New Python Courseware for Early-Career CS Students

This course teaches Python by building interactive, visual applications, bridging the gap between abstract concepts and real-world software development. It aims to help students transition from writing small scripts to producing industry-aligned projects suitable for interviews. The target audience includes high school students, early-career CS students, self-taught beginners, and those wanting to build tangible projects without needing web development skills. Students will learn core Python concepts like classes and objects by using them to model characters and generate UI elements. User input and event handlers will dynamically control application state, making code visible and tangible. The course progresses to teach modern application patterns such as state management, event-driven logic, and asynchronous programming. It emphasizes the separation of UI, logic, and data, along with deployment workflows. A significant project involves building a real AI application using local large language models with a chat interface featuring live updates. By the end, students will confidently explain full-stack concepts, asynchronous patterns, and AI integration, with practical skills for internships and portfolios. The course encourages hands-on learning, experimentation, and rebuilding projects, with the curriculum currently free and seeking feedback.