The worst CS101 course ever? (cs101.wvu.edu)

While they probably won't get into it too far, Excel is one of the most powerful tools ever developed for non-programmers. It massively increases the productivity of a wide swath of society.

Donald Knuth's ten part series "The Art of Microsoft Office" is the textbook.

Nothing makes me more angry than people who do not know how to use Excel. We had a lab where we got 1,300 data points from a stress-strain failure and had to derive the material properties from such. PEOPLE DID IT BY HAND! MORE THAN ONE THOUSAND DATA POINTS IN A CSV, AND THEY DID IT BY HAND!

"During the Spring 2008 semester, 51.5% of our students received an A in the course."

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it probably makes sense to judge this class in the context of the computer science major's degree plan. So have a look:

http://www.lcsee.cemr.wvu.edu/ugrad/curriculum/

It's billed as an introduction to computer applications, not an introduction to computer science or programming.

At my local university, "Introduction to Programming" is actually CS150. Courses in the 10x block seemed reserved for remedial education.

If you look at the actual CS curriculum there, this class is not included anywhere (for the major or the minor).

Our University had one of these courses too. They were finding that without a course like this, too many students were taking the stage one computer science courses hoping to improve their general computer skills. After introducing this course, the failure rates of the programming and data structure courses went down dramatically.

The actual intro CS course at WVU is "CS 110 - Intro. to Computer Science". According to the course catalog it covers:

"Programming and program design; simple data types, variables, and expressions; program modularization through procedures, functions, and classes; repetition and selection through control structures; structured data types including arrays and records; applications."

Here's the home page for the Fall 2010 CS 110: http://www.csee.wvu.edu/~adjeroh/classes/cs110/

The course is titled "Introduction to Computer Applications", so I'm not sure how it's "the worst course ever". Where I went to school, 101 classes were for non-majors who needed a credit from a particular college or department.

There are a lot of people who can't create calculations in a spreadsheet (as phirephly mentioned) or organize information into a simple database. Without having these basic skills, an individual is at a significant disadvantage when they enter the workforce.

As far as Office 2007 goes, sure Office 2010 has been out for a little while but universities teach using the versions of the software available in the computer labs... perhaps WVU hasn't upgraded yet.

All the snark in here is great, but it's really just a naming issue. This is not a recommended course for any of their actual Computer Science degree paths. Not newsworthy.

At least they would teach me something I don't know yet...

This title is misleading. From the site CS 101 is described as a "4-credit general education course". They steer students from all majors into this class to learn how to make flyers, use access, enter excel formulas, etc. I actually took it and found it to be pretty useful. By the way it's not required for CS or CPE degrees. The intro for CS students is the java based CS 110. See http://www.lcsee.cemr.wvu.edu/ugrad/curriculum/curriculum-de.... For those interested in some more exciting stuff see http://ai-at-wvu.blogspot.com/. (Disclosure BS Comp Sci @ WVU)

Learn sed/awk/perl/ruby/python already and use it to your csvs. Nobody needs those programs, because the alternatives are free, easier and more comfortable.

I used to teach this stuff to high school freshmen as a course titled "Information Technology Literacy." If given the choice again, I'd rather be chasing the headlights of a bus.

I was going to comment that that evaluation seemed a little unfair, but lots of people have done exactly that. Gotta say I like the way this group rises above the snark.