‘The Pinnacle of Practicality’: Harvard Computer Science Launches New AI Software Development Course

Harvard’s Computer Science department debuted a new course this semester — COMPSCI 1060: “Software Engineering with Generative AI” — an applied engineering course in which students use AI to follow the “software development lifecycle” to create a software as a service system.

A shift from more theoretical computer science courses, COMPSCI 1060 aims to teach students a skill increasingly critical to employment: how to leverage generative artificial intelligence in software development.

Computer Science professor Christopher A. Thorpe ’97-’98, who spearheaded the course’s creation and is teaching it this spring, said the department launched the class to address student demands for more practical material.

“How do we take an industrial approach and give undergraduate students a better experience when they do go into the industry?” Thorpe said. “If you want to be a software engineer today, you won’t be effective if you don’t know how to use these tools.”

On the first day of class, Thorpe projected slides that read, “This is a course about how to become a great software engineer. The future is now.”

Undergraduates enrolled in the course also pointed to its applicability compared to more theoretical computer science classes.

“This course pretty much seems like the pinnacle of practicality,” said Caleb Capoccia ’26, a student in the course.

“It’s embracing these newer tools that use generative AI — which have now become industry standard,” he added. “To be able to teach students how to use them ethically, how to use them well, is something that will actually immediately be transferable.”

However, Thorpe said that the course’s value goes beyond familiarity with cutting-edge AI tools.

“The point of the class is not just generative AI,” Thorpe said. “It’s to go through the entire software engineering life cycle and learn how to build a meaningful application.”

Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies for Computer Science Adam C. Hesterberg agreed.

“It is a course that teaches some software skills that we expect to be relatively timeless,” Hesterberg said. “We want to teach things that will be useful even when the programming language or deployment framework that is most popular in industry changes.”

Abby E. Miller ’25 said that though she signed up because of the course’s practical applications, she still thinks it is important for students to “get an introduction to computer science without Gen AI.”

“Preventing the use of Gen AI in more introductory courses — I think that can actually be beneficial,” Miller said. “But then supplementing that with a course like 1060 where you can learn how to use AI and benefit from it in more than a SWE context.”

Thorpe said he hopes the course’s small size — capped at 66 students — will equip enrollees with long-lasting skills in coding collaboratively.

“Short term goals for students are become comfortable and familiar with using generative AI technology to write software, to build programs that work end-to-end,” Thorpe said.

“Long term what we’re hoping for — and one of the reasons we’re doing teams — in this class is that software engineering is both a computer activity, but it’s also a human activity,” he added.

After two class meetings, Faith C. Rounds ’25-’26 said the most exciting aspect of the class is working with her peers.

“Honestly, I just want to see what everybody creates,” Rounds said, “I’m excited to work with a group of students that are just super passionate about technology and really good at what they do.”

—Staff writer Xinni (Sunshine) Chen can be reached at sunshine.chen@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @sunshine_cxn.
—Staff Writer Danielle J. Im can be reached at danielle.im@thecrimson.com.