Fundamentals of Programming Courses

Foundations of Programming
&
Web-based Application Design & Development

No technical background? No problem!

Bridge your career into Charlotte’s growing tech industry through our two fundamentals in programming online courses.

The Department of Software & Information Systems offers two graduate-level online courses that prepare students who come from non-conventional academic backgrounds to develop fundamental skills to succeed in the fields of information technology and cybersecurity. Foundations of Programming and Web-based Application Design & Development can be taken concurrently or sequentially and teach students how to problem-solve as well as create applications using object-oriented programming skills.

Completion of these courses can be used to supplement your existing credentials, to refresh or enhance your technical skills in existing career roles, or as a gateway into our Master of Science in Information Technology and Master of Science in Cybersecurity graduate programs, particularly if your background is not in the field of computer science, software engineering, or related areas of study.

Course Descriptions

ITIS 5101 Foundations of Programming

Foundations of Programming is designed to take the participant from no experience in programming to having an understanding of how to produce software that is relevant to their domain knowledge. Throughout the course, students will learn programming language agnostic, and instruction will focus on making sure that the participant learns to think about problem solutions that are systematic and repeatable (algorithms) and translatable to code. Topics covered include the following:

  • Algorithmic thinking
  • Programming using primitive data types
  • Introduction to object-oriented programming
  • Recovering gracefully from errors and exceptions
  • Unit testing
  • Recursion
  • ADTs (Stacks & Queues, Linked Nodes, Lists, Trees, Hash Functions
  • Introduction to Big O Analysis and ADTs
  • Sorting and searching

ITIS 5135 Web-based Application Design & Development

In this course, students will learn to design and develop interactive webpages with significant focus on programming. Throughout the course, students will develop an interactive and accessible website with practical intent. Topics covered include the following:

  • Web application
  • Web design and development guidelines
  • Coding with programming languages used for web applications
  • Manipulation of the Document Object Model (DOM)
  • Event-driven programming
  • Asynchronous exchange of data
  • Web Accessibility

*Students will need basic programming skills to join this course. You may take ITIS 5101 Foundations of Programming concurrently or as a prerequisite to this course.

How to Enroll

Current UNC Charlotte students: You do not need to be a student in the College of Computing & Informatics, though you will need department permission in order to register. To receive authorization to self-enroll in one or both courses, please email Katie Watson (Katie.Watson@charlotte.edu) with your name, student ID number, and semester you wish to take the courses.

Not a current UNC Charlotte student? Apply as a post-baccalaureate student to receive authorization to take our fundamentals courses as a non-degree student. Then email Katie Watson (Katie.Watson@charlotte.edu) with your name, student ID number, and semester for which you received admission to take these courses.

For information about cost of attendance, please visit the Graduate Tuition and Fees page.

Apply Today!

NOTE: These are graduate-level courses. You must have earned at least a Bachelor’s degree to qualify for registration.