[Edu-sig] introduction

[David MacQuigg]

Rich,

Hello, and thanks for joining the edu-sig list.  I'm a PhD electrical engineer with a recently re-ignited interest in computer science, largely due to my discovery of Python in 2002.  I'm also "volunteer staff" at U of A, helping teach various courses.

I'm especially interested in your experiences, good and bad, introducing Python in a university curriculum.  Here are a few questions to start.

1) I see the course is 200-level.  Is it mostly sophomores, or some more ambitious freshmen?   When you say "non-majors" are you talking business types, or engineering, math and science?

2) I don't see any pre-requisites.  Surely the students at this level have some prior programming experience.  What are you seeing as typical?  Are the bright guys bored, and the rest overwhelmed?

3) What are the expected follow-on courses, e.g. Java for CIS majors, C for EE's, advanced courses in OOP, embedded systems, etc.?

4) Will the students continue to use Python in later classes, or is it too early to tell?  Is Python expected to supplement or replace Matlab?

5) What computing environments do the students use in this and later courses (Windows, MacOS, or remote to the departmental computer)?

I look forward to seeing your book.

-- Dave

At 11:31 AM 3/20/2008 -0400, Richard Enbody wrote:

>Greetings.
>
>I'm a professor in Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State 
>University, and we started using Python last fall (2007) in our first 
>programming course for majors (CS and CpE), i.e. a 'CS1' course. 
>However, more than half the students are non-majors. The URL is 
>http://www.cse.msu.edu/~cse231
>
>MSU is a large, midwestern US university (40K students).  Our CS1 course 
>has two lecture sections of slightly over a hundred students each with a 
>scheduled ('closed') weekly lab.
>
>I'm looking forward to interacting with you all (and I'm embarrassed 
>that it took me so long to find this list).
>
>Cheers.
>
>-rich
>enbody at cse.msu.edu