RFC: Adding a prerequisite for “Introduction to Parallel Programming” Course

[Zayd-R]

Problem: The “Introduction to Parallel Programming” course is difficult to follow and poorly structured, Many students, including myself, find it challenging to grasp the concepts due to the lack of clear prerequisites and the course’s overall organization.

Duration: 1 month

Background: The “Introduction to Parallel Programming” course assumes a high level of functional programming knowledge and familiarity with advanced concepts in Scala. However, many students, including myself, find that merely being familiar with the surface-level syntax and basic constructs of Scala is insufficient to grasp the course material effectively.

The course content is highly abstract and delves deeply into functional programming paradigms, concurrency, and parallel computing. It requires a solid understanding of advanced Scala features, such as higher-order functions, immutability, and monads, which are not adequately covered in the prerequisites provided.

Without a rigorous foundation in these areas, students struggle to keep up with the course, leading to frustration and a steep learning curve.

Proposal:

• I recommend adding the [“Effective Programming in Scala”] (https://www.coursera.org/learn/effective-scala) , This six-week course provides comprehensive coverage of both functional and object-oriented programming in Scala course as a prerequisite