CS:2820 Survey Results, Spring 2019

Part of the CS:2820 Object Oriented Programming Collection
by Douglas W. Jones
THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA Department of Computer Science

Purpose: The background of the students in this class is so diverse that we need to know what you know in order to plan the first few lectures.

Survey

Computer Support: What kind(s) of computer do you routinely use?
  Number     Apple Mac______     Linux ______     Windows ______
31 X
16 X X
10 X
8 X X
2 X X X
1 X X

CS/CLAS Linux Experience: Have you ever used fastx.divms.uiowa.edu (the CLAS Linux server)?
         Yes:19    No:44    Don't know:5

Shell Experience: Have you used the Linux or MacOS command shell?
         Yes: 33    No: 31    Unsure:4

Large programming experience: Lines of code are a horrible way to measure program size, but how many lines were in the largest program you have ever written? (A rough estimate will suffice.)
         under 100: 1    100-500: 28    500-1000: 19
         1000-5000: 14    5000-10000: 4    over 10000: 2

Programming Languages: What programming languages do you know pretty well?
         C 5          C++ 26          Cobol 0
C# 4 Java 58 Fortran 0
Python 64 Assembly13 Basic 3

Note that:
    55 know both Python and Java
    25 know both Python and C++
    19 know both Java and C++

Work Load: Many students are seriously overworked
         Credit hours of registration: ______ ×3= ______
Job hours per week: ______
Total work load hours/week: Sum ______ (should not exceed 50)

Here is the distribution of total hours people gave: 

    20-24: x
    25-29:
    30-34:
    35-39: xxxxxx
    40-44: xxxxxxx
    45-49: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    50-54: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    55-59: xxxxxxx
    60-64: xxxxxxx
    65-69: xxxx
    70-74: xx
    75-79: x
    80-84:
    85-89: xx

While somewhat overloaded, students with 50 to 54 hour loads can probably manage, but time management will be a serious to impossible problem for the 5 students with loads of over 70 hours per week. In the early days of the industrial revolution, many factory jobs involved 60 hour work weeks (frequently 6 days a week at 10 hours per day). Workers in those jobs fought and some died in the fight to reduce the work week from 60 hours down to 50 and then 40 hours.