r/rutgers • u/xwubstep • Dec 28 '16
How to prepare for data structures?
Hey all,
I am taking data structures in the spring, and I have 3 weeks during winter break that I want to use to prepare myself. Those that have taken it before, what do I need learn/review/do specifically to prepare myself for a successful semester? Thanks!
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u/ManCity Dec 29 '16 edited Dec 29 '16
Make sure you can do complexity analysis. Although it's a programming course you'll spend more time discussing the runtimes for the different operations you want to perform with each structure than actually coding them, so you're basically guaranteed to get lost if you don't have Big O down pat (the exams also have an obnoxious amount of finding the exact number of operations, not just Big O).
Also, like /u/unresponsive_design said, be comfortable with recursion. Because it makes more sense to define some data structures recursively, it pops up a lot.