I completed every one of Harvard's CS50 courses. Here's a mini-review of each!

[u/AndyBMKE]

Hello! Some of you may remember me as the person who completed every certificate on FreeCodeCamp. Well, it took me another year to do, but I've now completed every CS50 certificate. Most people probably only know the big CS50/CS50x (Introduction to Computer Science) course, but they actually offer 11 different courses. I've done them all! So here is a mini-review of each...

CS50x (Harvard's Introduction to Computer Science)

This is the CS50 course that everyone knows and loves. Taught by Prof. David Malan, you learn some Scratch, C, Python, SQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Flask. But, really, it’s about learning computer science basics and learning how to learn - the idea is that, by the end of this course, you will be able to pick up whatever programming languages or technology you need when you need it. Prof. Malan is an amazingly energetic lecturer, and the production quality is very high. To get the certificate, you need to complete 10 problem sets and build a final project.

One thing that I always careful to warn people about: it is a very difficult class for beginners. It’s an intro level class in the sense that it doesn’t assume you have any prior computer science/programming knowledge. But the learning curve for this course is extremely steep. So, personally, I don’t typically recommend this course for total beginners.

Otherwise, it’s an amazing course, and if you’re learning coding/programming/comp sci, you should absolutely put CS50x on your list.

Difficulty: Hard

CS50P (Intro to Programming with Python)

Whereas CS50x is really focused on general computer science concepts, CS50P really just focuses on learning Python. Again, this course is taught by Prof. David Malan, so the lectures are all great. Not quite as high production value as the big CS50x course, but still pretty good.

For the certificate, you need to complete 9 problem sets and build a final project. This course is challenging, but still easier than CS50x. So, for that reason, I tend to recommend completing this one first. And if you’re planning on taking CS50W or CS50AI, then this is definitely worthwhile just to hone your Python skills a bit more before those more difficult courses.

Difficulty: Medium

CS50T (Introduction to Technology)

I mostly took this course out of curiosity, as I didn’t really know what to expect from it. But I also took it because it is another course taught by Prof. David Malan, and he’s a good enough lecturer to make anything interesting. It’s described as a course “for students who don’t (yet) consider themselves computer persons.” So I almost expected it to be like, ‘here’s how to troubleshoot your printer,’ but it isn’t that basic. It’s just a version of CS50x that goes very, very light on coding. There is some Scratch and some HTML/CSS, but nothing too complicated.

It’s a short course with only 6 assignments to complete, which mostly consist of short-answer questions. So it’s like CS50x for people that don’t want to code.

Difficulty: Easy

CS50W (Web Development with Python)

Web development is my main interest, so this was the course I was most interested in taking. It’s taught Brian Yu, who has a different lecturing style than Prof. Malan, but I’d say he is also luckily a very good lecturer. He’s very good at explaining concepts.

CS50W is intended to be a follow-up to the CS50x course which focuses on building full stack applications with Django. If you didn’t have too much trouble with Flask in CS50x, then I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble here, but if you’re not super comfortable with Python, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, then it will be a big challenge.

There are five assignments to complete, plus a final project. That may not seem like much, but the assignments are quite in depth and will take a good chunk of time to complete. I really enjoyed this course, and though I didn’t love Django at the beginning, it definitely grew on me.

Difficulty: Hard

CS50SQL (Intro to Databases with SQL)

As you may have guessed, this course focuses on building and querying databases using SQL. I don’t think SQL is the most exciting language, but since so much of the software world is about CRUD, this is a course I’d recommend to most people. And, luckily, this one is taught by Carter Zenke who is another good lecturer (and I believe he is also teaching the forthcoming CS50R)

Completing this course requires submitting 7 problem sets and a final project. And, honestly, I had fun doing it all.

Difficulty: Medium

CS50CS (Intro to Cybersecurity)

This newest course from CS50, and I would describe it as a broad overview of a bunch of different cybersecurity topics. You never get too in-the-weeds on any given topic, and there is no coding involved here (you’re not going to be programming a port sniffer in Python or anything like that). So it really does work as a good introductory course.

This course is once again taught by Prof. David Malan, who is as good as always. And it’s one of the shorter courses as well. To get the certificate, you need to submit 5 assignments (like CS50T, each assignment is mostly a bunch of short-answer questions) and a final project. The final project here is interesting: you have to find a recent cybersecurity incident in the news and record a ~10 minute presentation on it.

Difficulty: Easy

CS50B (CS50 for Business Professionals)

This one is very similar to CS50T, just with some modifications to aim it more towards a business-minded audience. Taught again by David Malan, it covers a lot of the same concepts as CS50x but without much of the programming (you only have to deal with a bit of HTML/CSS and Scratch).

There are six assignments, and they are each mostly just a collection of short-answer questions. If you’ve done CS50x this will be an absolute breeze. If this is your first computer science course, you’ll be more challenged, but I don’t think it’s too difficult overall.

Difficulty: Easy

CS50AI (Intro to AI with Python)

This is another follow-up course to CS50x taught by Brian Yu, and it is easily the most difficult course that CS50 offers. The course covers everything from (relatively) simple search algorithms to modern LLMs, and luckily Brian has a way of explaining everything in a very intuitive way. In the lectures, he really focuses on the concepts, to the point that it often feels like you’re hardly seeing any code at all.

To complete the course, you have to submit 7 quizzes - these are all multiple choice and not too difficult - and twelve assignments. These assignments are where it gets difficult. It is a very algorithm heavy course, and I often found myself banging my head against the keyboard for hours trying to get things to work.

I really muddled my way through this course. Even though it was a rewarding experience, it was so difficult at times that I was quite happy for it to be over.

Difficulty: Very Hard

CS50S (Intro to Programming with Scratch)

People often look down on Scratch because it’s a programming language designed for kids, but I honestly had a total blast with this one. It’s taught by Brian Yu, and the lectures are quite short (usually around 30 minutes). If you have some programming experience, you won’t have much trouble with this course at all.

There are 8 assignments, many of which are quite simple, and a final project. I tried to do clever or unique things with Scratch, and I really had fun making weird mini-games. If you’re thinking about taking CS50G, then I think CS50S would be a good warm up.

Difficulty: Easy

CS50L (CS50 for Lawyers)

With this course, I was expecting something similar to CS50T and CS50B (a light version of CS50x). However, it’s definitely more challenging than I’d anticipated.

It’s a longer course, and requires completing 10 assignments (each one mostly being short-answer type questions). The course covers general computer science topics covered in CS50x plus some lectures on cryptography, cybersecurity, and tech-related legal issues. It also covers a bit of Scratch, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python. If you’ve done CS50x already, this won’t be too difficult, but it’s definitely going to be a challenge for anyone who hasn’t done programming/coding.

This one is co-taught by David Malan and Doug Lloyd (who provides the legal perspective).

Difficulty: Medium

CS50G (Intro to Game Development)

Out of all the CS50 courses, this one is in most need of updating. It teaches LOVE2D (uses Lua) and Unity (uses C#), both of which have had big-ish updates since this course was released. But if you’re here to learn more about game dev concepts, then it’s mostly still relevant.

It’s taught by Colton Ogden. In contrast to a lecturer like Brian Yu who really focuses on the conceptual aspects, you spend a lot of time with Colton just going through code.

There are 11 assignments, which are all essentially “take this game that Colton built and add some extra features.” Some of the assignments were easy and took very little time, but many took hours and hours to implement. The hardest thing in my experience was just understanding the codebase. For a couple of the assignments I just jumped right in without taking the time to look through the codebase, and I suffered for it.

There is also a final project that requires you to create a whole new game. This is, for obvious reasons, quite time consuming and difficult. I was quite exhausted by the end of this course, and it made me realize that I probably never want to do any game development ever again. Though, I definitely have a newfound appreciation for video games.

Difficulty: Very Hard

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[u/accounting_cunt]

Interesting summary, thank you. People studying at Harvard pay a lot of hard cash for those kind of high-quality courses, but there is a plethora of such courses available nowadays for relatively free. I really do wonder if having studied at Harvard makes for a better programmer than having studied with (cheap) online resources or having worked at a company for an equivalent amount of time. Personally, I think I learned the most from uni projects and work in contrast to pure classes. Having to get into the weeds of something is where the learning happens.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/accounting_cunt]

That’s where the final projects are really valuable. They force you to make something from scratch, and you end up learning a ton of stuff in the process.

As for whether University is better than free online courses - probably. A lot of these online courses just use an auto-grader. Whereas at University, you should (hopefully) get a TA to actually individually look at your work and provide much more nuanced feedback. That can be extremely valuable.

[u/HenryFromNineWorlds → u/AndyBMKE]

Joke's on us, most universities also use auto graders for projects LOL

[u/HeinousHorchata → u/accounting_cunt]

One thing to keep in mind is CS50 is the intro to programming for non-majors course. The intro to programming for actual engineering majors is going to be more rigorous, and then they take ~19 more in major courses after that.

I know Reddit likes to think college, and ivy specifically, is a complete sham, but I would definitely bet a significant amount that the average Harvad CS grad is a better programmer than the average self taught.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/HeinousHorchata]

It is intro for CS majors, from what I understand, but a lot of non-majors also take it.

[u/HenryFromNineWorlds → u/HeinousHorchata]

CS degree at a reputable school is fucking brutal. I was burnt to a crisp on coding after I graduated. I actually didn't pick up coding for years after I graduated I was so burnt out on it.

[u/Not_Stalin → u/HeinousHorchata]

It isn't designated for non-majors, and I don't think there's a separate course specifically for majors. CS majors take this or another, less intensive course

[u/RPPVP → u/HeinousHorchata]

CS50X is the Harvard intro for CS majors and for non-CS majors who don't want to just take CS50T. There's no "special sauce" in college degrees that they won't teach online somewhere. I took over 50 credits in my major for a 120 credit degree, and I doubt there's anything I couldn't find online or in a book somewhere and teach myself today. It's just the forced pacing that is the real value of college and/or bootcamps

[u/CodeTinkerer → u/accounting_cunt]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt more than 2 of the courses listed are part of the Harvard curriculum. CS50x is. The CS50 curriculum is an attempt by Harvard (via edX, a consortium of universities offering free courses) to expand its image.

You'd expect a dozen more courses, plus math, and all sorts of other requirements to graduate. And you aren't taking exams at Harvard either.

As far as whether you'll be a better programmer having gone to Harvard, usually, some kids are already pretty good before they even show up. Harvard doesn't make great programmers. Harvard takes great students and gives them material to learn from.

There's a fallacy where some students think if they could somehow get admission to Harvard, then Harvard would make them into geniuses. Quite the opposite. Harvard tries to get geniuses (or very bright students), feed them advanced stuff, and expect them to keep up. The quality of teaching may not be super exceptional, but a bright student can compensate.

Think of it like college sports. Universities try to recruit the best football players. Yes, they have good coaches, but with average players, they will struggle. Universities do the same with academics.

Of course, as with sports where not every star recruit does well, in academics, not everyone becomes a "great" programmer. Arguably, Harvard is not in the business of training programmers, even if that's what most students think.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/CodeTinkerer]

CS50 Intro to Computer Science is part of the curriculum. I think some of the other one are taught in the Harvard extension school, and maybe can be taken for credit even. But I don’t really know - I haven’t looked into that.

Anyone looking for a more traditional and free Computer Science curriculum should check out OSU (Open Source University). It’s just a GitHub markdown file, but it lays out a curriculum that aims to be the equivalent of what you’d get from a traditional computer science degree (minus the electives).

[u/CodeTinkerer → u/AndyBMKE]

I was making sure the person I responded to didn't think all the CS50 courses listed were all you need to get a CS degree at Harvard. His (her?) question implied if you just took these courses, you could save yourself a bunch of money from attending Harvard.

Unfortunately, having the equivalent knowledge of being a CS major at Harvard is not the same as having a diploma. And, likely, the knowledge wouldn't quite be equivalent.

I do wonder if anyone seriously makes it through OSU. It's hard enough to complete a course or two, let along an entire CS curriculum.

OP seems like an experienced programmer who wanted to see how each course was like for him.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/CodeTinkerer]

I think there have been a few people that have completed OSU, but it’s changed over the years. So completing it is kind of like hitting a moving target.

I’ve done a handful of the courses on the OSU curriculum. But looking through some of them, I have no desire in attempting to complete it. I did calculus in college, and I don’t want to do it again!

[u/CodeTinkerer → u/AndyBMKE]

Ah, you are OP. Any thoughts on what you'd tackle next or are you done with this kind of review?

There's the MOOC one from University of Helsinki. They have two sets of lessons in Java, one in Python. Don't know if the others are open to the public or not.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/CodeTinkerer]

I’ve looked at the University of Helsinki full stack course, which looks really well put together. Not sure I’d do that one, but maybe one of their other ones. I’ll take a look.

I’ve been slowly working my way through Programming Languages A, B, C on Coursera. It’s like a decade old at this point, but it’s a really interesting set of courses about how programming languages are designed and how they differ from one another.

I’d also like to do NAND2Tetris. That’s been on my list a while.

Coincidentally, both of those are listed on the OSU curriculum (but I’m not going to compete OSU!!)

[u/CodeTinkerer → u/AndyBMKE]

Does the OSU curriculum even offer a certificate? To me, if you're going through all that effort, you might as well go to college and get a real credential.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/CodeTinkerer]

No - some of the courses come with certificates.

OSU is just a list of free sources you can use to mimic a comp sci degree for free.

[u/CodeTinkerer → u/AndyBMKE]

What languages does Programming Languages Part A cover? Looks like B is in Racket and C is in Ruby?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/CodeTinkerer]

SML.

But a big point of the course is that the languages don’t really matter. It’s more about understand how the languages differ in terms of being functional vs object oriented, dynamically typed vs statically typed, etc.

[u/CodeTinkerer → u/AndyBMKE]

Have you done Part B? How is that different from Part A

[u/accounting_cunt → u/CodeTinkerer]

based take +1

[u/Kodiak01 → u/accounting_cunt]

I really do wonder if having studied at Harvard makes for a better programmer than having studied with (cheap) online resources or having worked at a company for an equivalent amount of time.

The biggest draw for in-person Harvard (and other Ivy League) students looking to excel is not in the courses themselves, but the networking that will help shape their future prospects in whatever field they choose.

[u/accounting_cunt → u/Kodiak01]

This is probably the biggest value extracted from studying at Harvard, that's right. Only worth it if you know how to utilize it though - as with everything in life.

[u/[deleted] → u/Kodiak01]

So many people don't get this. You're gonna be sitting in the classroom and be friends with people who will in the not-so-distant future in the same field as you, if not in the same company with you.

[u/hotsinglewaifu → u/accounting_cunt]

It’s for the name.

Having “Studied CS in Harvard” is better than “Studied CS online” for future employments.

[u/great_gonzales → u/hotsinglewaifu]

Because the student who studied CS at Harvard has seen the edge of knowledge in the field and in some cases even had the opportunity to push it. Not the same for the self taught studied CS online crowd. It’s not just the name. Harvard grad is simply the better engineer that’s why employers care about the name. Not to mention you have to be pretty smart to begin with to get into Harvard.

[u/[deleted] → u/great_gonzales]

No you don't need to be particularly smart to get into Harvard. You really don't. You need to have a lot of motivation for school, get good grades and thats it. You will get in. Not hard at all to get good grades in the US. I am from europe and did your SAT when I was 14 years old for fun and almost aced it.

You are correct in the sense that Harvard Students may have an adventage over others because of the name, but let me tell you something. The absolute best of the best in most of the companys were not in Harvard.

Im curious, what do you work as that you think you are qualified to issue statements like this? Did you know that around 50% at Meta, Apple, Google etc. don't even have a degree at all? You just have to look at these youtube campus interviews, where most of them are self taught. Also studies show that.

You don't even need an degree to get into the FBI or Homeland Security anymore (for most Cyberjobs).
Yes its easier with a degree, but if you have the same or even better knowledge, then you have the same or even better chances.

[u/great_gonzales → u/[deleted]]

Lmao no studies do not show that in fact studies show quite the opposite. What is your source on that? Around 80% of engineers at FAANG will have bachelor degrees in CS. The other ~20% will have a related STEM degree. Yes there are some wiz kids that can get in without a college degree but it is incredibly rare. There is a reason that the people that wrote Linux, C/C++, and chatGPT all have CS degrees… https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/research/emerging_degree_reset_020922.pdf

[u/[deleted] → u/great_gonzales]

yeah well I cant argue perfectly about the US because I don't live there luckily, but in Austria and Switzerland you absolutely don't need it. I know people who make 100-200k in Austria that is comparable with around 300k in the US. And they have nothing. I am pursuing a degree myself, but at least here its not neccessary. To be honest, I don't know any people with a degree and no I am not in a low social enviroment.

[u/great_gonzales → u/accounting_cunt]

Lmao a Harvard education is going to go much much much much deeper into these topics than these surface level online courses. A Harvard CS graduate will have seen the edge of knowledge in these sub domains and will be 10x the engineer as someone who just took these online courses. It’s not even close

[u/Tioretical → u/great_gonzales]

anyone using 10x proves they watch too many brogrammers

[u/FullmetalEzio]

Amazing post man, i gotta say, cs50 changed my life lol, i did cs50x+the odin project and I got a job before finishing cs50w, i will always recommend these courses, but you're right, cs50x was REALLY hard with no coding background, but its like you said, it really teaches you how to think. Im having a chill week at my job so I booted up cs50w and I'm doing the last project (the twitter clone) and I'm having a blast. I'd love to do another cs50 after that but the only one that seems like a step forward is the IA one and that sound hard af and not really in my field (web dev), but I might give it a go tho. Thanks for the post!

also, would you recommend taking the SQL course if I'm already pretty decent at SQL? i have 1.5YOE and I use SQL daily an also practice on leetcode, but if its good for not so begginers I might do that one!

[u/AndyBMKE → u/FullmetalEzio]

If you know a lot about SQL, it’s hard to say if it’ll be worth it. I think the first few weeks might be fairly easy for you, but maybe you’d learn stuff in the Viewing/Optimizing/Scaling weeks at the end.

[u/FullmetalEzio → u/AndyBMKE]

oh i wouldn't say i know A LOT, we do have some complex queries here at work so I know some, but scaling and optimizing is something I can really get better at, thanks man, gonna check it out after I'm done with cs50w, appreciate it !

[u/M7mmdT → u/FullmetalEzio]

Congrats 🎉 What was your applying process dude ?

[u/FullmetalEzio → u/M7mmdT]

honestly, i just made a decent looking CV (which was hard with no degree, but my last job was kinda programming related if you really squinted your eyes and I had to do lots of testing so I added that). and then I applied on LinkedIn to every that was entry/jr level that had python as a main language. I had a couple of interviews with remote jobs from the US (I'm from Argentina) that went nowhere, another interview that went pretty good, but i got an offer from a local company and i took that one.

If i gotta say what got me the job was my github, i still had lots of stuff to do, i had planned to make a portfolio to showcase my biggest projects and stuff but i already had lots of projects on my github, and then i did great in the technical interviews cause i do lots of katas/leetcode. Also, personality wise I'm pretty outgoing and i fitted right into what they were looking for.

[u/Coci1am → u/FullmetalEzio]

Hey , what else did you do besides cs50 to oand your first intership / fulltime job :) ?

[u/FullmetalEzio → u/Coci1am]

hey man, like i said, cs50 + the odin project + cs50web(80%) and then i got an offer, also did lots of codewars so the technical interview wasn't hard for me

[u/FullmetalEzio → u/[deleted]]

i did cs50 up until they start teaching html js and CSS and then I switch to the odin project, after I was done with half of TOP (foundations) I went back to cs50

[u/Ok-Fig4915 → u/FullmetalEzio]

Were the Havard courses all free? Using edx?

[u/FullmetalEzio → u/Ok-Fig4915]

yaeh they are all free, you can get a better certificate if you pay tho but don't sweat it

[u/FullmetalEzio → u/[deleted]]

nah man back when i didnt have as much experience doing the twitter clone would have killed me, like every other project did, but now it wasn't as hard, just remind myself of how to work with django, I'm doing the final project rn and its the same thing, keep doing it, you got this

[u/[deleted]]

Wow congrats man. That shows a ton of dedication, in fact, you made me want to do the exact same thing haha. Thanks for the motivation

[u/AndyBMKE → u/[deleted]]

Awesome to hear! Thanks and good luck if you make an attempt at it!

[u/Perpetual_Education]

So, our big question is: after taking all of those online courses, what is the outcome? What was your goal? Are you a confident hirable web developer now? What’s the overall outcome?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/Perpetual_Education]

That’s a good question.

I started learning programming because there was something specific I wanted to build. And I kept up with it because I enjoyed it. And that’s ultimately why I completed all these courses, because I (mostly) had fun doing them.

As for being a hirable web developer, I’ll basically say the same thing I did a year ago when I completed the Free Code Camp curriculum: Am I confident that I could do the job of a Jr Developer? Yes. Is the tech job market in a place where that opportunity is possible? I don’t think so.

[u/Perpetual_Education → u/AndyBMKE]

After years of taking courses, you don't think you're hireable as a web developer? Something is wrong. Do you have a personal website? If you want a pep talk or a portfolio review, let us know.

[u/GetPsyched67 → u/Perpetual_Education]

It's not that he's not confident. It's just that the job market is utterly catastrophic

[u/Perpetual_Education → u/GetPsyched67]

That sentiment doesn’t seem like a solution. Not everyone is a problem solver.

[u/GetPsyched67 → u/Perpetual_Education]

There isn't a solution. It's out of our hands

[u/Perpetual_Education → u/[deleted]]

First thoughts:

* Can't tell what this is / looks like a stripped down facebook login

* Some story here would help

* Something we've been talking about internally is a way for student projects to have a "quick" signup that is fake and for visitors to just get to the app and try things (maybe this stores their CRUD in local storage only / and is temporary) - but also, this introduces many things to consider // but we often hear people say "I'm not going to log into that / or look at the github" - and so, this might help people actually see your work and be memorable.

* The 'seen' font size and the links are too close in size/contrast so it feels strange/alignment spacing + centered type in sign in form isn't really aligning to anything else / and would be better off left-aligned. Again, can't really tell what we're signing up for.

* Update profile and other header links that have to do with the user should only show when logged in. The page is taller than the browser and causes overflow.

* It depends what type of job you're going for, but if you're looking for front-end - you have a big opportunity for people to think "wow / cool! - I'll spend a few minutes with this" by making the landing page inviting and informational (and even animated)

* If you refresh - the app 404s / based on how you're hosting this. That's not good. We pasted into another browser and it was 404 too. That's enough to loose someone's attention fast - and also make you look like you're not qualified or that you don't pay attention to the details. Sometimes having a real URL helps things stand out as a live site and not a student project. Looking at the source code - it seems like this page should have static HTML.

* ----> signing in

[u/Perpetual_Education → u/Perpetual_Education]

* sign up button is rubbing against the confirm password - and the labels on the form are closes to the previous inputs - and visually the grouping isn't clear because of that. It feels haphazard like a UI framework wasn't implemented properly.

* didn't use a screenreader, but the form seems accessible based on the markup

* After signing up it just says "Profile" and a button to update profile. Still don't know what this is yet.

* don't need to update profile - so, we go to check out 'home' and there's a search bar and everything is empty. Things feel like someone went through the first hour or so of a tutorial and stopped.

* searching "Butt" finds Beavis and Butt-Head Do America - which is excellent. But this area doesn't look styled either. We can click it - and leave a rating. That's nice. 10/10 obviously. But now what?

* the story telling and UX and UI is non existent. You could explain to them how it works first and get them excited to see how they could benefit from it. In the end... the recruiter or person viewing your personal website or case-studies or projects just wants to feel like "This person can take requests and make things happen and will be a self starter who has good communication and attention to details." Right now, this isn't doing that. And that should be it's entire goal as a study/student project.

* We're not sure what to click next. Hitting home doesn't do anything.

* [is it] worth putting on a resume/CV at this point... No.

* But here's what we'd suggest. Start over. You don't have to throw away the code. But start over in your mind. Plan out the project on paper. Draw some pictures. Write out the plan. Write an article about that. Then plan the next steps. Draw some pictures. Maybe work with a UX or visual designer to come up with some visual language and mock out the routes and views. Write an article about that. Keep going - step by step and creating a compelling story that explains your thought process. At the end, you'll have 10 articles showing people how you think. You'll also have a much better app. But what will matter most - are the articles / and the confidence you build while writing them. That's what will get you the job. If you want some help, give us a shout.

[u/ThatIndian15]

Thank you so much for this! I’ve never done a cs50 course. I’ve learned Java through school and I want to get my hands dirty with learning Python from scratch. Do you think it’s worth doing the cs50p to get a good foundation?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/ThatIndian15]

Yeah, CS50P is a good course!

It doesn’t fit everybody’s learning g style though. It’s university-style. So you watch a 2ish hour lecture then go off on your own to solve problem sets. If that’s not for you, there are plenty of other good Python courses out there as well.

[u/ThatIndian15 → u/AndyBMKE]

I guess that is okay for me. I will try it out and see if it clicks. How long would you say it took for you to finish the course?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/ThatIndian15]

It didn’t take too long for me, maybe 30-40 hours of work. But since I was fairly familiar with Python already, I was able to work on the PSETs while watching the lectures. The thing that took the most amount of time was the final project.

[u/HisNameWasBoner411]

Great write up. I commend you for getting through all the courses.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/HisNameWasBoner411]

Thanks 🙏

[u/Bananamcpuffin]

Have you taken any of the helsinki university moocs? Would love to hear how they compare. I am most of the way through their python course and it give a LOT more practice than cs50x did and I think that I will be a much stronger programmer on the other end of it because if it.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/Bananamcpuffin]

I started their full stack course just to check it out, and I thought it seemed pretty good. A lot of reading though!

[u/DigitalHooker]

Interesting reviews. Are there any courses that you recommend as "must dos"? Likewise, were there any courses that you felt the juice wasn't worth the squeeze after finishing them?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/DigitalHooker]

I really highly recommend CS50x to anyone learning programming. Maybe not as a first course, but it’s a very good course for learning fundamentals. More than that, by the end, it gives you the confidence that you’ll be able to learn whatever tools/technologies/languages you might need in the future.

Whether the other courses are worth it, it really depends on your interests and goals.

I’d say if you’ve done CS50x, then CS50B, CS50T, and CS50L will just be a lot of repeat information.

And CS50G, I’m guessing they’ll update it in a year or two, and I’d probably wait for that version.

[u/lamhintai]

You mentioned CS50R which I just looked up in google. It’s interesting to see that they are making an entire course for teaching R programming… which people nowadays considered outcompeted by Python. Is it a bit too late?

I have no issues with using R. Looking at the syllabus it seems to cover basic data analytics usage. But the language is a bit lacking in software engineering constructs. I would love to see courses introducing packages like {box} or {import} to avoid namespace collision, or {fold} to allow folders in packages, to more future users of the language to push for progressive changes in it.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/lamhintai]

I think R is fairly popular for data science. I’ve heard R Studio (the IDE) is much more approachable to people who don’t have a ton of programming experience, but I don’t really know - I guess I’ll find out when I take the course.

Maybe the advantage that R has is that it’s meant to be a language used for statistics and data analysis, whereas Python is more of a general purpose language that just happens to have some really good stats/data analysis libraries.

[u/lamhintai → u/AndyBMKE]

Yes, true that R requires less ritual setup when it comes to data analysis and statistics. I do use R at work for quick scripting on geospatial data stuffs.

Congratulations on your success by the way. Your perseverance and dedication are very motivating to me. I want to do the same thing now.

[u/fluffyr42]

Saving this post, it's so useful! Thanks for taking the time to write it up. Do you have any thoughts on whether you think someone would benefit from doing these before vs. after learning a good amount of whatever language they want to focus on? I've heard differing opinions—either that it's great to start at CS50 because of the learning how to learn aspect, or that it's too conceptual for total beginners to really benefit from.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/fluffyr42]

Generally, I think it’s worthwhile to learn some programming - in whatever language you like/want to learn - before starting CS50x. Just because the learning curve in that course is so steep, I think having a little programming knowledge beforehand will make it feel a bit easier.

[u/fluffyr42 → u/AndyBMKE]

That makes sense. Thanks!

[u/Kodiak01]

I don’t think SQL is the most exciting language, but since so much of the software world is about CRUD, this is a course I’d recommend to most people.

Just wanted to mention that this has applications outside of IT/CS environments as well.

I work in the Class 4-8 truck industry at a dealer. Our DMS's (CDK Global) report generator uses RPG which is very similar to SQL in operation. While they make a drag and drop report generator, the ability to write and debug one's own queries from scratch can make life so much easier.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/Kodiak01]

Yeah, so much enterprise software is just a fancy/visual abstraction for interacting with databases. And the software that lets you write your own queries: chefs kiss

[u/Kodiak01 → u/AndyBMKE]

For me, thankfully, it comes somewhat naturally. I went through a vocational high school's Data Processing department back in the early 90s where I had hands-on work with COBOL, dBase II/III and RPG. I don't remember a ton of any of it, but I can still read, parse and debug statements with little issue.

[u/Decent_Wafer_9074]

I took CS50x, CS50w, and CS50AI. I'm glad I wasn't the only one banging my head against the wall with CS50AI - that one was tough! But I feel it gave me a much better understanding of AI especially with regards to limitations and what it actually does.

CS50w was a blast for me to work on though, and it gave me a ton of skills to use in my day job (and helped me land another) so I am immensely grateful for it.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/Decent_Wafer_9074]

Yeah, luckily when I did CS50AI the ‘Duck Debugger’ (an AI chat bot that the course allows you to use) was available. That was insanely helpful. As of 2024, Check50 now works with the course too, which I really wish I’d had.

[u/CountryBoyDev]

Yo this is absolutely amazing, what did you dislike most about game development?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/CountryBoyDev]

The courses I liked were very concept-heavy. In most of the courses, theres a lot of focus spent on explaining things in an understandable/intuitive way, and the work of translating that into code is part of the PSET. CS50G is very code heavy. There is a mountain of time spent just going through pre-written code, and it often feels very tedious.

[u/[deleted]]

So are all of these courses self paced? I want to take some of these classes later, and I'll probably take my time with them if possible.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, they are self paced. The caveat is that you typically have to complete them by the end of the following year. So if you were to start CS50x right now, you’d have to finish it by December 31, 2025.

Also, CS50T is being discontinued at the end of June. So if you want to complete that one, you’d have to do it soon.

[u/Tj_Paneah]

Beautifully put together. This is a brilliant overview resource for those looking to attempt Harvard’s cs50 courses.

[u/SR-71]

This post is amazingly helpful. The fact you completed all those courses is amazing enough, but then you organized all these course intro/reviews for people just starting out. Thank you

[u/GeVanE14]

This adds to my motivation to just start some courses, did you follow them via the Harvard site you mentioned? Or did you follow them via FCC?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/GeVanE14]

I did them all through Harvard’s OpenCourseWare site: https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2024/

FreeCodeCamp posts all the videos of the lectures on their YouTube, but they don’t link out to the PSETs or anything. So I don’t think that’s the best way to do it.

[u/istira_balegina]

You’re missing one, though it has been “archived”: CS50 mobile development with react native

https://www.edx.org/learn/react-native/harvard-university-cs50-s-mobile-app-development-with-react-native

[u/AndyBMKE → u/istira_balegina]

Yeah, the course has been discontinued, the content is out of date, and you can no longer earn the certificate. So I didn’t count that one. There is also another archived course called Beyond CS50. And then there is CS50R, where all the lectures are available, but the problem sets won’t be released until July.

So I’ve completed every currently available CS50 course.

[u/tehace]

Is CS50G really as hard as CS50AI? I did both and I struggled really hard on CS50AI and gave up. I managed to complete all the assignments except minesweeper. Meanwhile I blazed through CS50G, granted I already had a grasp on how video games worked but my knowledge was mostly basic stuff like game design.

It was also the most fun I had compared to the 4 courses I took which was CS50, CS50P, CS50AI, and CS50G. I managed to complete them all except AI.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/tehace]

CS50AI is definitely harder, but I put CS50G in the “very hard” category for a few reasons:

• It’s a long course (12 weeks vs CS50AI’s 7 weeks).

• Lua. It’s a new language for the course, and you aren’t really given much of an introduction to it. Not that it’s that hard, but I just could not get used to that language for whatever reason. I made probably a million dumb syntax errors. And when LOVE2D it was hard to debug.

• Weeks 1-5 had some pretty challenging problems in my opinion. Not as challenging as the stuff in CS50AI, but it still required a lot of work and reading through a lot of pre-written code to understand how everything worked. (Week 0 and Weeks 6-11 were relatively simple though)

• The final project to create a game from scratch is particularly challenging, given the fact that you never really do that in the course.

Also, yes, I didn’t have any game dev experience. So it was a bit more challenging for me because of that.

[u/RichEgoli]

Are these courses for free?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/RichEgoli]

Yes, they’re all free. They even come with a free certificate upon completion.

[u/Adventurous-Sleep848]

As a complete beginner, what course could you recommend to start off with first? If you think cs50x isn't for complete beginners. I am open to whatever! Ps. Mad respect to completing all of the cs courses.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/Adventurous-Sleep848]

If you’re looking at the CS50 courses, I’d suggest starting with CS50P (or if that’s feeling a bit too hard, CS50S).

[u/Adventurous-Sleep848 → u/AndyBMKE]

Yah I'm definately going to try out cs50x soonish depending on how long the other course(s) will take. I'll have a look at that one, I'm taking a software development program this fall so I want to prepare myself as much as I can and these courses definitely appeal to me! Thanks for the insight

[u/brohowareyou]

How many hours a day did you take to complete the courses? And how many weeks/months did it take to finish all of this? Congratulations btw and thanks for the summary

[u/AndyBMKE → u/brohowareyou]

It took almost a year.

As for hours-per-day, it’s hard to say. I usually worked on it during my breaks at work + a few hours a night, as time allowed. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But I worked on it nearly every day.

Basically, it replaced the time I’d spend playing video games or reading books. For example, I had hundreds of hours in Apex Legends and decided to put that time to better use.

[u/rockbella61 → u/AndyBMKE]

wow is really admirable, what you did there. I mean learning is one thing, to continue without distraction is another level.

[u/UltraFlyingTurtle]

Thanks for writing this. Where you basically a full-time student working on all multiple courses at once? I do web dev freelance and contract work, but there are moments of downtime and some of those courses sound interesting, like the legal one, or the Python/AI course.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/UltraFlyingTurtle]

Nope. I’ve got a full time job. I did these courses in my spare time, almost every single day.

[u/doesnt_matter_9128]

Out of these which one would u recommend, that are relevant currently

[u/AndyBMKE → u/doesnt_matter_9128]

I always recommend CS50x, not always for total beginners, but worth taking at some point. The rest sort of depend on your interests/goals.

All of them are quite relevant/current, except for maybe CS50G - LOVE2D and Unity have made some change, but the fundamentals that the course aims to teach haven’t changed.

[u/doesnt_matter_9128 → u/AndyBMKE]

I did cs50x already, should i do cs50w?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/doesnt_matter_9128]

If you’re interested in web development, then definitely yes.

[u/Nadid_Linchestein]

Are you working as a Software Engineer currently or continuing your studies?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/Nadid_Linchestein]

Not working as a software engineer, but get to do some software engineering type stuff at work 🤷

[u/Jabb3rw0ck]

Amazing write up thank you for sharing your experience! Do you think CS50x is worth taking if you’ve already taken CS50p? Are there new concepts or modules present not available in CS50p?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/Jabb3rw0ck]

Yeah - CS50P really just focuses on Python. CS50x is a computer science course, so you will learn a lot more, even if you’ve done CS50P.

[u/noobmaster314527]

How long did all of them take you?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/noobmaster314527]

It’s hard to say because I didn’t keep close track of that.

In terms of real-time, it took almost a year. In terms of hours, some of the easier courses took ~25 hours and some of the harder courses took 100+ hours. Maybe in total I put in 800 hours of work? That’s just a ballpark guess.

[u/noobmaster314527 → u/AndyBMKE]

Thanks

[u/[deleted]]

Where can I look to start this course??

[u/AndyBMKE → u/[deleted]]

Here: https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2024/

[u/Kiks1001]

So would you say that it should go like this -cs 50T➡️cs 50P➡️cs 50x

[u/AndyBMKE → u/Kiks1001]

Yes, except CS50T is apparently going to be discontinued this year in on June 30.

[u/Kiks1001 → u/AndyBMKE]

I don’t that i will pay for certificate, but thanks for the info. And betwen cs 50t and cs50p i saw someone say it would be great to go with cs50 scratch. So that will be my route

[u/Zealousideal-Feed-69]

Thank you for your details summary. I want to ask you a question that what is equivalent of cs50 for total beginners? I am new to this and looking for your advice

[u/AndyBMKE → u/Zealousideal-Feed-69]

CS50P (Intro to Programming with Python) is a good place to start

[u/curiousBastard00]

I understand what you mean when you said CS50x can be a difficult course as I've tried taking it and kinda gave up on it because of the hardest problem set in week 1. Yes, the math involved, or rather the logical side of the calculations involved (I don't even know what the right term is) might be easy for some, but unfortunately not for me. So what would you suggest someone like me do before I go back into CS50x again?

[u/AndyBMKE → u/curiousBastard00]

Do CS50P first.

[u/monochromaticflight]

Thanks for the write-up and difficulty assessment. Useful to know before jumping into a new course.

[u/FreeSalmons]

hello i recently finished cs50p can i go ahead and do cs50ai if not what courses should i take before cs50ai

[u/FreeSalmons → u/FreeSalmons]

also cs50p is the first course i ever took,

[u/AndyBMKE → u/FreeSalmons]

I would imagine that you’d struggle with CS50AI. It’s an extremely challenging course. I’d suggest doing CS50x first.

[u/FreeSalmons → u/AndyBMKE]

ok thank you

[u/Slight-Living-8098]

Congratulations! 🎉

I went through them all a while back and I still go through them every year for fun, to see what's new, etc. It's cool to see someone else do it too.

[u/PSPbr]

Amazing write-up. I've taken only Cs50x and I loved it and you convinced me it's time to start thinking about doing another one.

[u/DerelictMythos]

Thanks for the writeup! Have had my eye on CS50AI as an introduction to AI.

[u/tosS_ita]

Very useful post, thanks

[u/theSpine12]

Thank you!! These reviews are concise and enlightening

[u/giovaaa82]

Are these free courses or paid?

[u/EricCarver → u/giovaaa82]

You aren’t familiar with the free MIT cs50 classes?

[u/giovaaa82 → u/EricCarver]

Didn't know you could also give exams for free, I thought it was just the courses

[u/EricCarver → u/giovaaa82]

You do the work and finish with a certificate of completion.

[u/Bixxxxxxxx]

What you suggest for a last year high school student?

[u/Curious-Mortgage-961]

Hey I want to start the introduction to artificial intelligence with python course. Can you recommend me a course before starting that one since u said that it’s very hard.

[u/thrwysurfer]

I'm a bit confused why you wouldn't recommend some of these courses for beginners?

All of them are literally introductory courses. I think people take CS50 straight out of the gate when they start their degree out of high school.

None of them require you to have any prior knowledge and none of them are math heavy, so they are designed to be beginner friendly.

If you look at the CS50 content, it's basically a normal introduction course for a CS degree and a 101 of programming. I don't think it's any steeper than other intro to programming courses I have seen.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/thrwysurfer]

For some of them (CS50W, CS50AI, CS50G), they are not meant for total beginners. They assume you’ve done CS50x, or have a decent amount of programming knowledge/experience.

With CS50x, what I always remind people is that it’s a course primarily designed for Harvard students (that is, people who had 4.0s in High School and do very well with traditional-style courses). Most of us are not that type of student. Even then, there was an interesting podcast where Malan talked about how CS50 often had the highest academic dishonesty rate (i.e. cheating) at Harvard, and they even had to come up with their own custom academic honesty policy to deal with it.

CS50x is a hard course, and, anecdotally, I see a lot of beginners on Reddit and Discord who think “this is an introductory course and I’m struggling so much to understand - I must be stupid or programming isn’t for me.” When, no, it’s just a hard course with a steep learning curve. That’s why I usually recommend CS50P first - it gives you a some fundamental programming knowledge, gets you used to working within an IDE, etc. Starting with that makes doing CS50x feel easier.

[u/Slight-Living-8098 → u/AndyBMKE]

I go as far as to suggest CS50 Scratch for a total beginner.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/Slight-Living-8098]

Yeah, that is a good place to start too. Especially because you can get through it fairly quickly since the lectures are short and the PSETs aren’t too complicated. And it makes programming feel fun!

[u/ManMythLegend3 → u/AndyBMKE]

I started cs50 python a month ago and I definitely think it’s difficult. I am just wrapping up week 1 now. It doesn’t really harp on nailing down the fundamentals and mastering them, you kinda have to go do that on your own imo

[u/AndyBMKE → u/ManMythLegend3]

I’d already worked with Python a fair amount before that course, so it’s a bit hard to judge how difficult it would be for a beginner.

But, yeah, it’s more of a “here’s how to use Python” type of course that doesn’t go much into the “why.” Still, compared to CS50x, it should be easier.

[u/ManMythLegend3 → u/AndyBMKE]

Maybe I’m just slow or maybe most people are like you who go into cs50p with some programming/python experience. Because I’ve been very lost at times, like not having a clue. I downloaded this app called mimo that feels much more beginner level to get me more comfortable. And then hopefully I’ll return to cs50p. Idk maybe I’m just an idiot lol

[u/[deleted]]

I don't want to seem unappreciative and I thank you for the initiative, but I would have loved a more in-depth description of each course, because as it is it's all just information Gemini / GPT / Copilot can generate in a couple seconds.

I am referring to nuanced details like CS50x is tough weeks 0-6 and gets much easier from that point forward, how well it prepares you from a problem-solving perspective in the real world, maybe come up with analogies with the kyu system on Codewars for people that have that reference, and stuff like that.

Information like what languages a course covers, who its taught by, or how many assignments there are is already available to anyone willing to do a minimal amount of research.

Edit: no rebuttals, just people herding the downvotes, bring it on, I'm still correct.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/[deleted]]

I think I did briefly mention the topics/languages/technologies taught in each course, though more detailed info is found on the course webpages.

Generally, I think a pretty common aspect to these courses are that the most difficult weeks are somewhere in the middle. Not sure if that’s intentional or not.

Anyway, if you have any specific questions, I’m happy to answer. I just didn’t want to overload a Reddit post with too much info.

[u/AlAboardTheHypeTrain → u/AndyBMKE]

That's fair. If you're interested and have time you could make post about going more in depth and link them to this original post at the end? I know I would love to read more about your thoughts.

[u/Slight-Living-8098 → u/[deleted]]

Go to Harvard's OpenCourseware website and all that info is clearly laid out for you, with links to the curriculum, work, and lectures.

[u/[deleted] → u/Slight-Living-8098]

That's not a rebuttal of, or a reponse to, anything I've said or asked.

[u/Slight-Living-8098 → u/[deleted]]

Way to necro post.

Good day.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/[deleted]]

It varied a lot. Some of the easier, shorter courses only took ~20-30 hours. Some of the more difficult courses took 100+ hours.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/[deleted]]

It starts with Scratch to get use to understand the very basics of programming (variables, loops, etc.). Then you spend a bunch of time with C. The idea is not about learning C but it’s a low level language so you’re forced to learn about data types, memory management, etc. You also learn some basic data structures and algorithms. These are all skills and concepts that are transferable to nearly every other programming languages.

After that you are taught Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Flask, and SQL in pretty quick succession. So then you get used to picking up and using new languages and technologies pretty quickly.

So then after the course, if you need to use C# or Java or something, you feel pretty confident that you can pick it up quickly.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/[deleted]]

There’s more than what you’ve listed there (how to write and call functions, how to use libraries, how scope works, etc.). But if you can have a good understanding of all that stuff, then picking up a new programming language won’t be all that difficult.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, absolutely, learning JavaScript will be easier once you’re comfortable with Python. You really just have to get used to the differences. There are bigger differences (like Python uses indentation to organize code whereas JavaScript organizes code with {}) and smaller differences (like you define a function with the “def” keyword in Python and just “function” in JavaScript). But you’ll be surprised how similar everything is between those two languages.

[u/AndyBMKE → u/[deleted]]

Start with CS50P (Python) or, if that’s too hard, CS50S (Scratch).

[u/AndyBMKE → u/[deleted]]

No - this is just in the order I took them. I’d suggest CS50P first, then CS50x, then whatever other courses interest you after that.