Apr 6, 2022This was CS50x Puzzle Day 2022Carter Zenke and David J. Malan — And we’re a wrap! As the clock strikes midnight in the last time zone on Earth, we can look back on CS50x Puzzle Day 2022. This year’s event brought thousands of registrants from 88 countries together to “enjoy not having a clue when you have a ton of ’em” (among…7 min read7 min read
Apr 5, 2022Shopping Period at HarvardDavid J. Malan ’99 — “At Tuesday’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting, Harvard faculty ̶a̶r̶e̶ [were] set to vote on two controversial proposals — one that would allow students to pursue double concentrations and another that would replace shopping week with previous-term registration.” — The Harvard Crimson Shopping week (aka shopping period) is a…Computer Science3 min readComputer Science3 min read
Apr 5, 2021Building a Virtual Classroom with ZoomDavid J. Malan — CS50 is Harvard University’s introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming, a course that can be taken both on campus and off. The course is unusual, perhaps, for its “production value,” which is part of its pedagogy, so that students watching videos asynchronously online…Education10 min readEducation10 min read
Jul 6, 2020Teaching from Home via ZoomDavid J. Malan — CS50 is Harvard University’s introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming, a course that can be taken both on campus and off. The course is unusual, perhaps, for its “production value,” which is part of its pedagogy, so that students watching videos asynchronously online…Computing6 min readComputing6 min read
Apr 7, 2020This was CS50x Puzzle Day 2020David J. Malan — CS50x Puzzle Day is an online adaptation of an event we hold at Harvard University each year, an opportunity for students around the world to collaborate on a team with classmates, family, and friends on a packet of puzzles, which are essentially logic (not jigsaw!) problems. Whereas the on-campus event…17 min read17 min read
Aug 25, 2019Echa Pa’Lante, CS50 2019David J. Malan — CS50’s team began this summer, as we have past, with Summer50, a week-long retreat a few hours from Harvard during which we plan for the coming year, bond, and even compete in a Gordon Ramsay-inspired cooking competition. (The red team won this year.) To guide each summer and, in turn…Education7 min readEducation7 min read
Aug 16, 2019This is CS50 AP 2019–2020Erin Carvalho — Here’s what’s new for the upcoming school year for CS50 AP! …Education4 min readEducation4 min read
Jul 25, 2019CS50’s New Submission Tools for Teachers and StudentsBrian Yu, Chad Sharp, and Jelle van Assema — Over the years, CS50 has developed a number of tools aimed at making it easier for computer science teachers (including us!) to collect student submissions for assignments, automatically grade those submissions along multiple axes, and provide feedback on students’ code. check50, a correctness-testing tool made available to both students and…Education7 min readEducation7 min read
Apr 2, 2019This was CS50x Puzzle Day 2019Doug Lloyd, David J. Malan — Each fall, CS50 at Harvard (and Yale!) kicks off with an afternoon event called CS50 Puzzle Day. The goal is to send a message that computer science isn’t about programming but about problem-solving. …Puzzle34 min readPuzzle34 min read
Oct 2, 2018On Feeling Less Comfy, Getting (Un)stuck on Vigenère, and Learning ItalianVeronica Nutting, Head CA — I took CS50 as a very-much “less comfortable” student. My previous CS experience consisted of a trimester of Scratch in eleventh grade. I had only the heard of the word “terminal” in the context of transportation and illness. I’d never watched The Social Network. …Education3 min readEducation3 min read
