First Year Experience Resources
We want you to be successful, and to do so, you should use the resources below.
People
- Professors – Professors have office hours, so this is a great way to get clarification about lecture content.
- Graduate Teaching Assistants – Our GTAs run the labs, so if you have questions about labs or assignments, reach out to them.
- Tutoring Center – Located on the second floor of the Atrium Building (J), the tutoring center is available for online appointments or walk-ins.
- Advising Center – Located across the hall from the Tutoring Center.
Books
Books for CSE 1300
This course utilizes OER (Open Educational Resources). We provide all course materials to you free of charge.
Books for CSE 1321
Note! In the Reading Schedule below, you will see a "generic" reading for all students followed by language-specific readings. The page numbers in the reading schedule are exclusively for the Programming Fundamentals book. The remaining three books are optional resources.
List of books:
- Lecture: Programming Fundamentals (for all students, lecture and lab)
- C++ Lab: Think C++ - optional
- Java Lab: Think Java - optional
- C# Lab: Fundamentals of Computer Programming with C# - optional
Books for CSE 1322
- CSE 1322 Reading Schedule (Java and C#)
- Lecture/Lab: Java, Java, Java from Trinity College
- Lecture/Lab: Fundamentals of Computer Programming with C#
Lecture Slides & Videos
Old Exams
- CSE 1321 and 1322 old exams - for example only
Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)
You can use whatever development environment you like, but we officially only support IntelliJ, Visual Studio, and XCode. Note, during your face-to-face lab final exam, you will be required to use one of these environments. Windows users will likely want the 64-bit version when they install.
Although you can use whatever IDE you'd like at home, below are the IDEs that we recommend for the different languages and that we used in our labs:
1) Repl.it
- Web-based and doesn’t require installation
- Good for quick coding
- May be used for lab final, so you must be familiar with it
2 ) C#
- Visual Studio for macOS or Windows
3) C++
- Xcode for macOS
- Visual Studio for Windows
4) Java
- IntelliJ
- CSE 1322L students must also install UML and JavaFX plugins
*Note #1: If you're on a Mac, you may try running XCode at home (which should be free in the AppStore).
In summary:
- First, you must be familiar with Repl.it. It is web-based and does not require installation.
- If your language is Java: you will install IntelliJ (video or quick guide). You can download the Community Edition on their website.
- CSE 1322 Students - install the JavaFX plugin into IntelliJ by watching this video. JavaFX can be download from the Azul website.
- CSE 1322 Students - install the UML editor by either watching the video or reading the PDF.
- If your language is C# or C++, you will want to install Visual Studio 2019. During installation, you have to select which components to install. For C#, you'll see ".NET desktop development" and for C++, you'll see "Desktop development with C++". You can watch videos for how to install VS 2019 for Mac OSX as well as VS 2019 for Windows.
- CSE1322 Students - Install the UML editor by following this PDF
- Once you're comfortable with basic code, make sure you know how to use the debugger:
Practice
- 1321 Bank o' questions
- 1322 Bank o' questions
- C++ Exercises with solutions
- Java Exercises with solutions
- C# Exercises with solutions
Videos
- Java Tutorials
- Rick Gesick's Java and C# videos and code samples
- Best Practices for Academic Success by Dr. Bob Brown (from CCSE)
- 20 TED Talks on Programming Everyone Must Watch