Classic Program

The CS Bridge Classic program offers intensive two-week in-person courses for high school students at different universities around the world. Each course is hosted by a well-known university in the host country. 100-200 high school students live on campus for two weeks and attend classes every day. The curriculum is based on the same course Stanford University teaches our Freshmen, CS106A. Each year, Stanford teaches CS106A to over 1,000 students. Our goal is to teach the same material to high school students worldwide, in-person, in small group settings.

Our Approach

  • We partner with universities in host countries to offer the course: a two-week residential summer course for high school students selected from across the host country. During the pandemic, we transitioned to an online format and offered a three-week online program.

  • The course is free for high school students.

  • In most locations students live in dormitories at the host university. They study, eat and socialize together.

  • We aim to have an equal number of high school boys and girls attend the course.

  • The only prerequisite knowledge is that the students know how to turn on a computer. In fact, we prefer students who have no prior programming experience.

  • Our curriculum is based on Stanford’s CS106A - METHODOLOGY OF PROGRAMMING, which has been taught to tens of thousands of students at Stanford University over the past 30 years. CS106A has been found to be a very effective way of teaching young people how to code. Rather than focusing on a particular programming language or syntax, the course teaches students how to think like programmers: creatively, and clearly, learning both the discipline and the art of computer programming.

  • The course introduces high school students to coding using a combination of lectures, lab exercises and small study groups.

  • Each day….

    • Students attend lectures taught by professional lecturers from Stanford University and the host university.

    • Students do intensive, hands-on programming exercises in the lab to hone their skills.

    • Students break into small study groups, called Sections, of at-most 10 students, led by an undergraduate Section Leader. Section Leaders are from Stanford University and the host university.


 
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The Curriculum

  • Based on Stanford’s CS106A course taken by over 1,000 Freshmen at Stanford every year.

  • A combination of lectures, coding exercises and small group discussions (called Sections, see below).

  • Lectures are taught by a combination of Stanford and local lecturers from the host university in each country.

WHAT IS A SECTION?

  • A Section is a group of at most 10 high school students. Each high school student is assigned to a Section.

  • Each Section is taught by an experienced Section Leader who teaches and supports the students individually throughout the two-week course.

  • Section Leaders are college students from Stanford and the host institution who are passionate about computer science and serve as great role models to high school students.

Our Partners

  • We partner with computer science instructors at institutions around the world and together we build the program.

  • Each course is co-taught by an instructor from the host university and an instructor from Stanford University.

  • We introduce the Section Leading model to the host institution and Section Leaders from Stanford University and the host institution become part of the teaching team.