1. engineering, specifically, the design of artifacts according to design rules;
2. logic, specifically, reasoning about the behavior of artifacts and abstract properties of the behavior; and
3. scientific observation, specifically, measuring physical properties of computations (duration, memory usage, heat generation) or psychological properties of human-computer interfaces.

The second-semester course covers object-oriented program design, basic data structures, and algorithms. The second course is mostly taught in Java and C++.

The course assumes no programming background but a mastery of basic algebraic ideas. Students with a good background in Algebra I tend to perform well, independently of their computing experience.

Students in computer science and computer engineering are required to take the course. The course is an elective (1 out of 2) for students in computational and applied mathematics.

The actual course population spans the entire range of undergraduate majors at Rice, from music to sociology. In the past few years (fall 94 through fall 96), music, linguistic, sociology, and literature majors without any programming background ended in the top five percent of the class.

An accompanying sample schedule explains how to arrange the material into a 14-week semester (with approximately 42 lectures).