awbCourse Time: 6a (MW 3:10pm – 4:20pm, F 3:30pm – 4:30pm)
Office Hours:
Mondays 10:00am – 12:00pm in Olin 339
Tuesdays 7:30pm – 9:00pm in Olin 310
Wednesdays 4:30pm – 5:30pm in Olin 339
(please come find me in my office or send me an email if you want meet another time!)
Prefect: Dominic Enriquez, enriquezd
Lab assistant hours for Olin 310
Course Text: Allen B. Downey,
Announcements will be made via Moodle, so watch for those emails.
Programming Environment: We will be using the Python 3 programming language. The computer science labs (Olin 310, 308, and 304) and the Weitz lab (138) have Python installed on MacOS. You are welcome to use whatever text editor you like. A text editor is an application that's used for writing code; sort of like Microsoft Word, but for code instead of essays. I recommend using Visual Studio Code (VS Code), which is installed on the lab computers.
Assignment submissions: You will submit assignments by uploading them to Moodle, on the appropriate assignment page.ifs, loops, and stringsThis course will introduce you to computer programming and the design of algorithms. By writing programs to solve problems in areas such as image processing, text processing, and simple games, you will learn about recursive and iterative algorithms, complexity analysis, graphics, data representation, software engineering, and object-oriented design.This course will focus on a broad introduction to computational concepts. We will use Python 3 as our programming language. No previous programming experience is necessary. By the end of this course, you should be able to:
Grading breakdown:
| Percentage | Letter |
| ≥ 93 | A |
| ≥ 90 | ≥ A- |
| ≥ 87 | ≥ B+ |
| ≥ 83 | ≥ B |
| ≥ 80 | ≥ B- |
| ≥ 77 | ≥ C+ |
| ≥ 73 | ≥ C |
| ≥ 70 | ≥ C- |
| ≥ 67 | ≥ D+ |
| ≥ 60 | ≥ D |
| < 60 | F |
Late Policy: Deadlines will be given with each assignment. These deadlines are strict. There will be no credit for late work. For the entire term, you have four late days. You are advised to use them conservatively. On group projects you may only use late days if all members of the group have them available, and all members of the group will be charged for each late day used. They must be used in 24-hour (integer) chunks. One or more late days can be activated on an assignment by emailing me before the assignment is due. There is no penalty whatsoever associated with using a late day. This policy may not be the same as in your other classes. You are responsible for understanding it if you choose to submit late work.
A note on inclusivity:
please treat your classmates with kindness and respect, both inside the classroom and out.
Classrooms can be vulnerable environments; asking questions and expanding our understanding of new concepts requires us to reveal over and over
again that we don't fully know something. It's okay to not know everything immediately! It's not okay to make people feel bad about what they
don't know. This can happen even in subtle ways - see this page for a few ideas on how to help create a friendly learning environment.
Our individual differences enrich and enhance our understanding of one another and of the world around us.
This class welcomes the perspectives of all ethnicities, genders, religions, ages, sexual orientations, disabilities, socioeconomic backgrounds,
regions, and nationalities.
Academic Honesty and Collaboration: (adapted from Academic Integrity at MIT)
Writing code is similar to academic writing in that when you use or adapt code developed by someone else as part of your project, you must cite your source. However, instead of quoting or paraphrasing a source, you include an inline comment in the code. These comments not only ensure you are giving proper credit, but help with code understanding and debugging. For these comments, the URL and the date of retrieval are generally sufficient. Add more details if it will help the reader get a clearer understanding of the source.
Labs in this class are intended to be primarily individual efforts or an equal collaboration between you and your partner (on labs that explicitly state they may be done with a partner). You are encouraged to discuss approaches with other students but your code and your write-up must be your own.
You may not use materials produced as course work by other students, whether in this term or previous terms, nor may you provide work for other students to use.
It's good to help other students. But as a general rule, during the time that you are helping another student, your own solution should not be visible, either to you or to them. Make a habit of closing your laptop while you're helping.
You should never be in possession of a (paper or electronic) copy of a classmate's code before the due date for the assignment.
Another way to articulate this: when getting help, that consultation should be in English and not in code.
It's fine to use material from external sources like StackOverflow, but only with proper attribution, and only if the assignment allows it. In particular, if the assignment says "implement X," then you must create your own X, not reuse one from an external source.
It's also fine to use any code I provide, without need for attribution.
Example 1
Academic Accommodations:
Carleton College is
committed to providing equitable access to learning
opportunities for all students. The Office of Accessibility
Resources (Henry House, 107 Union Street) is the campus office
that collaborates with students who have disabilities to provide
and/or arrange reasonable accommodations. If you have, or think
you may have, a disability (e.g., mental health, attentional,
learning, autism spectrum disorders, chronic health, traumatic
brain injury and concussions, vision, hearing, mobility, or
speech impairments), please contact OAR@carleton.edu or call Sam
Thayer (’10), Director of the Office of Accessibility Resources
(x4464), to arrange a confidential discussion regarding
equitable access and reasonable accommodations.