PSU’s approach for teaching Introductory Computer Science focuses on building a foundation of knowledge that allows students to select the appropriate methodology, syntax, and data structures depending on the situation. Students learn about writing efficient programs and how to make decisions about which programming methodology or data structure to select. Students use procedural abstraction, modular abstraction, data abstraction and object oriented programming in C++ in the CS162, CS163, and CS202 courses.

From the 16x courses students become equipped to deal with the management of external data files, external source files, arrays, strings, classes, pointers, and dynamic memory management. Students are taught about efficiency tradeoffs and have experienced the relationship between pointers, arrays, and pointer arithmetic.

Have you signed up for an online course? Our “online” classes are actually hybrid classes. This means that the class is taught “live” on campus in Portland, Oregon. The classes are electronically captured and streamed on the web within 24 hours of the class taking place. Students have the opportunity to view the class through the internet rather than attending in person. This facility is provided to both students registered for the “in class” and “online” sections. Exams can be taken at a proctoring center or on campus at PSU. Exams taken off campus must be previously arranged with the Instructor.

Online Students: If you have signed up for an online class, then you will need to watch the first lecture(s) of the class online - the link will be provided on the "lecture materials" tab for your class or through the Desire to Learn (D2L) website; you should do this near the end of the first week of school. After that, you will want to keep watching the class online every week. Getting behind is the biggest risk of taking these courses online!