Master Course Outlines | Bucks County Community College

CISC119 Programming for Engineers and Scientists

4 credits

3000

MATH095 (C or better) or Math Placement Test score of 5 or higher

None

A comprehensive departmentally administered final exam is included in the class. The final will be evaluated at 15-25% of the course grade. A minimum of five laboratory assignments and exercises will be required. The laboratory grade will be comprised of no more than one-third of the course grade.

In this introductory computer programming course, computing theory is applied to automate and inform the design and construction of computer programs and other machines. An object-oriented computing language, along with a numeric computing environment are utilized to build software to perform automation.

Course Learning Goals
Students will:
1. Apply standard methodologies to develop coherent and complete logical specifications;
2. Utilize object-oriented computer programming languages to build stand-alone software components and perform automation and testing; and
3. Demonstrate a working knowledge of number systems (binary, octal and hexadecimal), as well as of internal data representation and their significance in a computer system.
Planned Sequence of Topics and/or Learning Activities

The following topics are presented:
1. Overview
  1. History of Computing
  2. Computer Architecture
  3. Theory of Computing
  4. The College's Computer Systems
2. Components of a computer system
  1. Central Processing Unit (CPU), memory and peripherals
  2. Fetch, decode and execute cycle
  3. von Neumann Architecture
  4. Turing Machine
3. Number Systems
  1. Binary
  2. Two's complement
  3. Octal
  4. Hexadecimal
  5. Conversions between bases
4. Data Types
  1. Boolean
  2. Character
  3. Integer
  4. Floating point
  5. Valueless
  6. Wide character
5. Program Development Cycle
  1. Analysis, design and problem solving
  2. Readability and documentation
  3. Naming conventions
  4. Pseudocode
  5. Top down charts, hierarchy charts, structure charts
  6. Modularization using methods (functions)
  7. Test case development
  8. Desk checking
  9. Testing and debugging
6. Program Development Software
  1. Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)
  2. Text editors
  3. Compiling and executing a computer program
  4. Interacting with the operating system in the terminal
  5. Input/Output
7. Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)
  1. Standard input and standard output
  2. Streams
8. Control Structures
  1. Sequence
  2. Selection
  3. Iteration
  4. Invocation
  5. Multithreading
9. Arrays
  1. Vectors
  2. Matrices and related computations
  3. Statistical measurement
  4. Plotting data
  5. Numerical analysis
Assessment Methods for Course Learning Goals
Both individual and group-based programming assignments comprise the laboratory grade. Written tests, including a departmental final, are utilized to test problem solving skills as well as mastery of materials introduced in the text and covered in lecture.
Reference, Resource, or Learning Materials to be used by Student:
Departmentally-selected textbook. Details provided by the instructor of each course section. See course syllabus.

Courses + Programs

CISC119 Programming for Engineers and Scientists

Department of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics: Computer/Information Science

Course Learning Goals

Planned Sequence of Topics and/or Learning Activities

Assessment Methods for Course Learning Goals

Reference, Resource, or Learning Materials to be used by Student: