Computer Science Classes

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

First day attendance required; 2 seats saved for FR*

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. There is a required 1.5 hour laboratory section associated with this course. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. There is a required 1.5 hour laboratory section associated with this course. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. There is a required 1.5 hour laboratory section associated with this course. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. There is a required 1.5 hour laboratory section associated with this course. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What happens as software grows in complexity? How do we break a program into manageable pieces? How do we write readable, maintainable code? This course is an introduction to the building blocks of software design: abstraction, decomposition, and encapsulation. Using object-oriented programming in Java, we will create graphics, games, and simulations, and explore natural language processing. Topics may include: classes, objects, polymorphism, inheritance, testing, refactoring, events, closures, streams, immutability, parallel programming, and version control. The course culminates in a student-designed project. There is a required 1.5 hour laboratory section associated with this course. Prerequisite(s): COMP 123 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course familiarizes students with the fundamental data structures in computer science. Using the Java programming language, students will study existing data structure implementations, implement their own data structures, and develop data-intensive applications. The course covers stacks, queues, lists, trees, heaps, hash tables, graphs, and the common algorithms that use these data structures. Students will also receive an introduction to basic complexity analysis (Big-O), learn the time complexity of different data structure operations, and gain experience in calculating the time complexity of programs that use data structures. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course familiarizes students with the fundamental data structures in computer science. Using the Java programming language, students will study existing data structure implementations, implement their own data structures, and develop data-intensive applications. The course covers stacks, queues, lists, trees, heaps, hash tables, graphs, and the common algorithms that use these data structures. Students will also receive an introduction to basic complexity analysis (Big-O), learn the time complexity of different data structure operations, and gain experience in calculating the time complexity of programs that use data structures. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

What are the truths and falsehoods that data and databases tell us about contemporary culture? Increasingly, computational methods are being used to ask questions and look for patterns in cultural data (from museums, libraries, archives, and elsewhere). This class provides an introduction to some of the methods and tools used to investigate data and datasets, while encouraging critical engagement with the humanities-based research questions that surround them. Students will consider ethical and design questions encompassing the collection, analysis, and presentation of data through class conversations and the process of creating their own digital projects.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course offers an in-depth introduction to the design and analysis of algorithms. Students will work with algorithms in pseudocode, and will learn formal and informal methods for analyzing algorithm efficiency and correctness. Topics may include recursion, divide and conquer, dynamic programming, greedy methods, branch and bound, randomized, probabilistic, and parallel algorithms. Application areas include string processing, graphs, geometric problems, and optimization. This course will introduce computability topics including regular expressions, grammars and parsing, automata, nondeterminism, and NP completeness. Prerequisite(s): COMP 128 and MATH 279, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the problem of building software with humans and for humans. Students work in teams to design and implement a semester-long user-facing software project of their own invention. There are no limitations on topic or technology; on the contrary, students are responsible for imagining possibilities, articulating goals, and researching and selecting suitable technologies. The format resembles a studio art class, with in-class discussion guided by sharing and critiquing classmates' ongoing work. Topics include communication, division of labor, user-centered design, human-computer interaction, product management, project management, iterative development, engineering tradeoffs, separation of concerns, code readability and maintainability, refactoring, testing, and version control. Teams give a public demonstration of their working projects at the end of the semester. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 (COMP 128 recommended) or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the problem of building software with humans and for humans. Students work in teams to design and implement a semester-long user-facing software project of their own invention. There are no limitations on topic or technology; on the contrary, students are responsible for imagining possibilities, articulating goals, and researching and selecting suitable technologies. The format resembles a studio art class, with in-class discussion guided by sharing and critiquing classmates' ongoing work. Topics include communication, division of labor, user-centered design, human-computer interaction, product management, project management, iterative development, engineering tradeoffs, separation of concerns, code readability and maintainability, refactoring, testing, and version control. Teams give a public demonstration of their working projects at the end of the semester. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 (COMP 128 recommended) or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the problem of building software with humans and for humans. Students work in teams to design and implement a semester-long user-facing software project of their own invention. There are no limitations on topic or technology; on the contrary, students are responsible for imagining possibilities, articulating goals, and researching and selecting suitable technologies. The format resembles a studio art class, with in-class discussion guided by sharing and critiquing classmates' ongoing work. Topics include communication, division of labor, user-centered design, human-computer interaction, product management, project management, iterative development, engineering tradeoffs, separation of concerns, code readability and maintainability, refactoring, testing, and version control. Teams give a public demonstration of their working projects at the end of the semester. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 (COMP 128 recommended) or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course familiarizes the student with the internal design and organization of computers. Topics include number systems, internal data representations, microarchitectures, the functional units of a computer system, memory, processor, and input/output structures, instruction sets and assembly language, addressing techniques, system software, and concurrency and parallelism. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course familiarizes the student with the internal design and organization of computers. Topics include number systems, internal data representations, microarchitectures, the functional units of a computer system, memory, processor, and input/output structures, instruction sets and assembly language, addressing techniques, system software, and concurrency and parallelism. Prerequisite(s): COMP 127 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course will introduce students to the design, implementation, and analysis of databases stored in database management systems (DBMS). Topics include implementation-neutral data modeling, database design, database implementation, and data analysis using relational algebra and SQL. Students will generate data models based on real-world problems, and implement a database in a state-of-the-art DBMS. Students will master complex data analysis by learning to first design database queries and then implement them in a database query language such as SQL. Advanced topics include objects in databases, indexing for improved performance, distributed databases, and data warehouses.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

A mix of applied linear algebra and numerical analysis, this course covers a central point of contact between mathematics and computer science. Many of the computational techniques important in science, commerce, and statistics are based on concepts from linear algebra, such as subspaces, projections, and matrix decompositions. The course reviews these concepts, adopts them to large scales, and applies them in the core techniques of scientific computing. These include solving systems of linear and nonlinear equations, approximation and statistical function estimation, optimization, interpolation, eigenvalue and singular value decompositions, and compression. Applications throughout the natural sciences, social sciences, statistics, and computer science. Prerequisite(s): COMP 120 or COMP 123, and MATH 236 .

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

A mix of applied linear algebra and numerical analysis, this course covers a central point of contact between mathematics and computer science. Many of the computational techniques important in science, commerce, and statistics are based on concepts from linear algebra, such as subspaces, projections, and matrix decompositions. The course reviews these concepts, adopts them to large scales, and applies them in the core techniques of scientific computing. These include solving systems of linear and nonlinear equations, approximation and statistical function estimation, optimization, interpolation, eigenvalue and singular value decompositions, and compression. Applications throughout the natural sciences, social sciences, statistics, and computer science. Prerequisite(s): COMP 120 or COMP 123, and MATH 236 .

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course examines two distinct aspects of work in robotics: the physical construction of the robot's "body" and the creation of robot control programs that form the robot's "mind." It will study the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of robot sensors, including sonar, infrared, touch, GPS, and computer vision. It will also examine both reactive and deliberative approaches to robot control programs. The course will include hands-on work with multiple robots, and a semester-long course project in robotics. This course involves programming in Python; students should have a basic familiarity with Python or be prepared to learn Python during the course. This course counts as the capstone. Prerequisite(s): COMP 221 or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introduction to computer security and privacy. Topics will include privacy, threat modeling, software security, web tracking, web security, usable privacy and security, authentication, anonymity, network security, social engineering, the relationship of the law to security and privacy, and ethics. This course will include hands-on experience, with assignments requiring practice of security exploits and tools in a Linux environment. Emphasis will also be placed on communication and research, and students will read and lead discussions on research papers in security- and privacy-related topics. Prerequisite: COMP 240.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

Many current computational challenges, such as Internet search, protein folding, and data mining require the use of multiple processes running in parallel, whether on a single multiprocessor machine (parallel processing) or on multiple machines connected together on a network (distributed processing). The type of processing required to solve such problems in adequate amounts of time involves dividing the program and/or problem space into parts that can run simultaneously on many processors. In this course we will explore the various computer architectures used for this purpose and the issues involved with programming parallel solutions in such environments. Students will examine several types of problems that can benefit from parallel or distributed solutions and develop their own solutions for them. This course counts as the capstone. Prerequisite(s): COMP 240 and COMP 221, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials