CS2013-final-report

An Overview of the Two-Course Intro Sequence, Creighton University
The Computer Science & Informatics program at Creighton University serves students with a wide range of
interests. These include traditional computer science students who plan for careers in software development or
graduate studies, as well as students whose interests overlap with business analytics, graphics design, and even
journalism. All majors in the department take a foundational sequence in information, consisting of introductory
informatics, professional writing, Web design, and CS0. The computer science major begins with a two-course
introductory programming sequence, which covers almost all of the Software Development Fundamentals (SDF)
Knowledge Area, along with Knowledge Units from Programming Languages (PL), Algorithms and Complexity
(AL), Software Engineering (SE), and others. The two introductory programming courses are:
CSC 221: Introduction to Programming
• Language: Python
• Focus: Fundamental programming concepts/techniques, writing small scripts
CSC 222: Object-Oriented Programming
• Language: Java
• Focus: object-oriented design, designing and implementing medium-sized projects
It should be noted that in the course exemplars for these two courses, there is significant overlap in SDF Topics
Covered. Many of the software development topics are introduced in the first course (in Python, following a
procedural approach), then revisited in the second course (in Java, following an object-oriented approach).
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