Introduction to Computing

Maybe the worst class I've ever taken at Midd. Professor was almost completely ineffective and assigned time consuming homeworks and labs every week. I learned nothing in lectures and labs, and spent hours almost every night in TA hours trying to figure out the convoluted instruction with the equally frustrated and confused TAs. The exams were really hard and often had material we had never discussed or reviewed. I learned nothing in this class which was unbelievable disappointing because I was excited to try comp sci and now I never want to step foot into the building ever again.

Maybe the worst class I've ever taken at Midd. Professor was almost completely ineffective and assigned time consuming homeworks and labs every week. I learned nothing in lectures and labs, and spent hours almost every night in TA hours trying to figure out the convoluted instruction with the equally frustrated and confused TAs. The …Read more

This course made me love Computer Science. I had no previous experience nor am I good in math. If you played video games and in particular puzzle solving / rpgs / turn based combat games growing up, you will find that coding is no different once you learn the language. The professor's teaching was not very helpful for me. Luckily the readings were easy to understand in the beginning until reaching the HW06 Images. You can teach yourself most of the material and you can always go to the TA's. Great class. Make sure to get a good professor if you can.

This course made me love Computer Science. I had no previous experience nor am I good in math. If you played video games and in particular puzzle solving / rpgs / turn based combat games growing up, you will find that coding is no different once you learn the language. The professor's teaching was not very helpful for me. Luckily the …Read more

Philip (Professor Caplan) knows what he's doing. Despite having a strong background in not only computer science (of course) but also math and physics, he breaks down important concepts into understandable bits and spreads them out in lecture videos, labs and pair work. Perhaps (due to COVID, but) rare in introductory courses in the Computer Science department, the midterms and final exam were administered completely online, i.e., no handwritten component. There was a Canvas quiz for concept understanding, but the coding questions were on a fully functional IDE online so we could run the code ourselves and feel confident about the results. Personally, I pretty much always knew my progress in the course.

Philip (Professor Caplan) knows what he's doing. Despite having a strong background in not only computer science (of course) but also math and physics, he breaks down important concepts into understandable bits and spreads them out in lecture videos, labs and pair work. Perhaps (due to COVID, but) rare in introductory courses in the …Read more

I absolutely loved this course. I had not taken any computer science classes nor coded before joining this class. It made me fall in love with computer science and I can't wait to take more classes in the department! Professor Chodrow is a great guy and was very helpful and accommodating.

I came into this course with no prior experience in coding, and in the first few weeks the difference in level became clear especially with labs. Although it felt overwhelming at the start, there are many resources available to you!! Drop in sessions and additional help with Professor Chodrow made the class easier. He is always optimistic and motivating you. It was a challenging but enjoyable course which sparked my interest to pursue this as a major.

I came into this course with no prior experience in coding, and in the first few weeks the difference in level became clear especially with labs. Although it felt overwhelming at the start, there are many resources available to you!! Drop in sessions and additional help with Professor Chodrow made the class easier. He is always opti …Read more

Course was well designed and structured, making it easy for students to manage assignments outside of the classroom. As someone who never had any prior experience in computer science before, I did find this course a little challenging and very time-consuming. The professor did a well job sharing the base knowledge to a concept but I personally felt that there could have been more explanation on the reasoning behind certain python concepts rather than giving us a formula (I did find myself having to take a lot more time to figure out how to apply certain concepts to different problems on my own) but then again considering the amount of content we had to cover in a semester I think as long as you sit down and figure thinks out and seek help from peer tutors and the professor AND study hard for your exams, you should get an A.

Course was well designed and structured, making it easy for students to manage assignments outside of the classroom. As someone who never had any prior experience in computer science before, I did find this course a little challenging and very time-consuming. The professor did a well job sharing the base knowledge to a concept but I …Read more

Professor Chodrow is a sweetheart. Not only is he extremely passionate about Computer Science, but he's approachable and empathic. He finds a way to help students when they are struggling and actually listens to our needs. Yeah sure, the work can be difficult but there is always someone to help you!

Reading reviews, I was worried about starting Computer Science at Middlebury with Basu. However, he has been great, the class has not been overly difficult. There are weekly quizzes on canvas, anyone can get an a, and labs and hws will be done by TAs if you ask.

Professor Chodrow is super accomodating. Course progresses fairly quickly but builds on itself well. Might be hard to keep up if you're not at all familiar with any of the concepts, but we had a lot of help available from students and professor. Exam was reasonably hard but not deadly, nice thing is that work that goes into your final grade is more spread out in homework tasks and projects. A LOT of collaborative work, sometimes frustrating when skill levels differ between partners, but sometimes valuable also.

Professor Chodrow is super accomodating. Course progresses fairly quickly but builds on itself well. Might be hard to keep up if you're not at all familiar with any of the concepts, but we had a lot of help available from students and professor. Exam was reasonably hard but not deadly, nice thing is that work that goes into your fina …Read more

I loved this course with professor foley. He made me want to take CS as a major. The environment for working on projects was relaxed because he wanted to make it as similar to the work place as possible. It was a steady pace for me but I can see how it may be a bit challenging to others. Must stay on top of your work to succeed but its not too hard to.

Phil is by far my favorite professor this semester. He is extremely passionate about the topics he is teaching and very patient with students. I walked into the course without any background in computer science, and walked out being interested in making it a minor/major. The class was quite fast-paced it wasn’t very difficult because there was loads of help and resources. I would strongly recommend taking a computer science course with Phil.

Phil is by far my favorite professor this semester. He is extremely passionate about the topics he is teaching and very patient with students. I walked into the course without any background in computer science, and walked out being interested in making it a minor/major. The class was quite fast-paced it wasn’t very difficult because …Read more

I had a great experience in this course, Professor Phil is a great instructor who's very enthusiastic when it comes to teaching. He always makes lectures interesting, however some topics of the course move quite fast but as someone who's had prior experience programming in Python, it wasn't an issue. If you have experience with Python I'd say not to worry to much. Professor Phil is also very easy to talk to so if you have any issues whether it be content or anything reaching out is your best option.

I had a great experience in this course, Professor Phil is a great instructor who's very enthusiastic when it comes to teaching. He always makes lectures interesting, however some topics of the course move quite fast but as someone who's had prior experience programming in Python, it wasn't an issue. If you have experience with Pytho …Read more

Fairly easy course until about halfway through. Professor is not very good at actually teaching the material and asking questions. Labs and homeworks are do-able with much help from the TAs. Exams are more difficult than one would expect, but exams are only 30% of the final grade so you can make it work. Definitely would not recommend this prof, but for a one off intro class it's fine. However, if you intend to major in CS I recommend taking this intro class with a different prof as the things you learn in this course are vital and you should have a good grasp on the concepts

Fairly easy course until about halfway through. Professor is not very good at actually teaching the material and asking questions. Labs and homeworks are do-able with much help from the TAs. Exams are more difficult than one would expect, but exams are only 30% of the final grade so you can make it work. Definitely would not recommen …Read more

I took professor Chodrow class this fall of 2022. He’s an energetic, passionate, and great teacher. You might find his teaching to be a bit fast, but if you meet with him after hours or talk to him 1-1, this is where his teaching truly shines. Over all my experience with this class has been quite good, not much complaint.

I took the Intro to Computing -CSCI 0145- class, which was amazing! The professor was engaging, the assignments were relevant and challenging, and I learned a lot about coding, algorithms, and python. Highly recommend for anyone interested in computer science.

Prof. Vaccari was always super excited to teach basic python programming. I had never done any CS before and this class was an awesome introduction for me. Things definitely started out tough, and the course was never easy, but over the semester I felt more and more confident in my coding abilities. I would definitely recommend taking this class.

This course was very helpful in establishing a basis in computer science knowledge. It never really went too fast, and any questions you have could always be answered by the professor. There are also plenty of TAs available. The tests were basic and did not require much studying as long as you follow along with the lectures and hw.

The class was slow-placed and really didn't require any knowledge about coding prior to taking the class. The only challenging portion of the class was the final project where you will be asked to work on a project. The lab portions of the class helped me with learning more about coding(although it was not mandatory). Also, the exams are take-home online.

Course overall wasn't too bad. Homework was relatively easy. We did often have quizzes but they were generally easy to average and he was a fair grader. If a lot of people got a question wrong, he would remove the question from the quiz. Also exams were online. That being said near the end the difficulty ramped really quick with like 2 difficult projects.

This class was my first experience in computer science and it was really tough at times. Especially in the last month, it felt like we were going way too fast. That said, Vaccari was very kind and helpful and provided a bunch of useful resources on top of his engaging lectures. We had two coding assignments per week (one hw and one lab) and I frequently had to visit the peer tutors to make sense of them. The exams were also pretty tricky, especially the final because the last few weeks of content felt so rushed.

This class was my first experience in computer science and it was really tough at times. Especially in the last month, it felt like we were going way too fast. That said, Vaccari was very kind and helpful and provided a bunch of useful resources on top of his engaging lectures. We had two coding assignments per week (one hw and one l …Read more

The course material was easy to understand during the first half of the semester, and initially, I enjoyed the class and the professor. However, it hits a point after the first half where the material isn't easy to understand on your own anymore, and that is when I realized the professor is actually not prepped enough to teach a class of students. He doesn't even remember 80% of our names and had to ask most of us when handing back our midterms. Gives lectures and notes, but they aren't sufficient enough to do labs and homework on your own. You will most likely go to TA hours at least once or twice during the semester if not every week. If you have had prior experience with CS, you'll probably be ok. Otherwise, not friendly to beginners.

The course material was easy to understand during the first half of the semester, and initially, I enjoyed the class and the professor. However, it hits a point after the first half where the material isn't easy to understand on your own anymore, and that is when I realized the professor is actually not prepped enough to teach a clas …Read more

This course was very difficult as a person with no prior coding experience, as Professor Basu didn't really know how to explain concepts to beginners and didn't have much of an understanding to the pace that we needed to go at. Homeworks were extremely difficult as we had no prior examples to the types of questions included in them. Labs were manageable.

One of the GOAT professors. Caring, understanding, and exceptional at teaching a difficult introductory course. You can always talk to him whenever and class passes by pretty quickly with him teaching.

I found the material of the class helpful and engaging however the lectures were not so much. I thought that he presented the material logically and and it was relatively easy to follow the class, however the class occasionally felt like I was there just for participation reasons. The workload is very manageable with only weekly lab assignments.

The class is intro but doesnt seem that way due to the students with pior knowledge. Phil was a nice and accommodating professor, but struggled to bridge the gap needed to understand python, for intro students.

Professor Vaccari was the best. His lectures were really clear and always aligned to the problem sets. His class was manageable in terms of the workload, and he gives you time in class to work on the lab where one is able to ask questions.

Although the class has a lot of work, you learn a lot from it and Phil is a professor is really helpful and easy to talk to. Homework and labs took a lot of time out of my week to do, but again you learn a lot from it. Exams are also difficult on paper, but you can do it.

Lots of work overall. Homework and Lab due each week and a Quiz on canvas. Pretty easy grading so as long as you submit everything you can get a good grade. I had little coding experience prior but picked it up pretty easily. CS Department has lots of resources for the courses as well. There were tutoring session almost nightly and Professor Chodrow had plenty of office hours.

I would not take this class again because of the teaching style. I felt talked to rather than taught at. Most of my learning happened independently and I only learned when I went to office hours. He was an easy grader.