Students completing this course will be well positioned to:
- Write clear, robust, and efficient code in Python using:
- sequential, conditional, and loop statements
- strings, lists, tuples, sets, and dictionaries
- objects and classes
- recursive approaches
- graphics and interaction
- Develop programs to effectively solve medium-sized tasks by:
- employing modular, top-down design in program construction
- demonstrating an effective programming style based on established standards, practices, and guidelines
- proactively creating and writing test cases to test and debug code
- applying computational problem-solving skills to new problems
- explaining and analyzing the efficiency of algorithms, particularly by predicting the Big-O running time of small pieces of code
- Design and write a substantial (500-1500 line) program in Python with minimal guidance
There will be three classes each week in Room 2163:
Sunday, 1:30 am - 2:50 am
Tuesday, 1:30 am - 2:50 am
Thursday, 1:30 am - 2:50 amClasses on Sundays and Tuesdays will consist of lectures where we learn and practice different concepts. Thursday's class will have a 20 minute quiz at the beginning of the class and then 60 minutes of lecture and exercises. The weekly quizzes will test topics that are covered in the readings, lectures, and exercises.
This term we will be using Piazza for class discussion. The system is highly catered to getting you help fast and efficiently from classmates, the TA, and myself. Rather than emailing questions to the teaching staff, I encourage you to post your questions on Piazza. If you have any problems or feedback for the developers, email team@piazza.com.
Find our class page at: https://piazza.com/qatar.cmu/fall2018/15112w
Instructor Office Hours: (Please check Piazza), Room 1018
CA Office Hours (in ARC):Zeina Darwiche: Check Piazza
Ward Ayan: Check Piazza
Omar Sinan: Check Piazza
Laila El-Beheiry: Check Piazza
Each student will be assigned to a Course Assistant
(CA) who will be his/her mentor throughout the semester. The
student is responsible to meet with his/her mentor
CA at least once a week for a weekly checkpoint. The purpose
of the checkpoint is to discuss progress and clarify
topics. If the student skips a checkpoint, he/she will receive
lose 5 points (TA discussions) from class participation.
|
|
|
|
|||||||
Grade Assignment:
A: 90 - 100
B: 80 - 89
C: 70 - 79
D: 60 - 69
R: 0 - 59
Final Grade Policy:
You need to score 65% or better in class assessment(grade comprising of quizzes, midterms and the Final Exam) to score a C or better in the course.
Final Exam:
There will be a standard 3-hour final exam during the final exam period at the end of the semester. The final exam is worth 20% of the semester grade.
Midterm Test:
There will be 2 midterm tests worth 10% each of the semester grade, given in class as noted in the course schedule.
Quizzes:
Quizzes will be given approximately once per week at the beginning of class on Thursdays unless otherwise announced.Late Policy:
No late / make-up quizzes or tests will be administered, except in the case of medical or family emergencies or other university-approved absences. For qualifying missed quizzes, students should obtain instructor approval before missing the quiz. Students may then make-up missed quizzes by attending professor's office hours up until the Wednesday following the quiz.
Late Homework:
Homework is due at a specified date and time. All submissions will be through autolab. Programs are due at 11:59 pm on the specified date listed on the assignment description unless otherwise specified. No homeworks will be accepted after the due date. Start early and get your work done ahead of schedule and you will not have to worry!
Unless otherwise noted, for homework assignments, students are encouraged to talk to each other, to the course staff, or to anyone else about the assignments. This assistance, though, is limited to the discussion of the problems in general. Each student must develop his or her own solutions to the homework. Consulting another student's solution is prohibited, and submitted solutions may not be copied in whole or in part from any source.
Specifically: do not look at other students' code or written answers, and do not show them your code or written answers, until after the assignment deadline has passed and the assignment has been submitted and graded.
And: do not email or otherwise electronically or physically transfer your code to other students, and do not receive such transmissions from other students, until after the assignment deadline has passed and the assignment has been submitted and graded.
In particular, this precludes students helping each other debug their code (since you may not even look at their code). Of course, students may (and should!) seek debugging assistance (and any other help) from the course staff, who provide extensive support to all students via email, office hours, review sessions, and 1-on-1 tutoring by appointment.
Also, if you find a reference (say, in an optional textbook or some online source) that contains code or a written solution that is identical or overtly similar to an assigned problem, then you are required to not look at that code or written solution! You may still refer to supporting figures and explanatory text, but you may not look at or copy the code.
In addition to manual checks on homework and exam submissions, we will also routinely use an automated plagiarism detector.
The issue of cheating will be taken seriously by the instructor and CA's. Any violations will be handled in accordance with the University regulations , with serious consequences on the first offense (minimum of -100% on that submission). Additional information about the university process for handling violations and links to resources is also available
via this comprehensive website.
Recording (audio or video): Students may not record lectures without explicit permission in writing from the instructor. Violations will result in your failing the course. Exceptions will be granted in accordance with university guidelines for accessibility concerns, but even then such recordings may not be shared publicly or privately and must be deleted at the end of the semester.
Electronics: Students may not use any electronic devices in lecture (no cell phones, laptops, iPads, iPods, iWhatevers, etc) without explicit permission in writing from the instructor. Do NOT login to the cluster computers unless explicitly asked by the instructor. Students are expected to take notes, but to do so manually (pen and paper).