CS 125 Fall 2018 Syllabus

This web page serves as the syllabus for the course.

You should familiarize yourself with these policies and refer to them when necessary.

1. Overview

This course is an introduction to the concepts and craft 1 of computer science. It will teach you to both think and act like a computer scientist. It will change how you approach problems and provide you with powerful tools that you can use to change the world.

Computer science is both an applied and a conceptual discipline. You will learn how to program in this course. Learning how to program effectively helps you bring your ideas to life. It can be frustrating at first—computers are irritatingly literal machines. But programming is a skill, and like any other skill you will get better with practice. Computers are one of the most powerful tools that we have at our disposal to solve almost any problem. Learning how to get them to do your bidding is extremely empowering. You will quickly come to understand the hackers lament: Once you can program well, you can do anything—but you still can’t do everything.

But while programming is both important and enjoyable, computer science also has deep conceptual concerns at its core. As a computer scientist, you’ll learn to design solutions to problems so that computers can carry them out efficiently—we call these algorithms. Being a computer scientist means coming up with new ways to solve problems more effectively. And then you get to build your solutions and can easily deploy them to billions of people all over the world. No other field has this potent mixture of left-brain analytics, right-brain design and creativity, and the potential for global impact.

1.1. Description and Prerequisites

  • Description: Basic concepts in computing and fundamental techniques for solving computational problems. Intended as a first course for computer science majors and others with a deep interest in computing.

  • Prerequisites: Three years of high school mathematics or Math 112.

1.2. Learning Objectives

CS 125 works on both conceptual and skill-based levels. We teach you how to think, and we teach you how to do.

1.2.1. Conceptual Objectives

When you finish this course, you will be able to:

Outcome Assessment

Develop algorithms to effectively solve problems using computers—including both iterative and recursive algorithms—and reason about their computational and storage requirements

Class and lab participation, quizzes, and midterms. 70% correctly identified marks outcome achieved.

Describe how computers represent, structure, and manipulate data—including numbers, strings, and multimedia data including images and audio

Explain the importance of core Java software development concepts—including object orientation, object types, encapsulation, and inheritance

Explain how computers work—including components of a small instruction set and byte-addressable memory

1.2.2. Programming Objectives

When you finish this course, you will be able to:

Outcome Assessment

Design and implement small and medium-sized Java programs that perform straightforward operations on simple data types, using recursion when appropriate.

Machine problems, lab programming projects, office hours attendance. 70% correctly identified marks outcome achieved.

Learn to use modern Java software development tools—including an integrated development and debugging environment (IntelliJ), source version control (Git), testing framework (TestNG), coding convention tool (checkstyle), build system (Gradle), and pair programming techniques.

Utilize standard Java features and libraries—including objects and simple built-in data structures.

Debug and test Java programs

1.3. Preparation

CS 125 assumes no prior knowledge of computer science or programming experience. However, the course is a lot of work—and so is best suited to those who are either majoring in computer science or have a strong interest in the subject.

Some students in CS 125 have no experience with computer science. Others have been programming for years. We will do our best to accommodate both groups.

1.3.1. If you’re new to computer science…​

Welcome to the most exciting field on Earth! We’re extremely happy to have you. We know that it can be hard to get started, but trust us—you’ll get better with practice. Programming is a skill. The more you do, the better you get. If you’re willing to put in the time and energy, we’re here to help you succeed.

When you’re starting something new, it’s normal to occasionally feel intimidated by those around you. We were all new once, and most of us try new things at least once and a while. So we know what it feels like. Just remember that no matter how it may seem, there are a lot of other students in CS 125 that are beginners too. And if you’re working harder than some other students in the class, then it just means that you’re learning more than they are.

Also keep in mind that computer scientists can get extremely excited about what they know. Our field is awesome, and we’re all learning new things all of the time. Unfortunately, sometimes that can come off as arrogance or bragging. But don’t let it get you down. We want you to share in the excitement, and will do our best to make sure that happens.

1.3.2. If you kind of already know what you are doing…​

There’s so much more to learn! No matter how much background in computer science you have, there are always new areas to explore, new languages to learn, new problems to solve.

Even if you don’t find every aspect of CS 125 challenging, we hope that it can continue to move you forward on your journey in computer science. Keep in mind that continuing to develop as a programmer requires practice. If the MPs don’t take you that long, then you aren’t getting the practice that you need to keep improving. You might want to join the honors section (CS 196), get involved with the Illinois Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), or just make sure that you have some side projects to keep you busy.

And please feel free to help other students in the class that might not know as much as you. One of the best things about computer science is the community of generous and patient people willing to help beginners get started.

1.3.3. If you really know what you are doing…​

Maybe you should sign up for the CS 125 Proficiency Exam and bypass CS 125 entirely? You may not get much out of the class.

1.4. General Education Information

CS 125 meets the University of Illinois General Education Requirements in the Quantitative Reasoning 1 category.

2. Dates, Times, and Locations

CS 125 consists of lecture taught in an active learning format, weekly lab sections, and office hours. You will attend three one-hour lecture per week, one two-hour lab section, and many (many) office hours 2.

Lectures are taught by Geoffrey Challen. Labs are led by the 12 TAs, and office hours are staffed by the TAs and our 99 course assistants. We also have 20 course developers hacking away furiously to improve our course materials, tools, and infrastructure. You can find out more about the entire staff below.

2.1. Calendar

We suggest that you add our shared calendar to your calendaring program. If you are not using a calendaring program, we suggest that you start using a calendaring program.

We don’t maintain separate calendars for labs, so this calendar is only for collective class events: lectures, office hours, quizzes, MP deadlines, and other events that are relevant to the entire class.

2.2. Lectures

This fall lectures are being held Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9–9:50AM in beautiful and historic Foellinger Auditorium 3. Please attend and participate in lecture! And please refer to the information below for our definition of lecture participation. All lecture slides are posted online for use during class and review afterward.

Lecture videos will be posted online. Feel free to view them if you are absent or need to review.

2.3. Labs

Please attend and participate in the lab that you are registered for. You will not receive credit for participation in the wrong lab.

    Days Time Location TAs Assistants

0

AYA

T

09:00–10:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Chinny Emeka

Fanny Zhou and Nirmal Arun Prakash

1

AYB

T

11:00–12:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Fatima Tariq

Ari Anugu, Niharika Manda, and Riya Bhaskar Dave

2

AYS

T

11:00–12:50

1214 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Bo Zheng

Kayla Cease Raflores, Noah Changwon Sung, and Zhiyuan Xiao

3

AYC

T

13:00–14:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Fatima Tariq

Nick Helms

4

AYT

T

13:00–14:50

1214 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Zhenyi Tang

Rohan Vinay Khatu

5

AYD

T

15:00–16:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Aabhas Chauhan

Fangyi Zhang, Kayla Cease Raflores, and Zhe Zhang

6

AYU

T

15:00–16:50

1214 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Jishnu Dey

Zitao Zhu

7

AYE

T

17:00–18:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Abhinav

Jacob Vincent Langman

8

AYV

T

17:00–18:50

1214 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Jialin Liu

Kishan R Thakkar and Andreas V Ruiz-Gehrt

9

AYF

T

19:00–20:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Zhenyi Tang

Kyle Nakagawa Jew and Weiman Yan

10

AYH

W

11:00–12:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Aabhas Chauhan

Atharva Sehgal and Jacob Andrew Richeal

11

AYL

W

11:00–12:50

0218 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Heather Huynh

Zach Romersberger

12

AYI

W

13:00–14:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Heather Huynh

Bin Peng

13

AYM

W

13:00–14:50

0216 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Jishnu Dey

Hasan Fetahi and Joowon Kim

14

AYJ

W

15:00–16:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Bo Zheng

Yani Julian and Hrishikesh Uday Diwale

15

AYN

W

15:00–16:50

0216 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Chinny Emeka

Calen Allen Resh and Nikita Mikhaylov

16

AYK

W

17:00–18:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Jialin Liu

Matthew A McCarthy and Natalia Nicole Ozymko

17

AYP

W

17:00–18:50

0216 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Abhinav and Vighnesh Narayanan Iyer

Haozheng Fan, Morgan Meliment, and Quinn Lawrence Donovan

18

AYQ

W

17:00–18:50

0216 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Abhinav and Vighnesh Narayanan Iyer

Haozheng Fan, Morgan Meliment, and Quinn Lawrence Donovan

19

AYG

W

19:00–20:50

0403 Siebel Center for Comp Sci

Vighnesh Narayanan Iyer

Nick Helms and Tri Ngoc Do

2.4. Office Hours

Office hours are held by our 99 course assistants and our 12 TAs. They are on the calendar and pretty much all day every day, except for Tuesday and Wednesday when we’re busy with labs. See the resources page for more details.

3. Communication

CS 125 is a large class. This makes it important for us to communicate with each other in effective ways.

We have set up a comprehensive and well-organized course website 4 and modern course forum to help you find our what you need to know. Our goal is to avoid email as much as possible, along with other 1-to-1 forms of communication that don’t scale well to large numbers of students.

There are two primary sources of information for CS 125:

  1. This website

  2. The course forum

If you have a question about the class, first look on the main course website—the one that you are currently browsing. Then, search the forum—maybe another student has asked your question and we’ve already answered it. If you still can’t find an answer, post your question on the forum.

3.1. What You Are Responsible For

As a student at the University of Illinois you are responsible for email sent to your @illinois.edu email address. We will occasionally use a course email list to send important announcements. So messages in your inbox might say things like: "There’s a quiz tomorrow" or "There’s a fire alarm in Siebel and class is canceled." We all get too much email, but learning to manage it is a fact of modern life. Feel free to talk to the course staff if you want tips.

As a student in CS 125 you are responsible for messages posted in the announcements category of the forum. These announcements are important and we will frequently post in this category in lieu of using email. You can configure Discourse to send emails each time a topic is created in a specific category. We would suggest that you do that—or plan on visiting the forum each and every day. In fact, both are good ideas.

3.2. Contacting the Course Staff

Please do not email the course staff with general course questions. You may think that the professor spending five minutes responding to your email is not a huge problem. But five-minute responses to 900 students consumes 75 hours of time, which is about half of my work week 5. You should also never contact a TA or CA directly unless they have agreed to this beforehand. Post on the forum.

This is not because we don’t like you or don’t like email. It’s simply because there are a lot of you, a much smaller number of us, and many of the questions that you have are shared by other students. If you email us, we can answer your question to one person: you. If you post on the forum, we can answer your question to the entire class. And you may find that your question has already been answered, or that another student can answer it for you.

At times, I may even ask you to post on the forum if a good question or observation comes out of a conversation that we have together. That way everyone can learn what you just did, and I don’t need to answer the same question repeatedly. If I ask you to do this, please do.

Here is a general guide about how to contact the course staff:

  • I need help installing (insert name of software here)…​: post on the forum.

  • I’m confused about (insert name of concept here)…​: post on the forum.

  • I need help with (insert any CS 125-related item here)…​: post on the forum.

  • I can’t find (insert name of CS 125-related resource here)…​: post the forum.

Can you see a pattern emerging here?

In contrast, here are some cases where you can and should contact the course instructors:

  • I think that my friend is cheating in CS 125: contact the course staff.

  • I’m really sick and getting behind in the class: contact the course staff.

  • I’m feeling really overwhelmed and need someone to talk to: contact the course staff, or an academic advisor, or a friend.

4. Grading

Your CS 125 grade is determined by your performance on the machine problems (MPs) (40%), completion of frequent online homework problems (10%), weekly quizzes (25%), three one-hour midterms (15%) evenly spaced during the semester, and participation in lecture (5%) and lab (5%).

There are also exciting (!) opportunities to earn extra credit during the semester.

4.1. Grade Components

Your total score in CS 125 is broken down as follows:

Component Percentage (%)

Machine Problems (MPs)

40%

Homework

10%

Weekly Quizzes

25%

Three Midterms

15% (5% each)

Lab Participation

5%

Lecture Participation

5%

These weights are designed to reflect the amount of time that students spend on each part of the class. They are also evenly balanced between points earned in controlled environments (quizzes, midterms, participation) and uncontrolled environments (MPs and homework). You will spend most of your time completing the MPs and homework problems. That is where you will get the practice that turns you into a computer scientist. The quizzes and midterms give us a chance to evaluate your abilities in a controlled setting.

Details about each grade component are included below.

4.2. Dropped Grades

To account for illness, absence, forgetfulness, mistakes, temporary stupidity, and other normal life events, we will drop a few of your lowest scores for all course components except the midterms. The table below summarizes the drop policy for course component:

Component Percentage (%) # Assessments (Estimated) # Dropped (Firm)

Machine Problems (MPs)

40%

7

1

Homework Problems

10%

64

14

Weekly Quizzes

25%

12

3

Midterms

15%

3

0

Lab Participation

5%

15

3

Lecture Participation

5%

40

8

So, for example, we will assign 8 MPs and drop your lowest 1 score. We will track participation in 15 labs and drop your lowest 3 scores. We will assign 50 homework problems and drop your lowest 10 scores.

4.3. Estimating Your Letter Grade

Letter grades in CS 125 are assigned based on how well you do, not based on your performance relative to other students. We have an unlimited number of A grades that we can hand out. If everyone in the learns all of the material to our satisfaction, everyone in the class will make an A.

Inevitably the difficulty of various parts of the course varies from semester to semester. So we do not determine the final grading scale until we examine all scores at the end of the semester. During the semester, do not ask us to estimate your grade or tell you how well you need to do on an assignment to make a certain grade.

Instead, focus on learning the material to the best of your ability. Programming in particular is a skill—the more you do, the better you get at it. So you should focus on doing as much as you need to get good at it, rather than the minimum necessary to make a particular grade.

4.4. Posting Grades

We do not maintain grade components on Compass 6. CS 125 maintains its own grading and statistics interface which you will use throughout the semester.

5. Machine Problems (MPs) (40%)

Programming is a skill. Like other skills, the more you do it, the better at it you become. The CS 125 machine problems (MPs) 7 are the primary way that you will learn the powerful skill of computer programming—today’s modern superpower.

Together the MPs are worth 40% of your grade—the largest single grade component. Working on them will deepen your understand of the material covered in lecture, and improve your performance on the quizzes and midterms.

5.1. How to Complete the MPs

The CS 125 MPs are designed to take a significant amount of time. So you should arrange your schedule so that you can devote a significant amount of time on them. Do not start the night before. Not only will it be unlikely that you will complete the MP, but you will also be unlikely to be able to get help when you get stuck.

Learning to program is like learning other skills—how to play an instrument, throw a perfect spiral, cook the perfect omelete, or learn another human language. You have to do it every day. You can’t expect to complete a marathon or perform at Carnegie Hall if you start practicing the night before. As soon as each MP is released, sit down and spend a few hours on it. And then do that the next day, and the day after that. If you start early and work often, you will have no problem completing the MP before the deadline. If it turns out to be easy for you, you’ll be done early and can relax and help other students. If it turns out to be more difficult, you’ll know early on and be able to budget your time according to complete it on time. Nothing correlates more strongly with success on the MPs than starting early. And coming to office hours.

5.2. Late Submission Policy

It is extremely important that you keep up with the MPs. CS 125 moves quickly, and if you get behind early you will quickly find yourself lost and unable to complete the later assignments. This is the number one source of student lack of success in the course.

As a result, the late submission policy is designed to reward students that do a fair amount of work before the deadline. Here are the details of the policy:

  • You can submit 8 each MP as many times as you want until 11:59:59 PM on Wednesday 12/12/2018 (the last day of class).

  • Late submissions can earn back 50% of any points lost by your best on-time submission. So if you submit code that earns 80/100 before the deadline, you will receive a 90/100 if you submit a perfect MP after the deadline. If you submit code that earns 0/100 before the deadline, the best you can do is a 50/100 with a perfect submission anytime after the deadline.

  • Late submissions will not recover any starting the assignment on time points. So if there were 10 starting the assignment on time points that you did not earn, and your best score before the deadline was a 60/100, the best you can do is a 75/100: half of the 30 points you missed that were not for starting the assignment on time.

  • You will always receive the best score earned by any submission. You can check your office MP scores here.

  • We will drop your single lowest MP score.

  • Note that the final project cannot be dropped. But you won’t want to, because grading is generous, and the fair is huge fun.

6. Homework (10%)

This semester will be frequently posting small programming problems on PrairieLearn. Early in the semester these will be released every day, to provide you with programming practice before you get started on the MPs. Later in the semester once you begin work on the MPs we may slow down the rate at which homework questions are assigned, but we plan to continue posting at least a few per week until the end of the semester.

The reason we are doing this is simple: programming takes regular consistent practice. If you are training for a marathon, you have to run almost every day, not just try to pack in hundreds of miles the week before the race. Learning to program is similar. In particular, when you are getting started you’ll tired quickly from this engaging right-left brain activity. So it’s better to do a bit each day than large amounts in one sitting.

We expect that the daily homework problems should take you no more than 10–15 minutes to complete, particularly if you have been coming to lecture and keeping up with the MPs. Homework problems also a key way to prepare yourself for the programming component of each week’s quiz, since the programming problems on the quiz will look similar to 9 the ones you’ve been practicing on your homework assignments.

6.1. Homework Sign Up

Before starting the homework you will need to log on to PrairieLearn with your @illinois.edu email address and join the CS 125 Fall 2018 course. Access to the homework is unrelated to forum access and you can begin work on the homework as soon as you register.

7. Quizzes (25%)

25% of your grade is for performance on weekly quizzes. Quizzes are given in the University of Illinois Computer-Based Testing Facility (CBTF) and consist of questions that are randomized and automatically graded.

No course staff members are involved in grading CS 125 quizzes, so please do not appeal your grade to the course staff. If you have concerns about the questions themselves, please post on the forum. You can check your official quiz scores here, but please be aware that there is a lag between when you finish your quiz and when these scores are updated.

7.1. Format

Quiz questions are a mix of multiple-choice questions drawn from lecture and small programming problems. Many of the small programming questions that we use on the quizzes will reappear on later homework assignments. Or problems from the homework assignments may appear on quizzes.

You only get one or two attempts at the multiple choice questions. But you will have unlimited attempts at the programming problems without losing credit. At this stage, we want you to practice—and we won’t penalize you for practicing. However, obviously you do not have an unlimited amount of time.

The multiple-choice questions should be easy if you have been coming to and participating in lecture. You may find the programming questions more of a challenge. Programming in the CBTF is quite different from programming on the MPs. You don’t have unlimited time or access to resources such as the course staff or the internet. However, we believe that there are small programming tasks that you should be able to complete as the semester goes on without needing to look up things online or ask for help. That said, generally the programming challenges that appear on the quizzes will be considerably easier than the MP that you are working on at the same point in the semester.

7.2. Scheduling

The CBTF is located in the basement of Grainger Library. You can use this link to sign up to take each quiz. Using the CBTF allows us to provide you with flexibility in scheduling your weekly quizzes. You can take each quiz over a range of dates and times, starting on Tuesday and ending on Thursday each week. All quizzes are posted on the course calendar.

7.3. Preparation

Quizzes focus on material covered that week, but all material covered that semester is fair game. The best way to prepare for a quiz is to participate in class that week. Attend lectures and participate, attend labs and participate, work on the assigned MP (if any), and ask and answer questions on the forum. If you engage with the course content on a daily basis, you will not need to cram material right before you take the quiz.

7.4. Missed Quizzes

Do not contact the course staff regarding missed quizzes. Because you have a several day window to complete each quiz, we expect that you will be able to work around most other commitments and even short illnesses. However, we will drop your lowest 2 quiz scores when computing the quiz component of your final grade.

If you do miss a scheduled quiz and can retake it within the time window, you can contact the CBTF to attempt to reschedule. There are no guarantees though. The CBTF is busy and they may not be able to accommodate you if you miss your initial appointment. The best approach is to not do that.

7.5. CBTF Policies

The policies of the CBTF are the policies of this course, and academic integrity infractions related to the CBTF are infractions in this course.

Any problem with testing in the CBTF must be reported to CBTF staff at the time the problem occurs. If you do not inform a proctor of a problem during the test then you forfeit all rights to redress.

7.6. Reporting Quiz Problems

If you believe that you have spotted a problem with a quiz question, please use PrairieLearn’s built-in issue reporting to report the issue to the course staff. Note that you have to be in the CBTF to access our quizzes and report problems. At that point we will do one of the following things:

  1. If the question has a bug, we will fix it and ensure that all students receive full credit—even those that took the quiz before the bug was identified.

  2. If the question has a minor typo that we don’t think affects its ability to be correctly answered, we will fix it and distribute that change.

  3. If the question is fine we will not do anything. Unfortunately, there is no way for us to respond to your issue on PrairieLearn. However, please keep in mind that your perception of the question’s correct answer may be wrong—that’s the whole idea behind having the quizzes in the first place.

We will regularly review the answers to difficult quiz questions in class to ensure that everyone has a chance to learn from their mistakes.

8. Midterms (15%)

Three midterms spread through the semester are worth 5% each and comprise 15% of your final grade. The midterms are identical to quizzes in terms of scheduling and presentation. However, you cannot drop any midterm scores.

In comparison to the weekly quizzes, the midterms will be more comprehensive. Anything covered up to that point in the semester is fair game, with particular emphasis given to the material covered since the last midterm. Finally, you should expect about half of the points on each midterm to be for auto-graded programming problems. This may be more than a typical weekly quiz.

Midterm dates are posted on the course calendar. You must make arrangements to take each midterm in the CBTF. If you miss a midterm, you will receive a zero.

Preparing for the midterms is similar to preparation for a weekly quiz: review the lecture materials, practice the homework problems, and ensure that you are comfortable with the material covered on the MPs.

Note that CS 125 does not have a final exam. We will hold an (optional) final project fair on reading day for you to show off your cool new Android apps and that joyful event will be the end of the course.

9. Participation

10% of your grade is earned by participating in lab section (5%) and lectures (5%). We will use several tools to track your participation in scheduled course activities. However, here are the ground rules:

  • You must participate in the lab or lecture that you are enrolled in. CS 125 is always completely enrolled and so we have no space in other lab or lecture sections. If you attend the wrong lab or lecture, you will not receive participation points. Period.

  • Participation is not attendance. Just having your butt in the right seat at the right time does not constitute participation. In labs, you are expected to be working with your section on the lab activity. In lecture, you are expected to follow along and engage with the material. If you attend, but do not participate, you will not earn points for participation.

  • You have several pre-excused absences. You have 3 preexcused lab absences and 8 preexcused lecture absences. So if you need to miss a lab or lecture for any reason—illness, traveling, personal issues, or anything else—*there is no need to notify the course staff.* If you miss a lab, feel free to attend another lab section, but you will not get lab participation points for that week. If you miss a lecture, just watch the video online to review what you missed. CS 125 moves fast, so don’t get behind!

For both lecture and lab attendance you will receive a linear proportion of credit depending on how many participation points you earn and the number of dropped labs or lectures. So, for example, if you miss 5 out of 10 labs, you would receive credit for 8 / 10 labs (due to three drops) and 4% out of the 5% allocated for lab participation.

9.1. Lab Participation (5%)

Do not contact the course staff regarding missed labs. We do not excuse individual absences. Instead, any missed labs are covered by the dropped grade policy.

To receive participation points for each lab, you have to do three things:

  1. Attend the right lab. You don’t get credit for participating in a lab other than the one that you are assigned to.

  2. Work on the lab activity until you are finished or the lab ends. Labs are not office hours or a time to work on the MP, homework problems, or other things. If you are not working on the lab handout, your TA may ask you to leave.

  3. Assist others if asked. Some of you know more than others and may finish the lab rapidly. If you do, your TA may ask you to stick around to help other students. If you are asked to do this, please do so willingly and cheerfully. You will learn a great deal from trying to help other students.

Before you leave lab you should check your lab participation score on our grading interface to ensure that you received participation credit. TAs will not change lab participation scores after the lab ends.

9.2. Lecture Participation (5%)

Do not contact the course staff regarding missed lectures. We do not excuse individual absences. Instead, any missed lectures are covered by the dropped grade policy.

To receive participation points for each lecture, you have to do three things:

  1. Attend lecture. (Duh.)

  2. Log on to the slide tool. If you don’t see a green check box in the top right, you are not logged in.

  3. Follow along with the slides.

The definition of follow along is "to move or proceed in accord or in unison with someone." Following along with the slides means that when the presentation slide changes, you change the one you are looking at as well. Both the amount of time you have to notice that the slide has changed and the overall percent of slides that you need to track are very generous. If you are paying attention, you should not have a hard time earning participation credit for each lecture.

10. Extra Credit

There will be opportunities to earn extra credit this semester. Note that we do not give extra credit for things that we think that you absolutely should be doing to succeed in the class. Extra credit is exactly that: extra. We might provide extra credit for providing some data that helps improve the class, or bearing with us while we try something experimental and new, or for helping other students.

This semester we are planning at least the following extra credit opportunities:

  • 1% for completing our initial student survey. This data helps us improve the course for future semesters.

  • 1% for installing and testing our new CS 125 App. Again, this app helps us collect data that will be help us improve the course for future semesters.

  • 1% for participating in the final project fair, which will be held on Thursday December 13th (Reading Day). Participation is optional, but worth extra credit.

11. Other Policies

Below we summarize some other general course-related policies.

11.1. Cheating

Learning computer science requires hard work and practice. If you submit code that is not your own work, or take other steps to subvert the course policies, you are not getting the practice that you need to improve.

All work submitted for CS 125 must be your own. Cheating in CS 125 may result in a grade reduction, your removal from the CS program, or from the University of Illinois. We have many bright, honest students that want to learn computer science. We don’t need to waste time and energy on cheaters that don’t want to learn.

Specifically, the following activities constitute cheating and will be dealt with according to relevant departmental and university policies. You may not:

  1. Turn in work that was completed by anyone other than yourself.

  2. Copy or paste code that you did not write from any source.

  3. Misrepresent your work as the work of another student.

  4. Examine another classmates solution, reproduce it, and submit it as your own work.

  5. Share information about the content of quizzes or other course assessments. Anyone caught removing information from the exam center will receive a letter grade reduction and a FAIR violation.

  6. Publish your MPs or coursework anywhere where other students can find them. Note that this includes publishing your MPs publicly on GitHub. Nobody wants to see your solutions to the MPs anyway. If you want to impress employers, fill your GitHub page with your own independent projects.

We will run cheating detection software on all submitted student work. These programs are extremely accurate, and any evidence of cheating that they uncover will initiate academic integrity violation proceedings. In Spring 2018 we filed 27 FAIR violations almost all of which resulted a letter grade reduction. We are serious about this, and ask you to be serious about learning.

11.1.1. A simple rule of thumb about collaboration

A general rule of thumb is that exchanging or soliciting ideas about how to solve the MP is not cheating, but exchanging code is cheating. Feel free to discuss your solutions with other students as long as you do not provide them or allow them to view your source code. If you are talking in English 10, that’s fine. If you are talking or exchanging computer code, that’s cheating.

11.1.2. Penalties

If you are caught cheating in CS 125 you will definitely receive a FAIR violation. Depending on the severity of the situation, you may also have any of the following penalties applied:

  • A letter grade reduction in the class. Note that this will likely make it impossible for you to transfer into the Computer Science department.

  • An F in the course. This will definitely make it impossible for you to transfer into the major.

11.2. Extensions

CS 125 is a fast-moving and demanding course. You signed up to learn computer science and programming for 15 weeks, and we do our best to give you your money’s worth.

One of the consequences of this is that it is hard to catch up if you have a significant illness or other problem mid-semester. We will give extensions on the MPs and other assignments to accommodate unforeseen short-term circumstances. But if you are struggling with a larger issue, we may encourage you to withdraw and enroll again next semester.

Note that, to receive an extension you should approach the course staff before the relevant deadline. Except in exceptional cases 11 we will not grant requests for extensions or other accommodations after the relevant deadline has passed.

11.3. Accommodations

We are more that happy to make arrangements to help accommodate students with learning disabilities or other challenges. However, we ask that you assist us by informing us of your situation as soon as possible. We will be much more accommodating of requests received before the relevant assessment or deadlines, rather than after. The earlier in the semester you can let us know what kind of help you need, the better prepared we can be to provide it effectively. Please use this web form to ensure that we have your Letter of Accommodation on file.

Note that in many cases your letter of accommodation will require that you request accommodations before or on the relevant deadlines. If you fail to do so, we will not consider late requests. Part of our job in ensuring that you—and every CS 125 student—succeeds in the course is keeping you on track throughout the semester. By the time the end of the semester rolls around, it is far to late to begin asking for deadline extension and completing missed assignments.

As far as our quizzes in the CBTF, if you have accommodations identified by the Division of Rehabilitation-Education Services (DRES) for quizzes and midterms, please take your Letter of Accommodation to the CBTF proctors in person before you make your first reservation. The proctors will advise you as to whether the CBTF provides your accommodations or whether you will need to make other arrangements.

12. Videos

(Almost) all lectures from Fall 2018 were taped, properly captioned 12 and are available on YouTube.

13. People

CS 125 has a large and motivated course staff. We look forward to helping you learn computer science!

13.1. Instructor

Photo of Geoffrey Challen

Geoffrey (GWA) Challen

Teaching lectures.

13.2. Teaching Assistants

Photo of Aabhas Chauhan
Aabhas Chauhan

Teaching sections AYH and AYD

Photo of Abhinav
Abhinav

Teaching sections AYE, AYP, and AYQ

Photo of Bo Zheng
Bo Zheng

Teaching sections AYJ and AYS

Photo of Chinny Emeka
Chinny Emeka

Teaching sections AYA and AYN

Photo of Fatima Tariq
Fatima Tariq

Teaching sections AYB and AYC

Photo of Heather Huynh
Heather Huynh

Teaching sections AYL and AYI

Photo of Jialin Liu
Jialin Liu

Teaching sections AYK and AYV

Photo of Jishnu Dey
Jishnu Dey

Teaching sections AYM and AYU

Photo of Liia M Butler
Liia M Butler

Teaching section EMP

Photo of Shiqi Sun
Shiqi Sun
Photo of Vighnesh Narayanan Iyer
Vighnesh Narayanan Iyer

Teaching sections AYG, AYQ, and AYP

Photo of Zhenyi Tang
Zhenyi Tang

Teaching sections AYF and AYT

13.3. Course Assistants

Our course assistants are so excited about computer science that they are teaching you to learn more! Please treat them accordingly—with a lot of appreciation!

Photo of Aayushi Gupta
Aayushi Gupta

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Aditi Digish Doshi
Aditi Digish Doshi
Photo of Adrian Manjarrez
Adrian Manjarrez

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Aidan Jabbarzadeh
Aidan Jabbarzadeh
Photo of Aj Jariwala
Aj Jariwala
Photo of Alex Zhao
Alex Zhao
Photo of Alvina Marriam Waseem
Alvina Marriam Waseem

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Ananmay Jain
Ananmay Jain
Photo of Andreas V Ruiz-Gehrt
Andreas V Ruiz-Gehrt

Assisting with section AYV

Photo of Andrew Ma
Andrew Ma

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Angeeras Ramanath
Angeeras Ramanath
Photo of Ari Anugu
Ari Anugu

Assisting with section AYB

Photo of Ashley Paige Grudzinski
Ashley Paige Grudzinski
Photo of Atharva Sehgal
Atharva Sehgal

Assisting with section AYH

Photo of Bin Peng
Bin Peng

Assisting with section AYI

Photo of Brian Yu
Brian Yu
Photo of Calen Allen Resh
Calen Allen Resh

Assisting with section AYN

Photo of Changcheng Fu
Changcheng Fu
Photo of Chenyi Sun
Chenyi Sun
Photo of Corona Shuli Tsai
Corona Shuli Tsai
Photo of Darren Wen Lim
Darren Wen Lim
Photo of Derek Xia
Derek Xia
Photo of Derrick S Liu
Derrick S Liu
Photo of Dingchen Sha
Dingchen Sha
Photo of Dongchen Fang
Dongchen Fang
Photo of Drew N Litkowiak
Drew N Litkowiak
Photo of Dylan Irlbeck
Dylan Irlbeck
Photo of Elaine Wang
Elaine Wang

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Elizabeth Ye Wang
Elizabeth Ye Wang
Photo of Eric Marcel Ordonez
Eric Marcel Ordonez
Photo of Eric Wang
Eric Wang

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Fangyi Zhang
Fangyi Zhang

Assisting with section AYD

Photo of Fanny Zhou
Fanny Zhou

Assisting with section AYA

Photo of Haozheng Fan
Haozheng Fan

Assisting with sections AYP and AYQ

Photo of Harry Li
Harry Li
Photo of Hasan Fetahi
Hasan Fetahi

Assisting with section AYM

Photo of Hrishikesh Uday Diwale
Hrishikesh Uday Diwale

Assisting with section AYJ

Photo of Isabel Victoria Greiner
Isabel Victoria Greiner
Photo of Jack Michael Williams
Jack Michael Williams
Photo of Jacob Andrew Richeal
Jacob Andrew Richeal

Assisting with section AYH

Photo of Jacob Vincent Langman
Jacob Vincent Langman

Assisting with section AYE

Photo of Jenna Burke
Jenna Burke

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Jeremy Yushen Hu
Jeremy Yushen Hu
Photo of Joowon Kim
Joowon Kim

Assisting with section AYM

Photo of Jordan Isaiah Brookins
Jordan Isaiah Brookins
Photo of Kayla Cease Raflores
Kayla Cease Raflores

Assisting with sections AYS and AYD

Photo of Kishan R Thakkar
Kishan R Thakkar

Assisting with section AYV

Photo of Kunal Bhatia
Kunal Bhatia
Photo of Kyle Nakagawa Jew
Kyle Nakagawa Jew

Assisting with section AYF

Photo of Leon I Small
Leon I Small
Photo of Matthew A McCarthy
Matthew A McCarthy

Assisting with section AYK

Photo of Matthew Murphy
Matthew Murphy
Photo of Meghana Chigurupati
Meghana Chigurupati
Photo of Min Choi
Min Choi
Photo of Minchu Feng
Minchu Feng
Photo of Mohammed Nabeel Shamsi
Mohammed Nabeel Shamsi
Photo of Morgan Meliment
Morgan Meliment

Assisting with sections AYQ and AYP

Photo of Natalia Nicole Ozymko
Natalia Nicole Ozymko

Assisting with section AYK

Photo of Nick Helms
Nick Helms

Assisting with sections AYC and AYG

Photo of Nicole Sheila Kolbasov
Nicole Sheila Kolbasov
Photo of Niharika Manda
Niharika Manda

Assisting with section AYB

Photo of Nikita Mikhaylov
Nikita Mikhaylov

Assisting with section AYN

Photo of Nirmal Arun Prakash
Nirmal Arun Prakash

Assisting with section AYA

Photo of Noah Changwon Sung
Noah Changwon Sung

Assisting with section AYS

Photo of Omar Khan
Omar Khan

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Ozgur Gencer
Ozgur Gencer

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Pengyu Cheng
Pengyu Cheng
Photo of Pranav Narahari
Pranav Narahari
Photo of Quentin Bu
Quentin Bu
Photo of Quinn Lawrence Donovan
Quinn Lawrence Donovan

Assisting with sections AYP and AYQ

Photo of Ramon Barriga
Ramon Barriga
Photo of Randy Yu
Randy Yu

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Rishabh Pandey
Rishabh Pandey
Photo of Riya Bhaskar Dave
Riya Bhaskar Dave

Assisting with section AYB

Photo of Rohan Goel
Rohan Goel
Photo of Rohan Vinay Khatu
Rohan Vinay Khatu

Assisting with section AYT

Photo of Sam Liao
Sam Liao
Photo of Sanjeev T Venkatesan
Sanjeev T Venkatesan
Photo of Sankalp Ganesh Agrawal
Sankalp Ganesh Agrawal
Photo of Shinka Mori
Shinka Mori
Photo of Shivesh Gaurav Chatrath
Shivesh Gaurav Chatrath
Photo of Simon Hu
Simon Hu
Photo of Soham Saha
Soham Saha
Photo of Songyue Guo
Songyue Guo
Photo of Tongyun Huang
Tongyun Huang

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Travis Jeremiah Zook
Travis Jeremiah Zook
Photo of Tri Ngoc Do
Tri Ngoc Do

Assisting with section AYG

Photo of Varun Bhargava
Varun Bhargava
Photo of Vincent Lin
Vincent Lin
Photo of Weiman Yan
Weiman Yan

Assisting with section AYF

Photo of Yani Julian
Yani Julian

Assisting with section AYJ

Photo of Yunkai Zhu
Yunkai Zhu
Photo of Zac MacAdam
Zac MacAdam

Assisting with section EMP

Photo of Zach Oldham
Zach Oldham
Photo of Zach Romersberger
Zach Romersberger

Assisting with section AYL

Photo of Zhe Zhang
Zhe Zhang

Assisting with section AYD

Photo of Zhiyuan Xiao
Zhiyuan Xiao

Assisting with section AYS

Photo of Zitao Zhu
Zitao Zhu

Assisting with section AYU

Photo of Zixiao Li
Zixiao Li

Assisting with section EMP

13.4. Course Developers

Our course developers do not hold office hours or help with labs. But they are working hard behind the scenes to make CS 125 better this semester and in the future.

Photo of Aaron Jacob Lichtman
Aaron Jacob Lichtman
Photo of Aishik Ghosh
Aishik Ghosh
Photo of Alpri Else
Alpri Else
Photo of Arushi Agarwal
Arushi Agarwal
Photo of Bailey Tincher
Bailey Tincher
Photo of Ben Nordick
Ben Nordick
Photo of Chris Spankroy
Chris Spankroy
Photo of Daniel Dore
Daniel Dore
Photo of Fanyin Ji
Fanyin Ji
Photo of James Zachary Kensik
James Zachary Kensik
Photo of Jonathan Alan Shobrook
Jonathan Alan Shobrook
Photo of Karthik Ravi
Karthik Ravi
Photo of Kyle T Begovich
Kyle T Begovich
Photo of Minhyuk Park
Minhyuk Park
Photo of Nancy Hong
Nancy Hong
Photo of Sathwik Pochampally
Sathwik Pochampally
Photo of Satvik Sethia
Satvik Sethia
Photo of Taranjit Singh Khokhar
Taranjit Singh Khokhar
Photo of Thomas P Varghese
Thomas P Varghese
Photo of Vibhav Kotriwala
Vibhav Kotriwala
CS 125 is now CS 124

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Created 10/24/2021
Updated 10/24/2021
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