---
title: "CS17 vs CS50"
space: "Curriculum"
url: "https://portal.cs17.org/curriculum/cs17-vs-cs50"
updated: "2026-02-28"
---

CS17 has been derived from Harvard's CS50, so rather than talking about how is it similar, let's talk about **the differences**. 



### 1. Pace

CS50 runs for 10 weeks with just 1 keynote lecture at the start of the week, and a few TA lead sessions for the rest of the week. We are doing a 18-month slowed down program. We will have multiple keynote lectures (at least 3 per week personally by me), TA led sessions will be almost daily, and these will be accompanied by English and Mathematics classes.

### 2. Focus

CS50 starts with the fundamentals and ends with a 2-3 weeks of introduction to Python, databases and web development. We will drill down even more on this end. You can think of it as **a specialisation in Web Development [(CS50 also has something similar as an add-on)](https://pll.harvard.edu/course/cs50s-web-programming-python-and-javascript) and Frappe Framework**. The students will spent quite some time understanding the architecture of web apps, connecting and using databases for persistence,  caching in the real world, and much more.