Course Organization

Coursework Release:

• Coursework to be released soon
• Labs P1 and P2 due tomorrow (first assessment piece)

Weekly Time Commitment:

• 3 hours lectures per week
• 2 hours labs per week
• ~5 hours expected for practice, preparation, and going through materials

Getting Help:

• Ask questions during lectures and labs
• Use Discord for questions (encouraged - currently underutilized)
• Separate channels for different topics including coursework
• Form study groups (discuss solutions and design approaches, but avoid copying code)

What is an Algorithm?

Etymology

The word "algorithm" comes from Al-Khwarizmi, a Persian mathematician from the early 9th century. His name also gave us the word "algebra."

Definitions

From various dictionaries, we can extract common themes:

Wikipedia: Mathematically rigorous instruction