CS10 : BJC (The Beauty and Joy of Computing)
UC Berkeley EECS
Summer 2013
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CS10 : BJC (The Beauty and Joy of Computing) |
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Watch a playlist of 18 student testimonials about CS10.
But this course is far more than just learning to program. We'll focus on some of the "Big Ideas" of computing, such as abstraction, design, recursion, concurrency, simulations, and the limits of computation. We'll show some beautiful applications of computing that have changed the world, talk about the history of computing, and where it will go in the future. Throughout the course, relevance will be emphasized: relevance to the student and to society. As an example, the final project will be completely of the students' choosing, on a topic most interesting to them. The overarching theme is to expose students to the beauty and joy of computing. This course is designed for computing non-majors, although interested majors are certainly welcome to take the class as well! We are especially excited about bringing computing (through this course) to traditionally under-represented groups in computing, i.e., women and ethnic minorities.
Some history: in the Fall of 2009, we piloted a 2-unit version of this course as the freshman/sophomore seminar CS39N: The Beauty and Joy of Computing to 20 students. It was such a success that we decided to move ahead to make this course our new computing course for non-majors, replacing the venerable CS3L and CS3S. Fall 2010 was a 90-person pilot and since then we've continued to grow the course as word spreads to more students. We have continually replaced the weakest parts of the curriculum to arrive at the current form of the course.
We will be using Pair Programming, described best by Laurie Williams, a computer science professor at North Carolina State University: "Two programmers working side-by-side, collaborating on the same design, algorithm, code or test. One programmer, the driver, has control of the keyboard/mouse and actively implements the program. The other programmer, the observer, continuously observes the work of the driver to identify tactical (syntactic, spelling, etc.) defects and also thinks strategically about the direction of the work. On demand, the two programmers can brainstorm any challenging problem. Because the two programmers periodically switch roles, they work together as equals to develop software."
| 2013-03-25 | Welcome to CS10, Summer 2013 Edition
I'm excited to share the Beauty and Joy of Computing with you! On behalf of the course staff, we are all looking forward to a great summer. - Sean Morris |
Webcasts
Webcasts of past lectures are freely available online!
| Hour | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |||||
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| 8:00am | |
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| 9:00am | Lab 111 (Pierce Vollucci) 200 Sutardja Dai |
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Lab 111 (Pierce Vollucci) 200 Sutardja Dai |
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| 10:00am | |
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| 11:00am | |
Office Hours (Peter Sujan) 411 Soda |
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| 12:00pm | Discussion 111 (Pierce Vollucci) 320 Soda |
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Discussion 111 (Pierce Vollucci) 320 Soda |
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| 1:00pm | Lab 112 (Peter Sujan) 200 Sutardja Dai |
Office Hours (Sean Morris) 329 Soda |
Lab 112 (Peter Sujan) 200 Sutardja Dai |
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| 2:00pm | |
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| 3:00pm | |
Office Hours (Pierce Vollucci) 411 Soda |
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| 4:00pm | Lecture 306 Soda |
Lecture 306 Soda |
Lecture 306 Soda |
Lecture 306 Soda |
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| 5:00pm | Discussion 112 (Peter Sujan) 320 Soda |
Office Hours (Peter Sujan) 411 Soda |
Discussion 112 (Peter Sujan) 320 Soda |
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For the most part, we would prefer to teach this course without grades. What a wonderful concept, learning for learning sake! However, even though we can't change the "system" overnight, we can create grading policies that support learning as much as possible. The various course activities will contribute to your grade as follows:
| Activity | Course Points | Percentage of Total Grade |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly Quizzes and Homework | 60 | 15% |
| Blog | 60 | 15% |
| Midterm Project | 60 | 15% |
| Final Project | 60 | 15% |
| Quest | 20 | 5% |
| Midterm | 60 | 15% |
| Final Exam | 80 | 20% |
Your letter grade will be determined by total course points, as shown in the table below. There is no curve; your grade will depend only on how well you do, not on how well everyone else does. Incomplete grades will be granted only for dire medical or personal emergencies that cause you to miss the final exam, and only if your work up to that point is satisfactory.
| Points | Grade |
|---|---|
| 390-400 | A+ |
| 370-389 | A |
| 360-369 | A- |
| 350-359 | B+ |
| 330-349 | B |
| 320-329 | B- |
| 310-319 | C+ |
| 290-309 | C |
| 280-289 | C- |
| 240-279 | D |
| < 240 | F |
Resources
λ CS10 Family
λ Codepath
λ BYOB : Build Your
Own Blocks
λ Scratch
Forums
λ Blown to Bits
λ Debugging
Rules!
λ UC Berkeley
λ College of
Engineering
λ Department of
Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences
λ
Webcast archive of 2010Fa lectures
λ Solutions to Lab
Exercises
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
