CS 21: Introduction to Computer Science — Spring 2020

Welcome to CS21. This course will introduce fundamental ideas in computer science while also teaching you how to write computer programs. We will study algorithms for solving problems and implement solutions in the Python programming language. Python is an interpreted language that is known for its ease of use. We also introduce object-oriented programming and data structures. A deeper coverage of these topics will be presented in CS 35.

This course is appropriate for all students who want to learn how to write computer programs and think like computer scientists. It is the usual first course for computer science majors and minors. Students with advanced placement credit or extensive programming experience should place out of this course and instead begin with CS31 or CS35.

Piazza: CS21 Q&A forum

Meeting Times:

We will primarily be using the online book How to think like a computer scientist: Learning with Python by Elkner, Downey and Meyers.

See the Schedule for each week’s reading assignment.

Here are a few other useful online resources:

By the end of the course, we hope that you will have developed the following skills:

Grades will be weighted as follows:

This course features weekly lab assignments which are the largest component of your course grade. Lab attendance is required by all students, unless you have already completed and submitted the lab assignment for the week. You must attend the lab session for which you are enrolled.

Lab assignments will typically be assigned in class at the beginning of the week and will be due before midnight on Saturdays. You are strongly encouraged to start early and to attend the study sessions for extra practice.

You will submit you assignments electronically using the handin21 program. You may submit your assignment multiple times, and a history of previous submission will be saved. You are encouraged to submit your work regularly.

Academic honesty is required in all your work. Under no circumstances may you hand in work done with (or by) someone else under your own name. Your code should never be shared with anyone; you may not examine or use code belonging to someone else, nor may you let anyone else look at or make a copy of your code. This includes, but is not limited to, obtaining solutions from students who previously took the course or code that can be found online. You may not share solutions after the due date of the assignment.

Discussing ideas and approaches to problems with others on a general level is fine (in fact, we encourage you to discuss general strategies with each other), but you should never read anyone else’s code or let anyone else read your code. All code you submit must be your own with the following permissible exceptions: code distributed in class, and code found in the course text book. In these cases, you should always include detailed comments that indicates on which parts of the assignment you received help, and what your sources were.

Failure to abide by these rules constitutes academic dishonesty and will lead to a hearing of the College Judiciary Committee. According to the Faculty Handbook: "Because plagiarism is considered to be so serious a transgression, it is the opinion of the faculty that for the first offense, failure in the course and, as appropriate, suspension for a semester or deprivation of the degree in that year is suitable; for a second offense, the penalty should normally be expulsion." Be aware that we will be routinely running plagiarism detection software on the lab solutions of students from all sections of CS21

The spirit of this policy applies to all course work, including code, homework solutions (e.g., proofs, analysis, written reports), and exams. Please contact us if you have any questions about what is permissible in this course.

Lauri Courtenay is the CS Department’s Academic Support Coordinator. She will be working closely with our student mentors, also known as Ninjas, to help you learn how to program and think like a computer scientist. The CS21 Ninjas will assist us in class and run evening study sessions in the birds' nest (Sci 256). The CS21 Ninjas (student mentors) are: Alex Fischmann, Emma Jin, Lyla Kiratiwudhikul, Syndey Levy, Rebecca Lin, Jasiel Lopez, Saul Lopez-Valdez, Sumi Onoe, Otis Peterson, Bilal Soukouna, Riley Thompson, Catherine Wang.

Programming is not a dry mechanical process, but a form of art. Well written code has an aesthetic appeal while poor form can make other programmers and instructors cringe. Programming assignments will be graded based on style and correctness. Good programming practices usually include many of the following principles:

This semester we’ll be using Piazza, an online Q&A forum for class discussion, help with labs, clarifications, and announcements that pertain to all sections of CS21. You should have received an email invitation to join CS21 on Piazza. If you didn’t, please let us know.

Piazza is meant for questions outside of regular meeting times such as office hours, ninja sessions, class, and lab. Please do not hesitate to ask and answer questions on Piazza, but keep in mind the following guidelines:

Links that are related to the course may be posted here. If you have suggestions for links, let us know.