Introductory Computer Science @ Harvey Mudd College

In 2005, we perceived a need to update our traditional Java-based CS1 course. Our goals were to design an introductory curriculum that would (1) develop programming and problem-solving skills useful across engineering, mathematics, and the natural sciences, (2) attract (a more diverse group of) students to continue with CS, and (3) provide a coherent, intellectually compelling picture of CS, even as final CS course.

This page provides information about our new CS1 course, nicknamed CS for Scientists, as well as about other our other efforts to develop engaging introductory CS curriculum.

This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CNS-0939149. It is part of our CPATH project entitled "Modular CS1 from the inside out." A summary of this project can be found here.

Related Publications

Bitwise Biology: Crossdisciplinary physical computing atop the Arduino. J. Grasel, W. Vonnegut, and Z. Dodds. In Proceedings, AAAI Spring Symposium on Educational Robotics and Beyond: Design and Evaluation, pp.14 -19, Palo Alto, CA, March 22-24, 2010.
When CS1 is Biology1: Crossdisciplinary collaboration as CS context. Z. Dodds, R. Libeskind-Hadas, and E. Bush. Proceedings, ITiCSE '10: Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education. June 28-30, 2010, Ankara, Turkey. ACM Press.
Women in CS: An Evaluation of Three Promising Practices. Christine Alvarado and Zachary Dodds. In Proceedings of SIGCSE 2010. March 10–13, 2010, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Evaluating a Breadth-First CS 1 for Scientists. Zach Dodds, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Christine Alvarado, Geoff Kuenning. In Proceedings of SIGCSE 2008.
Breadth-first CS 1 for Scientists: Curriculum and Assessment, Zach Dodds, Christine Alvarado, Geoff Kuenning, Ran Libeskind-Hadas. In Proc. of the 12^th Annual Conference on Innovation in Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE 2007). 2007.

Resources for Instructors and Course web pages

CS for Scientists and Engineers
A working draft of a textbook to accompany the CS for Scientists course.
CS 5 assignment page
This page provides a link to assignments from different versions of CS5. It includes assignments for the different modules in the course, showcasing different application areas in science and engineering.
CS 5: Web Development Theme
A link to a version of CS5 that uses Web Development as its application theme. This version of the course is currently under development and will be offered in the Fall of 2010 at Claremont Graduate University.
CS 5 ("CS for Scientists"): Fall 2009

CS5 from previous semesters:

CS/Bio 6/7: Fall 2009/Spring 2010
CS 60 (HMC's CS2): Fall 2009 (you can find other semesters by modifying the URL appropriately)
HMC's second semester CS course that immediately follows CS5.

We are also working with several partner schools to co-develop an adapted version of our CS1 course. As these courses are run, we will post links to courses pages below. For now we provide general links to each partner school.

We will more information specific to this project as it develops.

Contact

The intro CS team at HMC is led by Christine Alvarado (alvarado@cs.hmc.edu), Zach Dodds (dodds@cs.hmc.edu), Geoff Kuenning (geoff@cs.hmc.edu), and Ran Libeskind-Hadas (hadas@cs.hmc.edu). Please feel free to contact any of us with questions.