A student's first course in computer science at Beloit is likely to be an introduction to programming and algorithms. Here students learn to analyze a problem, devise an algorithm to solve it, and implement the algorithm in a computer language.

The next courses will be digital electronics and data structures. Students complete these first three courses by the end of the sophomore year together with calculus and discrete mathematics. The data structures course includes learning the "object-oriented" paradigm of programming in the Java computer language.

In the junior and senior years, students take at least five of the nine advanced courses offered. The "capstone" course is the software projects course, taken by juniors and seniors for 3 to 4 semesters during these last two years. This course emphasizes team programming, working on open source projects, and learning current programming tools, as well as reading and discussing problems and topics of current interest to computer professionals. In addition to regularly offered courses (listed in the catalog), the faculty offer advanced courses that reflect their research interests, such as networking, software engineering, advanced digital systems, artificial intelligence databases, and scientific visualization.

For students who are particularly interested in hardware aspects, Beloit offers 32 programs in cooperation with leading engineering universities in computer or electrical engineering.