SPEAKER 1: Hello world, this is
Sander's Theater at Harvard University.
And this is CS50, Harvard's introduction
to the intellectual enterprises
of computer science and
the art of programming.
But what does that mean?
Well, CS50 is a course that teaches you
how to design and implement solutions
to problems.
But more than that, it
teaches you how to think
more critically, more methodically,
more computationally, if you will.
In fact, computer science itself isn't
really about computers or programming,
for that matter, it's
really about information.
How do you think about it?
How do you represent it?
And with what methods or
algorithms can you process it?
So we'll first learn how to program
with Scratch, of graphical programming
language, via which we'll explore some
fundamental programming constructs
by dragging and dropping puzzle pieces.
But we'll then quickly transition to a
more traditional, text-based language
called C. It's actually been
around for quite a while,
and as such, it doesn't come with all
that many features out of the box,
so to speak.
So anything you want the
computer to do you're
going to have to teach
it to do yourself,
from the simplest of algorithms
to the most sophisticated.
And the problems you'll solve, inspired
by real world domains, cryptography,
finance, forensics, gaming, and more.
And you'll be part of a
global community solving
those same problems,
surrounded, if virtually,
by classmates, by
[? Zomailia, ?] by Rob, by Doug,
and so many others on
see as CS50's team.
But the most successful outcome
ahead is to do something, ultimately,
that we've not taught you.
Indeed, what ultimately
matters in this course is not
so much where you end up
relative to your classmates
but where you end up relative
to yourself when you began.
And when you do end up there, will you
be able to say proudly, just I can,
I took CS50.
