Bard High School Early College – CMSC 107: Introduction to Python

Mar 2026 · 2nd Semester

Computer science is a massive field of study, with a variety of interestingpaths to take. Some of these include software design, video gamedevelopment, artificial intelligence, data science, and much more. Theseareas differ from each other, but their foundation is the same: the abilityto write algorithms in a programming language. This one-semestercourse, Introduction to Computer Programming in Python (CMSC 107),will employ the widely-used Python, focusing on the relevant details ofthat language, while providing students general, transferableprogramming knowledge. This course will begin with introduction toprogramming in the IDE, variables, and data types; if-statements, loops,lists, and string manipulation; and finish with the use of functions andpackages to solve more complex tasks. As students move through thetopics, they develop algorithmic thinking skills (such as being able tobreak problems into subproblems), use abstraction, and design complexsolutions. Students begin the course with simple algorithms, consisting ofa few lines. By the end of the course, students will comfortably be able towrite algorithms that build a simple interface for and check solutions to aTic-Tac-Toe board or find the remaining words in a Wordle game givenrevealed guesses and clues.