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The Beauty and Joy of Computing (new intro CS class at UC Berkeley)
Posted on | December 18, 2009 | No Comments
Dry. Difficult. Irrelevant. That’s how students in CS39N described computer science CS and programming BEFORE they took the introductory course.
Fun. Easy to learn. Can relate to it. That’s what they were saying eight weeks into the class.
It’s music to the ears of Dan Garcia, Brian Harvey, Colleen Lewis B.S.’05 EECS and George Wang, who are on a mission to establish a new introductory computing course at Berkeley that will alter the way young people perceive the field. Called “The Beauty and Joy of Computing,” the two-unit freshman/sophomore seminar teaches non-majors basic programming skills while exploring big picture topics such as abstraction, world-changing applications and the social implications of computing. The course is supported by a $50,000 grant from Lockheed Martin.
“Beauty, joy, passion and awe—all of us in computer science see and feel these things in computing,” says Garcia, an EECS lecturer. “But we’re making a terrible first impression. Traditional introductory courses are syntax heavy, and students struggle as they slog through the details of Java programming. Where’s the joy and creativity in that?”
via Oh! The Beauty and Joy of Computing — UC Berkeley College of Engineering.
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