[ghaff]

Way back in the day, you did have a few programming classes especially outside of CS/EE given that it was perfectly reasonable for students to have no or little prior exposure to computers and programming. See FORTRAN coloring book. And, as you say, although I haven't dropped by since pre-COVID, there was as you say a smattering of stuff during IAP.

But my general sense based on some level of connections is you're expected to figure out a lot of, for lack of a better term, practicalities on your own. I don't think there's a lot of hand-holding in many cases--probably more so in some domains than others.

[foobarian]

I feel like anyone with enough talent to get into MIT will have no problem picking up a programming language in a month or two on their own. Heck there are freshmen there who write programming languages for fun

[ghaff]

I think that assumes a base level of programming knowledge in the generic which may be a reasonable assumption in this day and age if you're applying to MIT/Stanford/etc. It wasn't going back a decade or two but may be today. Perhaps if you've never written a program, you're just not a candidate for some undergraduate programs today whatever your other talents.

[kkylin]

Yup. Back in my day there was 1.00, a Civil Engineering course, a pretty standard intro to programming in plain old C. I don't know if it still exists. There was nothing of that sort in EECS, though there are lots of IAP courses (which take place in January, before spring semester starts). IMO a month is about right to spend on (leisurely) picking up a programming language for fun. A friend and I learned APL that way.

[icambron]

In 2004 or so, 1.00 was an intro to Java course. I took it very cynically to pad out my units; I was a course 6 senior at the time. I got side-eyed by TAs a lot.

[kkylin]

Yes, 1.00 was popular with Course 6ers who wanted easy units.

[fsckboy]

when I took 1.00 it was FORTRAN IV on IBM 370... with actual punchcards, batch.