactive Web sites.” Don’t let a TBA professor scare you away — schedules are very flexible up until about two weeks into the actual semester.
Responsive Web Development with HTML/CSS, (22688, 23714), Narayan Murthy, 3 credit hours — Graduate
Professor Murthy’s class is geared towards “specifying web presentation structure with HTML5, embedding contents, working with JavaScript objects and input validation. Also, specifying web styles with CSS3, working with tables, creating dynamic and client/server features with jQuery. The course will also focus on implementing web service features through Node.js, asynchronous operations using jQuery and WinJS, sommunicating by using WebSocket, supporting multimedia. Other topics will include drawing using scalable vector graphics, and making websites location-aware.” Highly recommended by current student, Vaibhav Dubey. The course is run with two options, one being online the other being at the White Plains campus.
Info Sytems Design & Development, (20619), James Gabberty, 3 credit hours — Graduate
“Organizations depend on computer information systems and technology. This course first instructs students in current methods of analyzing business situations and systems to model complete and coherent definitions of systems requirements. Next, learning focuses on methods for developing logical and physical designs of these systems. Finally, these designs form the bases of systems development and implementation. The course emphasizes software engineering best practices in creating and implementing robust, reliable, and appropriate systems regardless of technology, size, scope, type, and geographic distribution.” Current Grad student Suhail Bhandari heartily recommends this class.
From the above statement of the most important innovation in the web site (if I may say so) is responsive design. I remember when a few years ago web designers created a special tags in the html code that allow you to replace website for special small versions and display a completely different page resolution adapted to small screens of mobile phones. Unfortunately, it was a very tedious and quickly began to be impractical when phones start “to grow” and resolution offered by mobile devices becoming bigger and bigger. Responsive layout seems in this case the only solution. A well prepared responsive design will thus clearly and transparently be displayed on the screens full hd as well as old phones with small screens.