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Program Details

Table of contents

  1. Requirements
  2. Program Structure
  3. Testimonials
  4. Acknowledgments

Requirements

redefine is completely free and is intended for students who have no prior coding experience.

For homework and in-class exercises, we will be using Google Colab and Google Docs. To use Colaboratory and Google Docs, you will need a Google (Gmail) account or create one if you do not already have an account. If you’d like to get acclimated with Colab, you can find instructions on getting started here, but feel free to wait as we’ll be introducing it during our first lecture.

If you need help with any of the above, please reach out to us at staff@redefine-cs.org. We will do our best to accommodate any technology or connectivity issues.

Program Structure

With instruction, take home assignments, and independent material review, the total commitment for students should amount to roughly 6-9 hours per week from June 17 to August 12.

  • 4 hrs of lectures (two hours on Mondays, two hours on Wednesdays)
  • ~2-4 hrs of homework collaboration
  • 30 min 1-1 mentorship call

Testimonials

We ran our inaugural program in the summer of 2020. Here’s some feedback from past students:

  • “[My favorite part was] learning to code, it’s like a whole new world! It really opened my eyes to new possibilities and maybe a new major interest. Also, meeting new people.”
  • “[I enjoyed] the love and support shared to us by the instructors and mentors. The lectures were given in an organised way. The guest speeches were very helpful and interesting. We got to meet new friendly community.”
  • “I enjoyed learning from you… [it] really inspired me to work hard and learn a lot more of coding… I wouldn’t have asked for a better program to be in.”
  • “My mentor was amazing, I enjoyed the mentor meetings because he would help me on every little detail of code until I understood it. When the meeting should have been 30 minutes, it would take almost 2 hours. It was very useful and helpful when doing my homework.”
  • “[My favorite lecture topic was] cryptography. It was challenging to learn at first, but once I got the hang of it (well sort of) it is really fascinating to work with.”
  • “I still want to pursue architecture, but I’m also interested in how I can use computer science as well to help with designing better elevations and floor plans.”

We are thankful for our wonderful students and are so glad they have enjoyed learning computer science through our program. In fact, 71% of our alumni students have indicated that they intend to major in computer science in college. We look forward to following all of their bright futures — and to welcoming new students this summer!

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Professor Rajiv Gandhi from the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University-Camden for his continued help and support with this program. We would also like to acknowledge USVICoder and AddisCoder, led by Professor Jelani Nelson from the University of California, Berkeley, from which much of our material is adapted.