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CS10 TA here: I have been involved in the development of this course for almost 4 years and in that time I watched it grow from a small 80 student pilot course

CS10 TA here: I have been involved in the development of this course for almost 4 years and in that time I watched it grow from a small 80 student pilot course to a 220 student CS goliath. In my opinion the growth in popularity of this course is representative of an underwhelming high school CS education. For students without some previous experiences, CS61A as an introduction can be brutally discouraging. This fact spurred the creation of a course designed to give prospective CS majors a first foundation. This is by no means a thin foundation. CS10 has students learning concepts including complex tree recursion, implementation of Map Reduce, Lambda functions, as well as techniques for processing large sets of data and understanding the effects of concurrency. In just one semester a student can go from not knowing what variables and “if” statements are, to building complex projects involving game-tree searches and parallel processing. CS10 represents an opportunity for those who never considered Computer Science until they reached a university setting. For many the study feels unapproachable, and the inviting environment of CS10 allows anyone with a curiosity to explore their capacity. In the ongoing debate of “should everyone program”, while I am uncertain about the prospect of making CS education a compulsive requirement, I do believe a net should be cast out to catch those who perhaps never realized their interest and potential. CS10 is that net. It is often the beginning of a student’s journey and inspires a life long love. It’s easy to joke that about CS10 as a CS daycare. A place where the “non-serious” can feel like they are involved in a trendy field of work. But this does not recognize the success of CS10. With a majority of CS10 alums continuing on to CS61A, the demographic of students (including female enrollment rates) will begin to change. This is a new course and it will take time to percolate up to graduation rates, but the student’s in CS61A with a background in CS10 are not only prepared, but often far beyond those who directly jump into CS61A. CS10 was the first experience I ever had with Computer Science and inspired me to pursue a career in the field. I love CS and sharing that love with my students in CS10 is my passion.

wutbrodo 13y ago
> For students without some previous experiences, CS61A as an introduction can be brutally discouraging. CS61A hasn't been the intro course for inexperienced students for as long as I can remember: What about CS3? I came into CS having never touched or seen a piece of code, and I took CS3 because my understanding was that it was supposed to be the gentle introduction for complete neophytes. I found CS3 to be enormously easy and hand-holdy (it was a little _too_ easy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for a course meant to be a gentle intro). What was wrong with CS3 that necessitated the introduction of a new course that (AIUI from the catalog) focuses more on things like the social implications of computing and its relevance to society?
- theautocrat 13y ago
  CS3 was self paced and saw a high rate of failure. CS10 has been the replacement since Fall 2010 and has a continuation rate of over 75 percent. It also opened the scope to instill a CS consciousness in even those who only ever take CS10.
  - wutbrodo 13y ago
    CS3 had a high failure rate?? Do you have a ballpark sense of what it was? I could understand it if 61A had a high failure rate, but I thought CS3 was the way to weed yourself out of CS without taking a hit to your GPA (i.e., realizing that you weren't able to do CS while still being able to do decently in the course, instead of taking 61A and having it be so hard that you failed).
- snizzysnaps 13y ago
  We shouldn't be making things easier just to accommodate a bunch of women who pissed away their time studying foolish nonsense like women's studies, or socialist studies. Women are usually pretty awful programmers and engineers. Sorry, but the cats out of the bag. I don't care how many classes women take, men will still rule the technology world. If it's any consolation there will always be charity positions for under-qualified women, like Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, and that clueless simpleton at Yahoo!, who can't even get their email client to work. If I offended any ladies here, let me apologize. Perhaps I can fund the next Spanx start-up.
  - carebear 13y ago
    I do take offense to your comment. And I'm not accepting your apology. My mother graduated from Berkeley as an EECS major. As a matter of fact, so did two of my aunts. They all earn a lot more than the male computer engineers in my family, and this is independent of their sex. Every subject has its introductory classes, many of which people have taken in high school. There isn't an option for introductory CS in many high schools. It seems logical to have one, then, in college
  - e12e 13y ago

wutbrodo 13y ago

> For students without some previous experiences, CS61A as an introduction can be brutally discouraging. CS61A hasn't been the intro course for inexperienced students for as long as I can remember: What about CS3? I came into CS having never touched or seen a piece of code, and I took CS3 because my understanding was that it was supposed to be the gentle introduction for complete neophytes. I found CS3 to be enormously easy and hand-holdy (it was a little _too_ easy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for a course meant to be a gentle intro). What was wrong with CS3 that necessitated the introduction of a new course that (AIUI from the catalog) focuses more on things like the social implications of computing and its relevance to society?

theautocrat 13y ago
CS3 was self paced and saw a high rate of failure. CS10 has been the replacement since Fall 2010 and has a continuation rate of over 75 percent. It also opened the scope to instill a CS consciousness in even those who only ever take CS10.
- wutbrodo 13y ago
  CS3 had a high failure rate?? Do you have a ballpark sense of what it was? I could understand it if 61A had a high failure rate, but I thought CS3 was the way to weed yourself out of CS without taking a hit to your GPA (i.e., realizing that you weren't able to do CS while still being able to do decently in the course, instead of taking 61A and having it be so hard that you failed).
snizzysnaps 13y ago
We shouldn't be making things easier just to accommodate a bunch of women who pissed away their time studying foolish nonsense like women's studies, or socialist studies. Women are usually pretty awful programmers and engineers. Sorry, but the cats out of the bag. I don't care how many classes women take, men will still rule the technology world. If it's any consolation there will always be charity positions for under-qualified women, like Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, and that clueless simpleton at Yahoo!, who can't even get their email client to work. If I offended any ladies here, let me apologize. Perhaps I can fund the next Spanx start-up.
- carebear 13y ago
  I do take offense to your comment. And I'm not accepting your apology. My mother graduated from Berkeley as an EECS major. As a matter of fact, so did two of my aunts. They all earn a lot more than the male computer engineers in my family, and this is independent of their sex. Every subject has its introductory classes, many of which people have taken in high school. There isn't an option for introductory CS in many high schools. It seems logical to have one, then, in college
- e12e 13y ago