CS 1110

This class has 3 lectures every week and a lab. The lectures are all recorded so that you can watch them later. Lab attendance is required, but I thought the labs were very helpful in helping me learn the material. There is a programming assignment and an online quiz (at home) every week. There are two tests, a final exam, and a final project. The tests were kind of difficult, as they are written paper and pencil tests and there is a lot to memorize. However, it is fairly easy to get a 100 on all the PAs, quizzes, and the final project. I did well on those, but not so well on the tests, and still ended up with an A- because the tests aren't worth a huge portion of the grade. I would say this class is not an easy A, but an easy A-.

I really really enjoyed this class. I took it for fun with no coding experience and I'm now considering a computer science major. Learning python was so exciting. As we learned more throughout the class and I could do more I have never felt cooler.

I definitely learned most of my material in the class itself as opposed to the textbook they gave us. I read the recommended reading for the first like three classes, but after that I stopped. Professor McBurney made the content very easy to understand, though he used other professors' PowerPoints so any of the professors might make this class easy too. Having your laptop right there in class to see exactly how the code works definitely helps.

The homework was relatively easy. I finished almost every single one more than 48 hours before it was due to get that extra credit that was offered. It's a great grade booster and helped immensely when it came to balancing out my final grade.

You certainly need that homework boost though because the one catch of the class are the three paper exams. It's a total wrench in the entire course because you think you're doing so well and then the exam happens and then that's not the case. Though most of my own mistakes were just small mistakes when I knew I really knew the answer, that's just me though.

To keep it short this class was great. It was very easy to understand and the class was so engaging. I highly recommend that anyone who may be interested in coding take this class as it is a great intro to computer science.

Professor McBurney has a good sense of humor and explained concepts in ways that were easy for me to understand. The workload is manageable as long as you don't fall behind. As a tip: take full advantage of the office hours and arrive there early, especially if you want a quick spot. It gets extremely busy later during the day. They will not give you the answer directly, but they will not abandon you, either. As long as you are patient, they will make sure that you are guided down the right path! CS 1110 has amazing TA support and I had pleasant experiences with all TAs that I met. If you submit your programming assignments, you will get bonus credit (yay!). They offer practice exams from previous semesters before exams, which is excellent. The exams are especially difficult compared to the assignments in this course, so definitely practice beforehand. Learning programming is similar to math: you have to practice it to develop a fundamental understanding. The textbook is free for this class, although I didn't find myself using it much at all. Everything that was needed was provided from the lectures. Also, if you are a gamer or interested in gaming development: the final project was to create our own minigame, and it was a ton of fun. Very insightful on just how complicated it is to develop the video games that we enjoy. Overall, I definitely recommend this course as an introduction to computer programming and Python.

I took this class as a 3rd year and was incredibly humbled by the difficulty of the exams. Exams are on paper and have a challenging time limit, which resulted in low scores every time for me. However, the weighting of the class helped to even it out. Programming assignments every week are 35% of the grade and those, while progressively more and more difficult, were an easy way to keep your grade up and get extra credit. The weekly quizzes (despite the Professors saying they would be easy at the beginning of the semester) were quite tricky if you hadn't played around with the code beforehand. I enrolled in the class under McBurney but ended up watching Pettit's recorded lectures online most of the time- I thought his lectures were slightly easier to follow although they were both pretty good. Lab was mandatory but basically a participation grade. My best advice is to practice a lot with the code, otherwise good luck on exams.

I took this class for fun it didn't fulfill any requirements for me and I didn't have any intention of majoring/minoring in CS but I loved it and I'll be taking more CS classes. Professor McBurney and Pettit were great and explained everything well and showed a lot of examples. There's 1 programming assignment and quiz per week, 2 midterms and a final, and a final project. Lab was helpful for getting some practicing using what we were learning in class and TAs were available for help. Office hours were super helpful and they were 5 days a week so pretty much always available but make sure you get ahead on PAs so you have time to go to office hours before they're due. Overall a great class and would recommend!!

At first (when I found out that this course was asynchronous) I was really disappointed and considered dropping the class, but I decided to stay and I was extremely glad I did! Professor McBurney and Professor Pettit had recorded lectures that were done live at a common time. Unfortunately I had a conflict with the time that they held live lectures, but it really did not take away from the experience in the course. Their recorded lectures were entertaining and Prof. Pettit's fun shirt Friday was something that I looked forward to every week. This class involves a lot of self-teaching and trial and error, but it feels extremely rewarding when you complete programs correctly. My one complaint with the class was the method in which office hours were conducted, it was extremely cutthroat as students competed to get time with the TA's. DO NOT EXPECT THE TA's TO DO YOUR CODE FOR YOU. The grading was split between labs, programming assignments, quizzes, and code walkthroughs (time where a TA would review a code with you and ask questions). The programming assignments became harder and harder as the semester continued, but it also became more and more satisfying. I loved this class, but if you are not willing to put in the work, this class may not be for you.

this semester was group taught by McBurney & Pettit. at no point in this semester did I have any idea what was going on. I put in so much effort into this class and it thankfully paid off. by the grace of god and office hours, I ended with an A-. be prepared to wait in the OH queue for upwards of 2 hours towards the end of the semester. McBurney and Pettit are great lecturers and are understanding- they're willing to grant extensions, and even pushed some assignments for us. do yourself a favor and take this course with McBurney (&Pettit)! CS1110 was not as easy as I thought it would be, and I questioned my future as a prospective CS major multiple times, but McBurney is a great prof and will help you if you need. #tCF2020

During covid it was a hybrid course with McBurney and Pettit co-professoring together which I loved. I had no coding experience whatsoever not even a CS major/minor, but ended with a 98 in the class, this class made me love coding but this is still a very difficult class with LOTS of work. Lectures are mostly live-coding - recorded for AS students but u can attend OS which I did (big tip is code with them on python for your class notes). The weekly PAs are crucial for ur grade - try to get 100s on all of them and GO TO OFFICE HOURS FOR HELP ON THEM. Can't stress this enough. But sometimes the waiting room for OH will be a 2 hour wait - not bad because you just get in line on ur computer and wait and do other stuff. U cannot get behind on work in the class, but I think it's a super beneficial class and if u do the work like I did with zero coding experience you can get an A. Not easy A but this class isnt like insanely hard, just do ur work. Both professors care about their students & are pretty flexible if need be, McBurney loves his cats and makes bald jokes alot so play along he loves it. Tip: during class ask to see his catcam. Will miss this class but also not miss the huge workload that comes with it (also do not cheat, they will 100% find out because everyones codes are so unique and give u a C, just take the L on that assignment or that part of the PA and move on, not worth it) #tCF2020

Due to the Zoom environment, Prof. McBurney and Prof. Pettit held synchronous Zoom lectures for all CS1110 students. Absolutely loved the live lectures, especially when Prof. McBurney's cats made an appearance. There are weekly programming assignments given throughout the semester which start out easy but some are really difficult. Make sure to utilize office hours with the TA's!!!