And this is CS50, Harvard's introduction to the intellectual enterprises

of computer science and the art of programming.

But what does that mean?

Well, CS50 is a course that teaches you how to design and implement solutions

to problems.

But more than that, it teaches you how to think

more critically, more methodically, more computationally, if you will.

In fact, computer science itself isn't really about computers or programming,

for that matter, it's really about information.

How do you think about it?

How do you represent it?

And with what methods or algorithms can you process it?

So we'll first learn how to program with Scratch, of graphical programming

language, via which we'll explore some fundamental programming constructs

by dragging and dropping puzzle pieces.

But we'll then quickly transition to a more traditional, text-based language

called C. It's actually been around for quite a while,

and as such, it doesn't come with all that many features out of the box,

so to speak.

So anything you want the computer to do you're

going to have to teach it to do yourself,

from the simplest of algorithms to the most sophisticated.

And the problems you'll solve, inspired by real world domains, cryptography,

finance, forensics, gaming, and more.

And you'll be part of a global community solving

those same problems, surrounded, if virtually,

by classmates, by [? Zomailia, ?] by Rob, by Doug,

and so many others on see as CS50's team.

But the most successful outcome ahead is to do something, ultimately,

that we've not taught you.

Indeed, what ultimately matters in this course is not

so much where you end up relative to your classmates

but where you end up relative to yourself when you began.

And when you do end up there, will you be able to say proudly, just I can,

I took CS50.