In short, it really tries to stop itself from teaching languages and focuses on teaching problem-solving, design, and core CS concepts from the start.
This is the best short excerpt, though I highly recommend the full read:
Northeastern actually both created and maintains the dialect of Lisp/Scheme (Racket) that houses the teaching languages, and the introductory approach is used at a growing number of schools. Brown would be the most notable and has close ties with the department.
In this thread alone, WPI actually uses a version the same approach, as noted in the credits at the bottom.
I never said Scheme was developed at MIT - Racket was, or at least found its home here. It was worked on at UT Austin as well. This was all done by the author of that essay.
My first “real” programming class was indeed in Scheme at MIT. And I’ve been trying to remember back to exactly why that was so transformational for me. It was very much about concepts - and then, oh by the way, this is how you do that in Scheme.
I really hope my kids can take a course like that!!!
I figured I’d give a 2-months-later update. She’s still an A- student interested in CS…
As I mentioned up-thread, she loved Rose Hulman, and it’s currently penciled in as her #1 choice.
She ended up doing fantastic on the ACT - 35C, with 36 subscores in math and science. She just retook the Math 2 subject test. She scored a 740 last year (when it covered some subjects she hadn’t learned yet), but I suspect she’ll be in the 800 range this time.
She has said “I really loved Rose Hulman [after being there for a 17-day program]. I wonder if there are other schools that I would love as well?” Her grades means she has very little chance of getting in to a top-tier school, but with her test scores I think they’ll at least read her application. I was wondering if there were any other reaches that we should consider. I guess WashU is in this category - we’re visiting it in a couple of weeks - but I’m not sure it’ll be her cup of tea.
Other possibilities:
Harvey Mudd (we might visit in November)
Olin (though she currently has ruled this out as being too small)
Penn? She’s a legacy there, though in general she’s really turned off by Ivies. So she would definitely not do ED there (and will forego her biggest legacy advantage). Obviously Penn is more engineering oriented than some of the others - so maybe we shouldn’t rule it out?
She was in love with MIT for awhile (I went there), but they’ll require a 2nd science subject test, for which there aren’t currently any in which she’d do well in (mainly because physics has a lot of E&M that she hasn’t had).
