Discrete Mathematics as A Transitional Course

CS educators have paid a great deal of attention to Discrete Mathematics over the past several decades. Although there have been many suggestions for improving this course, it seems to us that the real purpose of Discrete Mathematics as a transitional course has been long forgotten. We believe that the most important objective of this course is to let students be familiar with the format and structure of rigorous mathematical arguments for their future study in CS. What subjects should be taught are also important because they are tools for us to effectively achieve the objective we just mentioned. Thus, we argue that complicated subjects should not be used in this transitional course because they will distract the student’s attention from the underlying structure of the arguments that we want to emphasize. In this paper we start with some prevailing misconceptions in the effort of improving this course, and then we provide our solutions.