Learning Objectives: Students will:
Software Tools Needed: Web browser to read syllabus and set up accounts.
Welcome! Our first lecture will be:
10-11:15am in Assembly Hall (118 North Building), Tuesday, 26 August 2025This lab is a quick preview of the course and has a checklist of things to do now, before we meet in person.
Audience: This introductory course is for any Hunter student interested in computer science and counts towards Pathways (STEM-Scientific World and Life & Physical Sciences). If you know the material for this course (see outline and past final exams), the department offers credit by passing the test-out exam. For more details, including the upcoming test-out dates in August, see the credit by exam on the department website.
Focus: This course surveys core topics in computer science, ranging from basic programming to computer architecture. The emphasis is on solving problems and communicating technical ideas. The course is structured with many exercises to build analytic reasoning and problem solving skills, as well as explaining ideas, via written quizzes and oral code reviews.
Course Organization: CSCI 127 is a hybrid course. Each week, there are in person and asynchronous components to the course:
1001E Lab: A dedicated lab for CSCI 127/227 is in 1001E, 10th floor of the North Building. The lab opens for the semester on Tuesday, 26 August. No appointments are needed the first week. Self-scheduled appointments are available via Navigate available M-F, 11:30-5pm. Drop-in tutoring is available (priority given to those with scheduled appointments).
Final Exam: is given during finals week, following the Registrar's schedule. It is comprehensive and similar to quizzes-- past exams are available on the course website.
There are weekly written quizzes for the course. The first quiz, "Quiz 0", is a quick on-line exercise, based on the syllabus. It is available on Brightspace on 5 August.
If you don't have a laptop or home machine, reach out the Office of Student Affairs. Hunter College is committed to providing students the resources they need to succeed.
While you can use online environments, if you have a machine, it's good practice for the future to use an integrated development environment (IDE). For this course, we will use IDLE, a simple editor that is built-in to all Python distributions. When you set up Python (see below), IDLE will be installed automatically.
In addition to using it for the homework, we will use IDLE in the weekly code review, where you explain and code, from scratch, a program you wrote that week (see calendar for dates and topics). We use IDLE since it best echos the editors you encounter for the coding section of technical interviews for internships and jobs. If you choose to use a different editor, make sure that you turn off AI features, since they hinder you learning to code and all typing must be your own for submitted work.
If you have a Linux machine (Ubuntu or Debian based), at a terminal window type the following commands:
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y upgrade
sudo apt install python3 python3-pip idle3
pip3 install numpy pandas matplotlib scipy plotly image
sudo apt install spyder3
If you have a Windows computer, you can install python3 with the following instructions:
If you have a Mac computer, you can install python3 with the following instructions:
You can install the Python packages used in this course with the following instructions:
pip3 install numpy pandas plotly image matplotlib scipy
These installation instructions were written by Owen Kunhardt. You can find the full guides at the following links: Windows macOS
stjohn@hunter.cuny.edu
with your full name, EmplID, and preferred email and access will be added manually.That's it for now! See on 10am, Tuesday, 26 August in Assembly Hall (118 HN)!
But, if you want to look ahead, here's some links: