Design and Analysis of Algorithms

Grading

Grades will be weighted as follows:
45% Homework Assignments
5% Classroom and Lab participation
25% Midterm Exam
25% Final Exam

Most lab assignments will consist of in-class exercises and will not be graded. Expect roughly ten homework assignments during the semester. You'll be able to work with a partner with several but not all of them; each homework assignment will specify if working with a partner is allowed.

Homework Policy

Homework assignments will typically be assigned Thursday afternoon and will be due at 11AM the next Wednesday. You are strongly encouraged to start early and ask questions early if you get stuck. The initial couple of assignments will be individual; after the first few weeks, you'll be able to work with a partner.

You must write your solutions in LaTeX. (Resources for LaTeX are available here.) You must submit your assignments electronically by pushing to your assigned git repository. You may push your assignment multiple times, and a history of previous submissions will be saved. You are encouraged to push your work regularly.

Extra Credit Policy. Most of the homework assignments will have one or two extra credit problems. These problems are completely optional -- do not feel obligated in any way to complete these problems. Extra credit will not be directly applied to your overall grade; at best, they will be used to make up some credit lost by not handing in assignments on time. Please contact me if you have questions about the extra credit policy.

Late Policy. To help with cases of minor illnesses, athletic conflicts, hackathons, job interviews, or other short-term time limitations, all students start the course with three "late assignment days" to be used at your discretion, with no questions asked. To use your extra time, you must email me after you have completed the lab and pushed to your repository. You do not need to inform anyone ahead of time. When you use late time, you should still expect to work on the newly-released lab during the following lab section meeting. I will always prioritize answering questions related to the current lab assignment. Your late days will be counted at the granularity of full days and will be tracked on a per-student (NOT per-partnership) basis. That is, if you turn in an assignment five minutes after the deadline, it counts as using one day. For partnered labs, using a late day counts towards the late days for each partner. In the rare cases in which only one partner has unused late days, that partner's late days may be used, barring a consistent pattern of abuse.

If you feel that you need an extension on an assignment or that you are unable to attend class for two or more meetings due to a medical condition (e.g., extended illness, concussion, hospitalization) or other emergency, you must contact the dean's office and me. I will coordinate with the deans to determine and provide the appropriate accommodations. Note that for illnesses, the College's medical excuse policy, states that you must be seen and diagnosed by the Worth Health Center if you would like them to contact your class dean with corroborating medical information.