Elite 101: Software Collaboration & Career Readiness
Fall 2026 · Instructor syllabus & reference
The Big Idea
"Your section is a startup. The course is your first internship at it."
Elite 101 is a term-long, SDLC-organized internship simulation. Your section becomes one startup with one product, one repo, and one board. Within it, squads of 3–4 students own tickets, ship features across two sprints, and run real ceremonies. Students choose a real product on Founding Day, plan it, build it on GitHub, review each other's work, and demo it. Everything runs on GitHub (Issues, Projects, Codespaces) and HireWheel.
Prework: Lesson 0 (before the first session)
Lesson 0 (Launch Console) is required before session 1 but non-evaluative: completion is tracked, code is not graded. Students set up their GitHub account and a Codespace, push a small personal "Launch Console" CLI, preview a GitHub Projects board, and do the Cracking the Coding Interview reading. It is the one lesson that unlocks before the term starts; all others open on Sep 14.
The 18-Lesson Syllabus
| # | Lesson | SDLC phase | What students do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Prework: Launch Console | Pre-term setup | GitHub + Codespaces setup; push a personal "Launch Console" CLI; GitHub Projects preview; CtCI reading; submit evidence links (repo + profile URLs). |
| 1 | Onboarding Day at Your Startup | "You got hired" | Course format; icebreaker; GitHub account check; first commit via the web UI (edit the team README); startup teaser. |
| 2 | How Software Gets Built: The SDLC | All (the map) | The 6 SDLC phases; map a familiar app's lifecycle; place the term's arc on the map; vocabulary foundation. |
| 3 | Founding Day: Pitch & Plan | Planning + Analysis | Product pitch + section vote; personas; 4–6 user stories; success metrics; acceptance criteria. |
| 4 | From Idea to Tickets: Scrum & the Board | Design + PM | Waterfall vs Agile vs Scrum; set up the GitHub Projects board; stories → tickets; agree the DoD; first standup. |
| 5 | Git I: Commits, Branches, Files | Implementation | git-sim drills (commits/branches/diffs/history); Markdown + README; team-repo evidence links. |
| 6 | Git II: PRs, Reviews & Merge Conflicts | Implementation | Open a PR; review a peer's PR with the checklist; resolve a seeded merge conflict (conflict-resolver widget). |
| 7 | The Command Line & Git | Implementation | CLI drills (pwd/ls/cd/mkdir/mv/rm); git CLI (clone/status/add/commit/log/restore); GUI ↔ CLI mapping. |
| 8 | Sprint 1 Build Day | Implementation | Standup → squads take tickets → branch/commit/PR per the DoD → 5-minute demos. Lane picker absorbs catch-up (Stuck / Polish / Grab another ticket). |
| 9 | Working with Code You Didn't Write | Impl. / Maintenance | Context-clue reading of the scaffold's uncommented modules (Pyodide excerpts); docs-first habits. |
| 10 | Debugging I: Prints & Breakpoints | Testing | The 3 debug questions; print debugging in Pyodide; breakpoints in Codespaces on the team repo (guided). |
| 11 | Debugging II: Stack Traces | Testing | 4-part traceback anatomy; fix seeded exceptions in Pyodide; searching errors well. |
| 12 | Unit Testing | Testing | unittest in Pyodide; edge cases; write tests for their own Sprint 1 feature; tests join the DoD. |
| 13 | Sprint 2 Build Day + Bug Bash | Impl. + Testing | Standup → finish/ship feature B → team bug bash on the seeded bug-bash branch → retro. |
| 14 | Behavioral Interviews: STAR | Career | STAR builder widget, practiced with their real sprint stories ("tell me about a conflict" → their actual merge conflict). |
| 15 | Technical Interviews: REACTO | Career | REACTO taught (Repeat · Example · Approach · Code · Test · Optimize); think-aloud practice cells; mock interview reps in pairs. |
| 16 | Release Day: Docs, Polish, Professionalism | Maintenance / Release | README/release notes; professional email + demo etiquette; demo prep; resume bullets from real work. |
| 17 | Demo Day | Release | Squad-level startup demos + individual reflection; retro; celebration + course survey. |
Ceremonies
- 5-minute standup opens every sprint-phase lesson: worked on / next / blocker (the blocker phrasing is explicitly taught).
- 5-minute demo closes each build day.
- Retro at each sprint close (Lesson 13) and on Demo Day.
Definition of Done
A ticket is Done when:
ticket linked in PR · it runs · 1 peer review · test shown · docs touched
Product Menu (chosen by section vote on Founding Day)
All three ship with an identical scaffold shape (same file names and architecture), so every lesson's references work no matter which product a section picks.
- StudySprint: a flashcard/quiz study trainer. Starter loads a deck from JSON and runs a quiz loop.
- BudgetBuddy: a spending/allowance tracker. Starter adds and lists transactions.
- QuestForge: a text-adventure engine where the story is data, not code. Starter drives room navigation from a JSON world file.
Scoring & Pass Model
Every lesson is scored out of 100: participation 60 (the interactive zones) + exit ticket 40. Stretch zones are optional, unscored challenges. They never affect the grade, just extra reps for fast finishers.
A student passes the course when attendance ≥ 80% AND their exit-ticket average ≥ 80%, the same model as SDE, applied at report time.
Fall 2026 Term
- Term runs Sep 14 – Nov 10, 2026 (17 sessions, twice a week).
- Mon/Wed sections meet Mondays & Wednesdays; Tue/Thu sections meet Tuesdays & Thursdays.
- Class is held on Monday, Oct 12 (Indigenous Peoples' Day).
- No class on or after Nov 11 (Veterans Day and Thanksgiving both fall after the course ends).