If your computer only understands 1s and 0s, how does it communicate and reason about many different kinds of code and data - numbers, fractions, text, or even instructions? What is a von Neumann architecture? And how are these two questions related? In this class we'll cover binary representation of integers and floating-point numbers, basics of ASCII and data structures, intro to instruction sets and microarchitecture. Time permitting, we might discuss the layered architecture of systems design. We'll reserve some time at the end to overview the study of computer science and its subfields, if you're curious what topics are typically covered in a bachelor's program in CS!

You open a browser on your phone to look at cat videos, and in no time your device is talking to a server halfway across the world as if they were in the same room. How is this communication not only possible, but consistent when you factor in connectivity delays, dropped packets, and hackers prowling the web? Join us for an intuition-focused introduction to the architecture behind TCP/IP, the protocol suite underlying the Internet!