Welcome to the ITSC 121X Guided Self-Placement!

We're excited that you are interested in taking an introductory computer science course! Our Computer Science Programs include introductory courses that are designed for all students. Our Introduction to Computer Science courses are ITSC 1212, which is mostly language agnostic and focuses primarily on the concepts of object-oriented programming (OOP) and ITSC 1213, which begins to dive deeper into logic and syntax. In that spirit, we want everyone to take the right first course for them, especially since prior experience can come in many different forms. This self-placement may help you find that course.

If you have never programmed before, or if your programming experience is limited, you will probably begin with ITSC 1212 which is designed for students with no previous experience whatsoever. If you took a high-school programming course intended to be similar to a first college course, such as AP Computer Science A or IB Computer Science, you may wish to attempt our Credit by Exam (CBE) to test out of ITSC 1212 and begin with ITSC 1213. If you have substantial previous experience you might even want to enroll in ITSC 2214 after attempting and passing the CBE for ITSC 1213. This guided self-placement will help you make this decision by asking you questions about your background. These will include questions about the specific courses and experience you have, how familiar you are with various topics and concepts, and how comfortable you are solving practice problems. We hope this will help most people pick the right course for them, but if you still have questions at the end, you can always contact our advising team for more support.

This self-placement is adaptive, meaning which questions you see and in which order will depend on your responses. So each student will have a slightly different experience, and if you go back and change your answers, you may see different questions appear. This is to help make sure we get the information that will most help us recommend the best course for you. As you go through the self-placement, you may also encounter terms or concepts you haven't heard of before. Don't be intimidated-- if you haven't seen a topic or concept, that just means you should probably be in the course that teaches it! We encourage you to answer all questions as truthfully as possible based on your current experience.

When you're ready, click the button below to begin.