I am a professor at a German university in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Currently, our students take a mandatory course on the C programming language in their first term. Beyond that, there are no required programming courses. In other classes, various instructors make use of languages …

I’m not a professor but I work at a technology institute. I am a mechanical engineer working on fluid dynamics by the way. When I studied, my university did the same as yours. A course in C. I think it was terrible! A few students into computers enjoyed it but the rest hated it and avoided programmi…

What you write largely confirms our general experience—and why we are considering moving away from C. Thanks a lot! My follow-up question concerns the skill set expected of electrical and electronics engineers: Is it sufficient for them to have mastered a programming language that allows them to co…

My feeling is that the first language matters much less than the second language. It’s actively bad for students to be exposed to only one language—they should be exposed to a second language (and more) as soon as possible, as I commented here: Can i start out with Julia as my 1st coding language …

For most schoolchildren and students, today, it is best to learn Python. Because it is in demand by most companies and corporations in the world. Moreover, literally billions are invested in Python, which means that it will never retire. For schoolchildren and students who have planned for themselv…

[image] denius: For most schoolchildren and students, today, it is best to learn Python. Because it is in demand by most companies and corporations in the world. I don’t think that this is the right way to think about things. You don’t normally go straight from learning your first programmin…

[image] stevengj: Learning your first programming language is mostly about learning concepts, Based on this, I assume that learning C as the first language will introduce more concepts compared to Python. My question is where can we draw the boundary of “enough concepts”? Another question: …

[image] Paulo_Jabardo: I really think that teaching C/java/etc as the basic course is terrible a waste of time. Yeah, a couple will enjoy it, but the rest will avoid programming (not only C) like the plague. The way I see it, if you know some (very little C), you can not plot a graph, input data…

[image] sibead: What are the long-term goals of our programming curriculum? To give a taste of programming. Some students will like it and want to learn more, others will not,and that is fine. A university education is not vocational training, it is assumed that you will only use a fraction o…

The context of the original post (and mine) was first course for engineering students. For many or most students this is/was their only programming course. Is this enough? I don’t think so but it is the reality in many universities. With this in mind, the question is not how can we make better prog…

What programming language and algorithms should be taught in a first year undergraduate course in electrical engineering

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lmiq June 11, 2025, 3:37pm 3

There’s a long related thread here: Julia as first language

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Julia as first language New to Julia	117	8774	October 4, 2023
Roadblocks to using Julia in a university General Usage book	38	2567	August 29, 2022
Still not getting it. <heavy sigh> Offtopic	30	2133	August 25, 2026
Is a simple, beginner style with named parameters and no unnecessary type annotations acceptable? New to Julia	35	3701	February 9, 2018
Can i start out with Julia as my 1st coding language New to Julia	7	1098	June 16, 2024

What programming language and algorithms should be taught in a first year undergraduate course in electrical engineering

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