Incoming Students 

 

Challenge Exam Policy (for AY 2023-24)

 

AP CS COURSES

CS@Mines accepts two AP CS courses, if you score a 4 or 5 on an exam.

  • AP CS Principles provides non-CS elective credit
  • AP CS A (Java) provides credit for CSCI 128. CS 128 is taught in Python.

 

CHALLENGE EXAMS

CS@Mines will offer one challenge exam for students of the Spring 2024 term for CSCI 128. Details on this course are below. Per the Challenge Exam site, a student who passes the challenge exam for a course “will receive a “EX” grade and transfer credit as viewable on their transcript.”

Note: To ease the transition from CSCI 101/102 to CSCI 128, students of any year will be allowed to take the 128 challenge exam during the 2023-24 school year; the exam will not be limited to just students in their first year. This policy will revert back to allowing only first-years beginning in Fall 2024.

Note: Each student is only allowed to attempt the challenge exam once, and cannot take the exam if they have already taken CSCI 128.

 

CSCI 128 is the Computer Science for STEM course. It is a 3-credit hour introductory CS course that teaches programming basics in Python as well as introduces a number of other CS topics including binary numbers, algorithm analysis, file systems, and basic data science. As part of the new Mines Core, CSCI 128 or equivalent credit is required for all new Mines students.

The exam will be done on pen-and-paper and programming questions must be answered with functional Python 3 code. If you are familiar with another programming language, we encourage you to brush up on Python syntax before the exam.  Programming topics covered by the exam include: variables, operators, types, branching, loops, functions, file I/O, recursion, and classes and objects. See this document for a full list of CSCI 128 course topics.

The challenge exam will be of a similar length and difficulty to the course’s final exam. We do not recommend you take the exam unless you have sufficient experience or do a good deal of studying beforehand. It is very unlikely you will pass the exam through lucky guesses.

  • Spring 2024: the CSCI 128 Challenge exam will be Thursday, January 11th, at 6:30pm. Register for the exam here.
  • Example review questions for the exam are available here: Challenge_Practice_Questions 

 

TRANSFER INFORMATION

CS Major transfer students should consult this separate page for more information on transferring credits from other post-secondary institutions.