COSC131-25X (C) General non-calendar-based 2025

Introduction to Programming for Engineers

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 1 September 2025
End Date: Sunday, 9 November 2025
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 14 September 2025
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 19 October 2025

Description

Computer programming in a high-level language with special emphasis on numerical computation. This course is required for engineering intermediate and is an alternative to COSC121 as a prerequisite for COSC122 and all 200 level COSC and SENG courses. COSC131 teaches the fundamentals of computer programming using the Python language and can be taken by students who have no previous programming background. Topics include expressions, assignment, selection and iteration, structured data (lists, dictionaries, tuples, arrays), functional decomposition, file processing, numerical computation with numpy, graph plotting with matplotlib and an introduction to object-oriented programming.

Prerequisites

1) EMTH117 or MATH101, or
2) NCEA 14 Credits (18 strongly recommended) at level 3 Mathematics (including the standards 'Apply differentiation methods in solving problems (91578)' and 'Apply integration methods in solving problems (91579)'), or
3) Cambridge: D at A level or an A at AS level in Mathematics, or
4) IB: 4 at HL or 5 at SL in Mathematics, or
5) approval of the Head of Department based on alternative prior learning. (01 Jan 2024 - present)

Restrictions

Timetable 2025

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Computer Lab A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 09:00 - 11:00 Jack Erskine 010 Computer Lab
1 Sep - 19 Oct
Computer Lab B
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Friday 12:00 - 14:00 Jack Erskine 136 Lab 4
1 Sep - 19 Oct

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Learning Modules 11% Weekly
Programming Assignments 10% Two Assignments
Self-Assessment Quiz 4%
Test 20%
Final Exam 55%

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $998.00

International fee $5,188.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Computer Science and Software Engineering .

All COSC131 Occurrences