Course information

Thanks to my colleagues

Though I have taught this class several times over the past 30 years, most of the materials I am using this term were developed by my colleague Layla Oesper, who in turn borrowed many ideas from David Liben-Nowell. I am grateful to both of them for their guidance, great ideas, and generosity.

This course is running during the same term as a section taught by Layla. We will be coordinating assignments, exams, grading, etc. throughout the term.

Book

Most of your readings will come from Algorithm Design, by Jon Kleinberg and Eva Tardos. If you have trouble getting a copy, let me know.

Homework

Grading

Your grade will be determined by your performance on homework (40%) and three exams (20% apiece).

Finals?

The last homework will be due on the last Friday of the term (May 24). The last exam will be Monday, May 27. There will be no final exam and no final project, so you're free after the 27th. (We'll have some algorithmic fun in class on May 29 to celebrate.)

Late homework

You may submit up to two late homework assignments. To use one of your free late assignments, just hand in the homework up to 48 hours late—no need to tell me ahead of time. You may only use one extension per assignment without prior permission. Once you have used your late assignments, late work will receive zero credit.

Collaboration and use of outside resources

You may collaborate with your classmates on homework assignments to the extent of formulating ideas as a group, but you may not collaborate in the actual writing of solutions, unless the assignment description explicitly allows you to do so.

You must cite all sources, including books, websites, large language models, and individuals from whom you obtained ideas. Failing to properly cite your resources is a violation of the academic honesty policy for this class.

You may not consult any materials from any previous offerings of this course or from any other similar course offered elsewhere.

Some examples

If you have any questions about acceptable collaboration or resource uses, ask me.

Yeah, but what about ChatGPT, Claude, and their friends?

???? The general principle here is that you can't have

Office hours

(Here are the times and Zoom link.)

I love talking with you, whether it’s about class content or life as a programmer or tech new & ethics or your personal programming project or your search for internships or Carleton history or a good movie you saw recently or whatever. Really. Conversations with you are the main reason I keep doing this job instead of going out into the software industry.

This thing called "office hours" should probably be called "Jeff's personal invitation to you to come talk". I set aside a few hours per week when I promise to be available for conversation. I'm often available at other times, too, but it depends on what meetings I have to go to, what deadlines I'm working under, etc. So my official office hours are a way for me to clear my schedule for you.

During 2020-2021, Zoom office hours worked really well. They enabled students to get quick answers conveniently, and I saw a larger number of students in office hours than I would normally see in person. So I'm going hold office hours by sitting in my office (Olin 301A) and also firing up Zoom, which will enable you to choose whether you want to talk to me in person or online.

Sometimes I forget to start Zoom during office hours. If you want to talk to me on Zoom and I'm not there, just Slack DM me, and the little red dot on my screen will call my attention to you.

How to get help

Everybody gets stuck. Learning is tough sometimes. When you’re stuck or confused, here are some things you can do.

Rough schedule

I may adjust some things along the way, but the schedule will look more or less like this: