What Computer Science Classes are like at Harvard

Category Student Voices

Author

Samia Afrose Class of '25
Authored on October 23, 2024

Article

Everyone’s experience at Harvard no matter what concentration one chooses is different. That being said, everyone’s experience as a computer science concentrator is also different. I will be sharing a bit about my experience as a computer science concentrator. 

CS 121 notes and problem set

I originally did not enter Harvard as a Computer Science Concentrator, and I first thought about coding after taking Statistics 100 - Introduction to Statistics and Data Science where I learned R. The following semester I took Computer Science 32 - Computational Thinking and Problem Solving, where I coded in Python and learned that I actually do not mind coding and can see this being applied in any career I pursue as technology continues to advance. 

I would say that computer science at Harvard is more theory where there is a larger focus and more classes offered on learning about different algorithms and logic and not as much coding. In these classes, you are doing a lot of proof. Some of the classes I took that were proof-heavy included CS 20 - Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science, CS 120 - Introduction to Algorithms and their Limitations, and CS 121 - Introduction to Theoretical Computer Science. 

Some of the coding-heavy classes include CS 32, as I mentioned earlier, CS 51 Abstraction and Design in Computation where you learn OCaml, and CS 61 - Systems Programming and Machine Organization, where you learn in C++. 

Learning to code in Python with a iced tea from Life Alive Cafe

Overall, the classes are difficult and it is definitely necessary to go to office hours and have problem-set groups. But, you learn a lot from taking these classes and they are all connected in some way.

Tags

  • Academics
  • First-Year

Samia Afrose Class of '25

Hi! My name is Samia Afrose.