Core100 LevelFirst SemesterFoundations
CSC101
Introduction to Computing
Course Description
Introduction to Computing is most students' first formal encounter with computational thinking. The course treats programming as a way of expressing precise ideas, not as a set of syntax to memorize: students learn to break problems into steps, represent information in ways a machine can use, and read their own logic critically before a computer ever runs it. By the end of the semester, students are writing small but complete programs and can explain, in plain language, what every line of their code is for.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe how a computer represents and processes information at a level useful for a beginning programmer.
- Decompose an everyday problem into a sequence of precise, unambiguous steps.
- Write, run, and debug short programs using variables, conditionals, and loops.
- Read someone else's short program and explain what it does.
- Use basic data representations (text, numbers, simple collections) appropriately.
- Explain, without jargon, why a piece of code failed and how to start fixing it.
Weekly Topics
Opens with what a computer actually is underneath the interface: how it stores information, follows instructions, and why 'thinking like a computer' means being uncomfortably precise.
Covers how text, numbers, and simple structures are represented internally, and why the representation you choose shapes what you can do with the data later.
Introduces a repeatable approach to breaking an unfamiliar problem into smaller pieces before writing any code at all.
Defines what an algorithm is independent of any programming language, and walks through tracing one by hand before implementing it.
Introduces variables, expressions, and control flow — the small set of building blocks every later program is assembled from.
Frames programming as a process with stages — plan, write, test, revise — rather than a single act of typing correct code.
Consolidates the first half of the course with worked problems drawn directly from the mid-semester assessment format.
Gives a beginner-level tour of the hardware a program actually runs on, enough to explain why some operations are fast and others aren't.
Introduces how computers exchange information over a network, using the request a browser makes as a running example.
Explains why data gets stored separately from the programs that use it, and introduces the basic idea of querying instead of searching by hand.
Covers the basic vocabulary of digital security — threats, vulnerabilities, defenses — grounded in examples students already recognize.
Surveys a few current areas of computing at an introductory level, chosen to show students what later courses in the program will build toward.
Reviews the semester's material against the final assessment's structure, with time set aside for open questions.
Assessment
Assignments — 25%
Practical Work — 15%
Mid-Semester — 20%
Final Examination — 40%
Prerequisite Map
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