COMP1730: Programming for Scientists

1730 is a first year first semester introduction to programming with Python, aimed at a very broad range of students. If you're studying computer science, then expect to be in the minority. The students taking this course range from engineers to scientists to economists. The course content is very broad due to the variety of students and it's quite introductory - if you've used Python before you won't get much out of it.

The learning curve is exponential: getting through assignments 1 and 2 is fine but assignment 3 is difficult even for experienced Python programmers (and not to mention it was group work). If you are a computer science student, the course is considerably easier than COMP1100 and you should be able to pass the course without much difficulty. The tutors are quite approachable as well.

If you're studying engineering or science, and want to learn programming (the skill) moreso than computer science, this course will likely help you more than doing COMP1100, which is much more rigorous and features more theoretical content.

However, if you're planning on doing COMP courses in the long term, it may be worthwhile taking COMP1100 instead. Later COMP courses often assume that you are familiar with recursion and basic data structures such as trees which can require lots of practice to become comfortable with. 1730 only briefly mentions recursion, whereas it is a central focus of 1100 and assumed knowledge in a large number of later COMP courses.