CSC-105: Thinking With Machines

Prompt engineering and AI fluency

Class Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:30–3:45pm, Riley 106

Office Hours: After class, Tues/Thurs 4:00-5:00pm, in 200D (2nd floor, end of left hallway on the left)

View the Course Path

What to expect

  • Personalized. Shared weekly themes; projects branch toward your interests as the term goes on.
  • Project-based. You learn by making things for real problems, not by collecting scores on homework sets.
  • Agentic. You use AI on purpose — to learn, to build, and to judge the result — not to outsource the thinking.

Class principles

Weekly rhythm

One lecture and one project each week.

  • Tuesday: New topic, plus review of recent project work.
  • Thursday: Last week's project is due at 2:30pm, at the start of class. No late submissions. Then we start the next project in class.

After week 1 you get a personal path that updates as your goals and gaps become clearer. The short weekly write-up is how that path stays current.

Exams and quizzes

Assessment is project-based. Exams are in-class challenges without the network; quizzes are short in-class builds. Pen and paper or a local editor are fine. See the syllabus for weights and timing.