Professor Cohoon is a very good professor for this course. While I don't necessarily thought his teaching style was always super helpful for learning the material, I have to say I finished the course having a lot of respect for Cohoon. Cohoon really wants all of his students to do well, which is great for the students. I came out of the course definitely feeling as if I had decent grasp on programming basics, and the grade is extremely fair. There is no reading required and the homework is generally helpful and mostly simple, and if it's not, he will often go over it in class before it is due or extend the due date. His test questions may require some thinking, but he is overly generous with partial credit, so getting a good grade isn't very hard (though to get an A you need a 95% and he typically doesn't round up). All in all, I'd recommend this course if you're interested in having an introduction to programming.
Grade Distribution
52 Reviews
An easy and fun class which gives a basic introduction in usage of Python (as well as general coding practices). The copious amounts of provided examples (along with the many TAs and Professor Cohoon himself) ensures that you'll pass as long as you try hard. Also, you don't need the textbook (to be fair, it's just recommended, not required), so save a few bucks.
A terrible injustice to those who are slow learners when it comes to computer programming
Although I feel that I had a difference experience from many of my peers who did very well in the class, I struggled immensely. I did feel like the class was not taught how it should have been, for people with no experience. Although Cohoon and Luther were good teachers and I did get something out of the class, I felt that many of the plentiful homework assignments were very difficult and time consuming. I spent so much time at office hours; some TAs were more helpful than others. Overall, I felt I had to devote too much time to the class for the not so great grade I ended up with. I'd recommend another class unless you absolutely have to take CS.
I took this class with Professors Cohoon and Tychonievich, and even though he was more of the "second-in-command," I actually really liked Prof. T. a lot! Luther was especially warm and friendly and patient. Learning coding was fun, and this class takes it at a very easy and manageable pace for beginners. I don't plan on taking further CS, but I liked the puzzle-solving aspect of learning this skill. If you take this class on its own, you shouldn't expect to learn practical website-building or app-building skills--imagine something more like logic problems and puzzles. The homework is minimal but educational. It's not so hard to get a good grade on the exams or in the class. My only complaint is that we would frequently have days where the professors didn't have a lesson plan but instead just asked for questions and then got angry when we didn't have them (even though they didn't ask us to come prepared with them in advance or anything). Sometimes the professors would get unnecessarily frustrated with us as a class and not really listen to what we were saying when we raised our hands, like misunderstand us completely and then not give us a chance to explain what we meant. Overall, this was a fairly fun, easy class, and definitely the version of CS you should take if you are an actual beginner and not a serious programmer.
For most of the year, class was a mix of lecture and coding, although it became more and more coding and less lecture as the year went on. Cohoon is a really nice guy who really wants all of his students to learn a lot and to develop and interest in CS. The assignments were very do-able and I almost always finished all of my homework in class. You get a cheat sheet for the tests which is useful. For the most part, the tests were very straightforward; if you could do the homework without problem, the tests were equally easy. That being said, some people got stuck on the coding problems on the tests. Overall, a very easy A and an interesting introduction to java.
This class is a great introduction to computer science. I haven't taken any other class so I'm not sure if it's a helpful introduction but I enjoyed it. Prof. Cohoon really cares about the subject and he's very knowledge. He's a slightly annoying lecturer and he goes on a lot of tangents. It's obvious he cares thought so it's not too bad.
Great class. Cohoon is a bit of a nut, but it adds a bit of entertainment. The beginning of the semester is mostly lectures, but then it pretty much just becomes just doing coding homework problems during class with access to help from many TAs. If you can understand how to do the HW problems and practice tests, the exams aren't bad at all. Especially recommend for non-CS majors who need this as a requirement. However, it doesn't quite prepare you as well for later CS classes, so would recommend 1110 for those looking to be CS majors.
This class is awesome! Not a lot of hw and the tests are not too bad. Cohoon really wants his students to do well in the class and it shows- he's very helpful, the TAs are awesome and he provides you with a lot of helpful resources during the actual tests. This class made me love CS- which is something I never thought I would
His readings are written by him. The class was not useful and I didn't learn anything. I relied on my friends for CS help. Take CS 1110 if you want to go further in programming and just avoid this class.