We conduct highly interactive tutorial style classes of 15-20 students, combining question-and-answer style teaching with hands on problem solving. Before the class, your instructor will ask you to watch a video lecture or read a textbook section or paper. Instead of repeating the lecture in class, we will probe your understanding and consolidate your knowledge.

Many of our courses will involve a major project (like writing an interpreter or database system) or a series of minor projects (like adding features to an operating system, writing a load balancer or re-deriving TCP) and your instructor will help you extend your understanding to these and other applications.

We make extensive use of pre-class exercises and study resources, so recommend 1-2 hours of preparation per hour of scheduled class time. Generally our programs are designed to be the maximum realistic time commitment for a full time software engineer.

The top computer science departments in the US have done an excellent job of identifying the lasting ideas in computer science that every practitioner should learn. Unfortunately, the conventional university format—lectures and exams, spread over four years—does not suit everybody. Relative to a university, our own offering covers many of the same big ideas and foundational topics, but in a radically different format.

By using online courseware to provide the equivalent of lectures, the live portion can be dedicated to deepening understanding. By limiting courses to strong programmers, keeping classes small, and eliminating excessively theoretical content as well as exams and graded assignments, we are able to cover a comparable amount of content in an expedited manner.