Welcome to “Introduction to Computing Science and Programming I”. This course is an introduction to the core ideas of computing science and the basics of programming. This course is intended for students who do not have programming experience.

This course isn’t intended to teach you how to use your computer. You are expected to know how to use your computer: you should be comfortable using it for simple tasks such as running programs, finding and opening files, and so forth. You should also be able to use the Internet.

Here are some of the goals set out for students in this course. By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Explain some of the basic ideas of computing science.
• Explain what computer programming is.
• Create algorithms to solve simple problems.
• Implement computer programs in the Python programming language.
• Apply the core features of a programming language to solve problems.
• Design programs that are easy to understand and maintain. Keep these goals in mind as you progress through the course.