The Degree Course in Computer Science requires that the exams for the various teaching activities present in the educational offer are taken according to a certain "order". Although there are still many degrees of freedom in deciding which exams to take, the student must pay extreme attention to the constraints of propaedeutics between the various subjects, because they indicate dependencies between the curricular contents of the subjects themselves. This document describes the reasons and history of the changes made in recent years. The information is updated up to the 2024/2025 cohort.
Complete information on the active propaedeutics for the various cohorts of the course of study is available in the dedicated pdf document .
Reasons
The fact that the study plan includes courses that are propaedeutic to other courses is certainly not new, given that mandatory propaedeutics were introduced with the 2014/15 academic year. Before that academic year, propaedeutics were only recommended, without formal obligations subject to verification. This lack of constraints has ended up causing many inconveniences to many students , often unconsciously. In fact, and from a certain point of view also understandably, a student who finds it difficult to take a certain exam is led to temporarily "suspend" the study of the subject to concentrate on something else. This is almost always a serious mistake , for at least two reasons that have been, in past years, among the main causes of the lengthening of the time required to obtain the qualification.
- The difficulties encountered in studying a certain subject almost never “disappear”
by postponing the study “to better times”; it is true instead that it is the knowledge only partially acquired but not consolidated that tends to vanish, thus forcing the student (when he resumes studying the subject temporarily put “aside”) to start the study again from scratch or almost, with a consequent serious waste of time. - If the subject left aside is preparatory to another subject, studying the latter turns out to be more difficult and decidedly less profitable, often with a negative impact on the grade itself.
The correct way to successfully address the problem of difficulties, which in many cases arise in relation to basic subjects , especially in the first year, is therefore not to ignore the difficult subject, postponing the exam. The winning methodology consists instead in: (1) studying gradually but without setbacks during the lesson period, in order to take full advantage of the contact with the teacher; (2) even in the case in which the activities in the classroom/laboratory have not been followed profitably, have direct contact with the teacher using the office hours and, if foreseen, attend the support tutoring; (3) combine individual study with study in small groups for comparison and refinement of expository skills. In conclusion, the introduction of the propaedeutic constraints was dictated (on the basis of careful reflection on what happened in past years) by the desire to help students plan their studies without encountering major difficulties and to try to align the times for obtaining the qualification as much as possible with the normal duration of studies (3 years).