The computer science department offers three introductory computer science courses:

CS110: Computer Science and the Internet
CS111: Computer Programming and Problem Solving
CS112: Computation for the Sciences

CS110 is for students who want a broad exposure to the fundamental concepts of computer science, although it is unlikely that they will take other computer science courses. CS110 uses the Internet as a unifying theme for exploring a broad range of computer science topics, including networks, description languages, programming, data representation, ethics, and the impact of computers on society. Students get hands-on programming experience building Internet applications using HTML and Java Script. The course culminates with a final project in which students design and implement an interactive web page. CS110 graduates who later decide to take more computer science courses must take CS111.

CS111 is for students who want an in-depth introduction to programming and problem solving and might want to take more advanced computer science courses. It is particularly for students who plan to major or minor in computer science, but also for students that are majoring elsewhere but want to learn general programming and problem solving techniques. CS111 covers fundamental ideas in programming, including abstraction, modularity, recursion, control structures, and data structures. You will get hands-on experience with these ideas by reading, modify, debugging, designing, writing, and testing programs written in the Java programming language. Example applications involve graphics, user interfaces, games, text manipulation, and animations.

CS112 is for students who want an introduction to computer programming that provides the tools necessary to use computers effectively in scientific work, including in the natural and physical sciences, biological sciences, medicine, mathematics, psychology and economics. Students learn to write software to solve problems, visualize and analyze data, perform computer simulations, and implement and test computational models that arise in a wide range of scientific disciplines. The course introduces MATLAB, an extensive and widely used technical computing environment with advanced graphics, visualization and analysis tools, and a rich high-level programming language.

Discussions/Labs: CS110 and CS112 students are required to attend a 70-minute weekly discussion section in addition to two weekly lectures. CS111 students are required to attend a 2-hour weekly laboratory section in addition to two weekly lectures. None of CS110, CS111, or CS112 are considered laboratory courses.

Mathematical Modeling Distribution: CS110, CS111, and CS112 all count for one Mathematical Modeling (MM) distribution credit. However, a student taking both of these courses can only receive MM credit for one of them.