CS 2000: Introduction to Program Design and Implementation

Introduces computer science and data science to students with no programming experience. Starts by building programs with numbers, text, and images, then moves to exploring real, complex data sets both interactively and through coding. Students then practice coding using a popular industrial language with a professional programmer's interface to the code. Students learn to identify and respond to ethical challenges in program design.

This course owes a great debt to two texts, which each had courses based on them. The first is How to Design Programs by Felleisen et al, which originated the Design Recipe that still forms the core of our course, as well as inspiring countless other aspects. The second is A Data-Centric Introduction to Computing by Fisler et al, which created the combined computer science and data science curriculum that we follow quite closely, though our language and tooling is distinct. Past versions of this course followed DCIC directly.

Assessment Hours

In-person hours where you can attempt skill assessments, by campus.

Schedule (Boston & Oakland)

Dates are for Fall 2026, Boston & Oakland campuses; they will differ for other semesters or campuses.

Lectures meet Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Labs meet Tuesday. Homework is due Sunday (Anywhere-on-Earth).

Colored stripes at the bottom of each day indicate which skills are assessable during office hours on that day. Past days are faded.

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
September 2026
Week 1Programming with Numbers, strings, images: IDE, interactions, operations on standard values
6	7Labor Day	8	9 Class 1	10 Class 2	11	12
Week 2Definitions, functions, conditionals: type annotations, test cases
13	14 Class 3	15 Lab 1	16 Class 4	17 Class 5	18	19
Week 3Ethics & Intro to tables: constructing, importing, extracting
20 HW 1 due	21 Class 6 0	22 Lab 2 0	23 Class 7 0	24 Class 8 0	25 0	26
Week 4More on tables: transforming, filtering
27 HW 2 due	28 Class 9 0121011	29 Lab 3 0121011	30 Class 10 0121011	1 Class 11 0121011	2 0121011	3
October 2026
Week 5From tables to lists: extracting columns, performing operations on them, visualizing data
4 HW 3 due	5 Class 12 01231011	6 Lab 4 01231011	7 Class 13 01231011	8 Skill Day 01231011	9 01231011	10
Week 6Computing with lists: iteration & mutable local variables
11 HW 4 due	12Indg. People's Day	13 Lab 5 1231011	14 Class 14 1231011	15 Class 15 1231011	16 1231011	17
Week 7Lists, variables that change & scope
18 HW 5 due	19 Class 16 341011	20 Lab 6 341011	21 Class 17 341011	22 Class 18 341011	23 341011	24
Week 8Structured, conditional & recursive data
25 HW 6 due	26 Class 19 451011	27 Lab 7 451011	28 Class 20 451011	29 Class 21 451011	30 451011	31
November 2026
Week 9Recursion on lists; trees
1 HW 7 due	2 Class 22 4567	3 Lab 8 4567	4 Class 23 4567	5 Skill Day 4567	6 4567	7
Week 10More trees; mutable data & the heap
8 HW 8 due	9 Class 24 5678	10 Lab 9 5678	11Veterans Day	12 Class 25 5678	13 5678	14
Week 11Tables in pandas: creating, loading, filtering, transforming
15 HW 9 due	16 Class 26 56789	17 Lab 10 56789	18 Class 27 56789	19 Skill Day 56789	20 56789	21
Week 12To be determined
22No HW Due	23 589	24No Lab 589	25Thanks. Break	26Thanks. Break	27Thanks. Break	28
Week 13To be determined
29 HW 10 due	30 59	1 Lab 11 59	2 59	3 Skill Day 59	4 59	5
December 2026
Week 14Catch up, bonus content, etc. Depends on section / instructor.
6 HW 11 due	7 Dictionaries λ Calculus Y Combinator 59	8 59	9 59	10 59	11 59	12
Week 15Finals Period
13	14	15	16	17	18	19

Assessment Hours​

Schedule (Boston & Oakland)​

Assessment Hours

Schedule (Boston & Oakland)