The computer science school for students that demand intellectual rigor and depth

A curriculum focused on better thinking, not knowledge

Teaching today is too reliant on knowledge and memorization. This is a mistake when real power comes from being great at discovering answers on your own, such that you can solve any problem. Our curriculum is deliberately designed to help you develop this ability to discover solutions through thoughtful exercises, walkthroughs, and discussions.

Personalized mentorship

We're fully invested in enabling your success. If you need help, you can get live, individual assistance from an instructor. Sessions are available Monday through Friday by appointment.

Infamously rigorous assessments

Every assessment you submit is meticulously hand-graded for technical correctness, time complexity, space complexity, and overall design. Through this process, you will learn not just how to write correct and performant programs, but you will also learn how to thoughtfully design and structure them. When the time comes for you to tackle interviews (especially algorithms heavy ones), you will be exceedingly well prepared.

Self-paced to ensure mastery

Since we truly want you to master each concept before moving on, we give you the time you need to learn and do things the right way. Fixed deadlines create the need to rush and superficially memorize; this is detrimental for real learning.

FAQ:

Why Watch and Code?

You should choose us if you care deeply about mastery and want to be held to a high standard throughout the learning process. With our quizzes, assessments, and individualized feedback, you'll know that you're on the right track each step of the way. The rigor of our quizzes and assessments will allow you to reliably master skills and concepts to a degree that would not be possible otherwise.

How is the learning structured?

First, you'll see conceptional explanations and worked examples. Next, you'll be forced to apply these ideas to real problems through quizzes and hand-graded assessments. At the end, you'll be encouraged to reflect so that you can identify areas for improvement. We provide materials that facilitate this reflection. For example, for a given problem, you'll see how we think about it, various worked solutions, mathematical proofs, and even live sample answers, where we demonstrate how we'd solve the problem ourselves.

How does this compare to self-study?

As far as we know, there is no other curriculum that takes our problem-solving obsessed approach. Even if you were to find a curriculum like ours, you would not be able to simulate the feedback that you get from the quizzes and assessment reviews. This gives an apprentice-like aspect to the program, as over time, you'll begin to learn how we actually think.

How does this compare to a bootcamp?

We're opposites. In a fixed-length bootcamp, students are shuttled along whether they've mastered the material or not. This leads to shallow, breadth-based learning rather than deep, introspective study.

How does this compare to a university?

A typical university program would be midway between Watch and Code and a bootcamp. That's because universities are essentially longer bootcamps. Because of that, universities similarly cannot guarantee mastery, as degree programs still uses a fixed-length, assembly-line approach. If you get a D in a class, should you really move on?

Newsletter

Not ready to sign up but want to know more? Get updates and dive deeper into the thinking behind our unusual approach to teaching.