Are you interested in learning how to make computer programs? In this class, I'll be going over the basics of how programming works - both in the sense of how to write a program, and how to think like your computer does. There are no pre-reqs to this class, and anyone from any background should feel comfortable in the class. It's a shame that computer science isn't taught at many high schools, so I want this to be a good introduction, should you want to continue learning on your own. Make sure you bring your own laptop, as you will be doing programming on it during class. You should also install Python 3 on it: https://www.python.org/downloads/ If you want to get ahead, you can do some of these exercises: codecademy.com/python About the teachers: Arya is a senior at Brandeis studying Computer Science and Music. He has been a TA for the Intro to CS course at Brandeis for three years, and did an internship at Google last summer. Christa is a senior at Brandeis studying Biophysics and Art History, with a minor in Computer Science. She is applying for graduate school in Computational Biology.

Are you interested in making computers do whatever you want them to do? Of course you do! My course is an introduction to Programming, but more importantly it is a course on how computers think. If you are interested in puzzles or solving problems for the sake of solving problems, this is the class for you! The class will not focus on building apps or websites, though if you want the background intuition for those things this is an excellent place to start. 85 Here is a quote I stole from Carnegie Mellon: "Computational thinking is a way of solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior that draws on concepts fundamental to computer science. To flourish in today's world, computational thinking has to be a fundamental part of the way people think and understand the world." If you have any experience in programming (even if it was just a weekend of tinkering in another language), or you just want a fast paced introduction, please sign up for my second section. No matter your skill level, you will get something out of this course :) I chose Python for a language not only because it's my favorite, but because I feel it is the best way to cleanly express what you want your computer to do, so more thought could go into what you want to do, and not how to state it. For example, if I told you that if you have a list called L, doing len(L) will get you the length of L, this code should be fairly easy to follow even without programming experience: >>> grades = [100,70,80,90] >>> average = sum(grades)/len(grades) >>> average 85 A little about me: I am a Junior studying Computer Science at Brandeis University. I have several years of programming experience, and have probably seen every mistake you could possibly make. This is also my second year TAing for the intro programming course at Brandeis, and my third year teaching this course at SPLASH (and it gets better every year). This summer I interned at a tech company called Kyruus - where I ate all the snacks I've ever wanted. If you're into snacks, Computer Science is the field for you. If you have any questions, please email me at aboudaie@brandeis.edu

Computational Thinking and Problem Solving using Python. I taught this course last year, and will be modifying it a bit based on experience. Otherwise I think it went pretty well! All though this course is based around the programming language Python, it is not a programming course. Instead, this course will focus on using Python to explore an idea called computational thinking, a problem solving method that uses computer science techniques. While other programming classes will be about learning programming to build applications, mine will focus on problem solving for the sake of solving problems. If you're the type of person who enjoys puzzles or can't stop thinking about a problem until you have a solution, this will be your type of class. The first part of the class will be focusing on learning Python syntax, so you have all the tools for problem solving. The next part will be focused on functional programming, focusing on creating functions to serve specific needs. After all that formality is out of the way, I'll give tips on computational problem solving, and after that students are free to go off finding problems they find interesting to solve while I go around to help with any questions. If you want to be in this course please download Python 2 from this link: https://www.python.org/downloads/ Thank you! If you have any questions, please email aboudaie@brandeis.edu If there are 2 sections please opt for the smaller one, it will make your life better!

Computational Thinking and Problem Solving using Python. All though this course is based around the programming language Python, it is not a programming course. Instead, this course will focus on using Python to explore an idea called computational thinking, a problem solving method that uses computer science techniques. While other programming classes will be about learning programming to build applications, mine will focus on problem solving for the sake of solving problems. If you're the type of person who enjoys puzzles or can't stop thinking about a problem until you have a solution, this will be your type of class. The first part of the class will be focusing on learning Python syntax, so you have all the tools for problem solving. The next part will be focused on functional programming, focusing on creating functions to serve specific needs. There will also be some discussion on recursion, because recursion is awesome (though not in practice). After all that formality is out of the way, I'll give tips on computational problem solving, and after that students are free to go off finding problems they find interesting to solve while I go around to help with any questions. If there is time left over, I can go over more interesting things one can do with python, including Visual Python (graphics library for Python) or SAGE (Computer Algebra System programmable in Python). --- If you would like to get ahead, download the appropriate version of Python on your computer from this link: http://www.python.org/getit/releases/3.3.2/ (NOTE: We are using Python 3, because it is better than Python 2. That is definitely not an opinion.) In addition, you could read this simple tutorial I wrote a while ago. I will go over all of this in class, but it's always helpful to read something before you get lectured on it (at least that's what I've found). Sorry for the crudity of it, you can look up other tutorials too: http://people.brandeis.edu/~aboudaie/python.html Or you just wait until class starts, see you then! If you have any questions or just want to say hi, email me at aboudaie@brandeis.edu.