CSE 452: Distributed Systems has one of the longest pre-requisite chains of
any course offered by the department, which has caused some issues
for students in the past since it is also offered only once per year.
Most specifically, 452 has required 451 (operating systems), which in turn
required 333 (systems programming) and 332 (data structures), and so forth.
Starting with this spring’s offering of 452, we have re-designed the course
project to allow us to restate its pre-requisite as requiring 332 and 333,
with 451 strongly recommended. There are additional logisticss needed to make
this permanent, so for now it will apply experimentally to this spring’s offering.
That is, students may take 452 without first taking 451, but you are
still encouraged to take 451 then 452 if you can.
Related, we have moved the time slot for 452 this spring so it will not
collide with 451. Taking 451 and 452 at the same time is fine, subject to the
warning that both courses have a higher than average workload, even among
CSE courses.
If you wish to enroll in 452 this spring without having completed 451, there will be a google form linked in the UW Time Schedule and sent out to this blog so you can sign up on that to request an add code.
If you have further questions, you can reach out to the advisors at ugrad-advisor@cs.uw.edu
Thank you,
CSE Advising