Teaching Programming to Students in other Fields

It is a fact that programming is difficult to learn. On the other hand, programming skills are essential for each program in the field of computing and must be covered in the curriculum, regardless of the profile. Our experience in the last 3-4 years shows a noticeable downward trend in students’ results in computer science and similar programs. In this article, we comment on the reasons that have led to such a decline and we are looking for solutions by experimenting with motivated students from other areas of knowledge and comparing their progress in mastering basic concepts and mechanisms of programming with that of computer specialists. Keywords—Programming curricula; objects-first; teaching programming; object-oriented; education; programming; problem solving skills; politology