| Lecturer | Dr Peter Robinson |
| Course Link | UQ Site |
| Faculty | EAIT |
| Prerequisites | None |
| Contact Hours | 2 Lecture hours, 2 Practical or Laboratory hours, 1 Tutorial hour |
| Semester(s) Taught | Semesters 1 + 2 |
| Course Units | 2 |
59.6/100
I had no exposure to programming prior to taking this class. This class was very unfriendly to me and I spent a lot of time learning and writing programs, but I did not get good grades. I think this class is not friendly and difficult for students who have not been exposed to programming. Please choose carefully if you have no prior programming experience.
For the lecture, Dr Paul is a very good teacher, with a good sense of humor and very friendly. However, each class takes two hours, which means a lot of new knowledge has to be taken in. The course progresses somewhat quickly relative to students who have not been exposed to programming and have to spend a lot of time each week to consolidate this knowledge, I often need to help me understand this new knowledge through the courses on the online platform.
But the fatal point is the assessment, which is very difficult and requires a lot of time to study for students who have not been exposed to programming. blackboard provides documentation about the assessment that is sometimes difficult to understand and may take some time to study it. And the difficulty of the assessment is really, really hard for me, I often can't understand it. For me, it often takes me more than 10 days to write an assessment, provided that I need to study the assessment for close to 5 hours a day. This is really torturous for me, while other experienced students may be able to finish it in 2-3 days.Especially assessment2 and assessment3, which is a nightmare. I can't understand the combination of MVC, GUI and programming.
You can learn the python programming of SCIE1000 first and then learn CSSE1001 may be better understood.
Semester 1 - 2022
biotech
yes
maybe no
It's been a while since I've taken this course but I'm going to try to give as much of a recount as I can.
Don't get me wrong this course is hard. The first two assignments are gross but not too bad, but it's the third one that'll get you. I don't think I ever attended any of the lectures after the first week since I found the lecturer not too exciting. I had also taken SCIE1000 the semester before and thought I was hot-stuff going into this course but the of course the content that you learn is quite different between SCIE1000 and CSSE1001, and I soon learned that I was not hot-stuff haha.
My personal description of this course ever since I did it is that it is difficult but not impossible. You'll get the assignments and work through them and think 'there's no way that I can do this' but in the end you'll have completed quite substantial - that is if you put in the work for it. I didn't dedicate my whole life to it and I wouldn't say I was a perfect student but just chipping away everyday is definitely helpful.
The advice you'll always get from people who took this course is START EARLY! Start the assignments early, go to as many pracs as you need/can. I would also recommend trying to get to the earlier sessions too. Since it's less likely that heaps of people will attend an 8am session, there is more time for the tutors help since there are less students. The tutors do make a difference and I think that some of them genuinely try to help each individual person and others just want to knock through as many names on the request list as possible (this is where you put your name in an online list and is what the tutors refer to when they are going to help people since the whole 'putting your hand up' thing doesn't work too well with the size that the classes get to and the length of time you'd wait with your hand up - it makes it fair, but if it gets busy, it makes it hard to predict if you'll have a question in the future to put your name into the list. I hope you get the what I mean because it's hard to explain in writing). And please, please, please make use of the test code. I didn't know about this until a few days before the first assignment was due but it'll help you so much when you're trying to figure out what's going on. The third assignment was the only one that didn't have test code because it was so big. For the third assignment, I would recommend to do as many little things as possible because it'll add up.
When you ask questions, the advice I was given (and agree and thus share) is that you want to be direct with your questions. This is something that I struggled with because I never really liked asking for help in general and so was never good at asking questions. However, I would say if you're stuck with something, try to figure out what exactly isn't working/try to find the root. Try to fix the errors that showing up and maybe put comments in the code of what you tried so that you have some thought process to look back on when you ask the tutors. So don't just say 'it's not working' y'know?
With the mypytutor, just do it. It's easy marks and if you get stuck, try to get steady, grounded logic and real life examples when you ask the tutors so that you have an understanding of the logic behind the code, instead of just writing code, doing trial and error, and then not completely understanding why the answer was the answer. Also try to get ahead on this as much as possible so that it's out of the way.
The exam is no problem, easy-peezy. But this is also where you want your logical understanding of why things do what they do.
Semester 2 - 2019
BSc/Statistics
Not really, depends on the person I guess
Nope
I went into this course with no coding experience and it was extremely difficult for me. The assignments are too long (more than 1000 lines of code ). Also, It always seems like they are trying to rush you to the end. The lecturer just copies and pastes code without explaining the thought process of how he got to that point. we get around three weeks to do each assignment which seems like plenty of time but we basically learn the actual content we need for that assignment one week or less before the assignment is due. I think they just should take it slow so that most people can understand the fundamentals of coding since it's only the first course for coding. but they rather just jump to object orientation for some reason without properly teaching the basics.
Semester 1 - 2017
Computer Science
yes
no
The course structure is not well organised.
Assignment are way over what we have taken in lectures tutorials and pracs. When we seek help no one responds to us.
Semester 1 - 2017
It
Yes
Yes
Overall pretty good course. Will take quite a bit of individual effort on your part to get a decent mark, avoid if you're looking for an easy 7. If you're new to programming, which I was, there will be some pretty big learning hurdles throughout the course... The assignments tend to throw you in the deep end a little, but are very satisfying to complete and nothing impossible provided you put in the hours to nut them out. The final exam was overall pretty easy if you did well on the assignment - previous exams were similar. The tutorials were a pretty weird format and quite awkward but the pracs were where you got best help with assignments. Piazza is great also, an online forum where students can ask questions; lots of good assignment tips and pointers on there. The last assignment
Semester 1 - 2017
BSc
Early in semester yes later on not so much
nooope
This is an introductory level course designed primarily for those without prior exposure to programming. The language used was Python3 and if you have had experience using Python2 or 3 prior to taking the course then you will likely find it easy. This was my own situation so take this review as someone with prior knowledge.
With that said, objectively I thought the course was really good at introducing programming concepts in a practical and logical manner. There was also plenty of help available from Tutorials, Practicals (where you are more free to ask questions), and Piazza (something of a message board for the course for tutors and students to help one another outside contact hours). You will leave this course understanding the core concepts of programming if you put in the work. I recommend bringing a laptop if you can to lectures as the lecturer introduces concepts live through code and you will get more out of the lecture if you can type and try things yourself. Otherwise, watch from home so you can do this.
Assignments 1 and 2 are simplistic as long as you did your readings (and practiced with and did your MyPyTutor problems). The assignments were designed to ease you into concepts and each assignment only covered concepts taught thus far in the course. Assignment 3 is the big one and you had to perform well to have any chance of obtaining a 7, recommend you start this one immediately to give yourself more time to work out bugs. Part 3 of the assignment is essentially a 'do what you like to improve the program' type section, tutors can help you determine what might be too simple, too hard, or more worthwhile extras for implementation.
Perhaps the best part of the course is that everything you need to learn will be provided to you. Course notes are custom but succinct and good at introducing new concepts. Of course - google will also help if you're truly stuck on how to do something.
Final exam was MCQs, do the past exams to get used to the types of questions that are asked. The exam will ask similar questions.
Semester 2 - 2016
BSC - Computer Science
No
No
The assignments are very practical and make you apply fundamental knowledge of python to finish them.
However the final exam is a nightmare. It consists of all MCQs and they are very tricky. Usually, programming can be learnt better through practical means. Theoretical test (especially it is MCQ) does not help you much with programming in the future.
-mr.no-
Semester 1 - 2015
Bachelor of IT (Enterprise Information Systems)
Depends
No
Horrible course. The grading matrix pretty much ensures that no one can get a 6 or 7 despite getting near full marks for the course (you must get >85% for assignment 3 to get a 7), with the requirements for good assignment 3 marks being open ended and therefore difficult to complete. In terms of content the material is pretty useful for future courses but the way the course is structured means that for most mech engineering students they are better off waiting to do MECH2700 as a base python course.
Semester 2 - 2015
Mech Eng
No
No
This course is a introductory course to programming and is taught using python. This course is relatively easy if you have previous programming experience. This course will be fairly challenging if you haven't had any programming experience.
The first 4 weeks of Weekly prac problems are really easy, but you can get a lot of helps from the tutors during lab, so it's not really hard to get a full mark.
Assignment are the hard parts of this course. The second assignment is fairly difficult as it requires you to understand GUI.
The final exam is really easy and similar to past exam papers.
Semester 2 - 2015
Science
No
No
A fun course that teaches the basics of the Python programming language. Unfortunately, the course is poorly structured, and while the content keeps most interested in CSSE1001, the lack of preparation and organisation in the course is evident.
Nonetheless, this course is largely important for anybody who is starting out in programming, and is assumed to be entirely beneficial for an IT or Science student. Hopefully the course structure and learning activities are refined in the future, to compliment the amazing subject matter in the course.
Semester 2 - 2014
Bachelor or Science (Physics)
No
No
CSSE1001 is a reasonably engaging introduction to computer programming. You get to learn a bunch about Python, and the assignments are fairly interesting. The course overall is quite easy for those who have ever done computer programming at all; if you haven't, so long as you follow the lecture material you will be able to do well.
The course also offers you the chance to do the (optional) Assignment 3, which is an own-choice project, which gives you a lot of scope to make something *you* want to make, and get marks for it.
The final exam is multi-choice, and incredibly easy. If you do a past paper or two, you will have very little trouble with it.
Semester 1 - 2014
Software Engineering
Only if you don\'t have programming experience
No
Didn't particularly favour this course, mainly because it's done entirely on Python and has nothing to do with microcontrollers.
No point in going to lectures, which is more of a plus.
2 assignments (plus optional third for enthusiastic programmers)
First one basically involving getting a big piece of ordered data and converting it into legible information such that you can obtain e.g. highest temperature of the day = (time value), (temp value) etc.
Second one will let you construct a basic interactive window such that you can check boxes and select something on a list so that what the window displays changes depending on the options chosen (google 'GUI')
This isn't a difficult course at all so for people who like to construct things (in this case, a software code), this is a nice elective. It does require a bit of logical thinking though (only for assignments).
Final exam is straight bludge. Past exams are ~90% the same.
If the assignments are too difficult (understandable when a single character can change everything), tutors can assist you (by fixing it usually) or you can copy a friend
Semester 2 - 2014
Engineering
No
No
This course serves as an introduction to programming for many and is taught using Python. Marks are given for weekly prac work (which can be done at home), assignments (easy if you've already learnt programming fundamentals, but potentially challenging for total newbies) and a final exam. (Usually multiple choice and shouldn't contain any surprises if you've done any of the course work)
As many others will say, it's a pretty easy 6 and a harder 7. To achieve a 7 in previous years, you must complete an extra assignment while also working on the second one. (I'd advise only attempting it if you've found the others too easy)
In my year, lectures complement the course work, which is mostly online resources. I'd only recommend attending for those struggling with the core concepts.
Semester 1 - 2012
Engineering (Software)
No
No