Course Description
Please see the department listing for important stats (credits, catalog description, pre/co-requisites, etc).
Goals
Successful students will:
- Be able to come up with algorithmic solutions to weird problems on-the-fly.
- Understand how to use regular expressions.
- Be comfortable with dictionaries or maps.
- Become masters of pair programming tactics.
Helpful Humans
- Instructor: Kyle Burke
Contacting Kyle
I love answering your questions! The basic rule of thumb for contacting me is: in-person > Slack > email. (People in person generally have priority over Slack messages, which generally have priority over emails.) The absolute best way to get in touch with me is to physically come to my office (check my schedule to see when I'm likely around). If I'm not in at the moment you arrive, I have a wheel to let you know where I'm at. If you need to schedule a time outside of my office hours, that's fine. If you just drop by to see if I'm there, that's great too! Please feel free to swing by and ask me questions even if I'm not expecting you. Getting in-person help is often the best way to clear something up!
If you can't reach me in person, the next best thing to do is to use Slack. You can find me on the department server and reach out in the course channel (tagging me is fine) or as a direct message to me. If you have something more serious that you want a better "paper" trail for, then I recommend emailing me (kburke@flsouthern.edu). I try to respond to all my email at least once per work day, but sometimes I don't keep up. If you don't hear from me via email after 24 hours during a work week, feel free to reply to the email with just the word "Bump" to get it back up to the top of my inbox. If you send me a message any other way, please do not wait for me to respond, as I probably won't see it. (E.g. via Canvas.)
When communicating with me, it is perfectly okay to call me "Kyle". (This is not true for everyone; please make sure you are respectful to other faculty members.)
Grading
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At the end of the semester, the final grade will be determined by the highest letter grade for which all minimum requirements are met according to the table above.
I am dedicated to getting your grade right. If you ever think I graded something incorrectly or you didn't understand how something was graded, please come talk to me about it. Grading is hard; I'm often fixing grading mistakes I made. However, I will never take off points for grading errors I discover because you came to talk to me!
Patricipation
Outside Programming
Late Assignments
Since missed parts on one project can be fixed and resubmitted later, assignments turned in late will be graded in the following round. I will perform extra rounds of grading only for individual students as a result of lengthy excused absences, decided on a case-by-case basis.
Course Evaluations
Course Evaluations are an effective tool for me to improve my teaching each semester. I want to know which parts of the course worked well for you, and which did not. Please fill out an evaluation at the end of the semester!
In order to motivate evaluations, each course has the chance to earn 2 bonus (percentage) points. Everyone in the class earns this bump if 75% or more of the students complete evaluations before the beginning of the course's final exam period.
Office Hours
My office hours are listed on my schedule. This is special time I've put aside to take questions from anyone in any of my courses. I love answering questions, and I love having lots of students visit during office hours. If there are too many students to fit in my office, I'll usually move to an empty classroom. Be sure to check the wheel on my door when you visit for office hours; it will tell you where I am if I'm not there.
If I have a bunch of students, I usually handle things in a round robin fashion, giving each person the chance to ask one question each time around. I do my best to help as many people as possible.
If you need to speak to me about something sensitive and my office hours are busy, we can schedule another meeting, just send me an email. (This philosophy may differ from that of other instructors.)
I keep my door open lots (this helps me stay productive). Even if office hours aren't technically happening, I'd still rather be answering your questions than whatever else I'm doing. Ask me if I'm available. Sometimes I'm just too busy keeping up with grading and course bureaucracy.
Every so often I have to cancel my office hours for different reasons. I'll do this via Slack and will give you as much advance notice as I can.
Evening Tutoring
The department holds evening tutoring hours on the third floor of Memorial from 6-8pm, Monday - Thursday. This is done in conjunction with the PASS Office, who also offers one-on-one tutoring for most undergraduate courses at PSU. If you think you would benefit from working with a tutor, stop by their office in Speare 209, or visit https://www.plymouth.edu/centers/plymouth-academic-support-services/ to learn more.
Attendance
During the semester, each student may only have up to 1 unexcused absences/late-arrivals. Any student with 2 or more unexcused absences and/or late-arrivals automatically fails the course. Unexcusable reasons include oversleeping, weather, and workload. Excusable reasons include travel for conferences, illnesses, and emergencies. If you're not sure whether your reason is excusable, please ask me.
If you know ahead of time that you'll be absent, please give me at least two weeks notice. This is especially important if you'll be missing an exam! Otherwise, to get an absence excused, please email me as soon as it is reasonable to do so.
Class sessions before the add deadline count! If you are choosing between multiple courses, you should be attending meetings and completing work for all of them!
Illnesses
If you are feeling ill, even if you haven't been diagnosed with any sickness yet, please do not come to class. It doesn't matter whether there's an exam or a big due date or anything else. I both want you to rest up to help you get better and don't want to get anyone else in the class sick. If you aren't feeling well enough to attend class virtually, just email me whenever you can to let me know what's going on. If you can attend class virutally (and can give me enough warning) please email me to let me know. Even if I don't get back to you, please try logging on to zoom during the class time. If you have a friend in class, it is totally okay to message them to tell me to turn that on.
Catching Up
Even if you miss part of class, you are still responsible for everything that was discussed, including assignments, administrative changes, and other announcements. Please do not first come to me and ask me to go over the material with you. (It is considered especially egregious to ask "Did I Miss Anything?") Before coming to me:
- Look at the class schedule and do any of the reading that was covered. Don't just skim it, read it.
- Look over the notes of a classmate. (It's best to find people you can swap notes with before you are absent!)
- Try out some of the challenge problems I gave to the class, if any.
If you've done all of those and still have questions, come visit me so we can get you all caught up!
My Expectations
This is a university-level course, and should not be taken lightly. There are many expectations I have of students planning to pass this course.
Academic Integrity
Academic Integrity is taken very seriously. Please make sure you're aware of all rules regarding working with others. Violations are reported and handled using the Academic Integrity Policy.
Honorably Reusing Code
It is important to be careful with the reuse of code and how academic integrity and the honor code apply to that. There are many potential sources of code that may or may not be allowed depending on the course. Here are the allowances for this course:
- ✓ You may use code from class texts/resources listed in that section of this syllabus.
- ✓ You may use code samples from the official documentation of the language(s) used in the class. ((Be careful to be only using the built-in packages and not docs from external packages that may not be allowed in this class. If you're not sure, ask me!))
- ✓ You may use code presented as part of lecture.
- ✓ You may use code from team members.
- ✓ You may use code from school-employed student tutors and teaching assistants.
- ⊘ You may not use code from any other people. (This includes students in and out of this course. If you provide code to anyone else in this way, you have violated this as well and will be penalized accordingly.)
- ⊘ You may not use code from any other web sites or resources found online. (This includes from videos and other multimedia.)
- ⊘ You may not use code generated by AI. (This includes ChatGPT and other AI programs as well as AI assistants in your IDE. It is your responsibility to know whether your IDE has an AI assistant and to shut if off. Do that right now!)
- ✓ You may use generative AI to explain code and errors. (Important: You MUST include a link to all conversations you had with any of these along with your submission in a separate .txt file. Be very careful! You need to make sure you ask questions in such a way that the conversation doesn't violate any other items in this list. If you're ever not sure whether you're going to do something unallowed, please ask me first.)
Programming Collaboration
In this course, you will be programming individually. You should not be sharing source code with anyone else.
Accessibility Accommodations
Plymouth State University is committed to providing students with documented disabilities equal access to all university programs and facilities. If you think you have a disability requiring accommodations, you should contact Campus Accessibility Services (CAS), located in Speare 210 (phone: (603) 535-3300) to determine whether you are eligible for such accommodations. Academic accommodations will only be considered for students who have registered with CAS. If you have a Letter of Accommodation for this course from CAS, please provide the instructor with that information privately so that you and the instructor can review those accommodations.
Non-academic Student Support
Our Student Support Foundation (SSF) provides short-term emergency financial assistance and long-term student support. For more information, see the foundation's homepage. SSF also runs a food pantry located in Belknap Hall. To learn more about SSF or access the food pantry, either via open hours or a private appointment, contact the SSF advisor, at psu-ssf@plymouth.edu.
Old Work
I keep old completed work for at least one semester after the course has ended. This includes written homework, exams, etc. If you want any of your work, just come ask me. I'm very happy to get rid of it!
Schedule
| Week | Friday |
| 0 Week of Jan. 16 | Course Intro Input and Spreadsheet |
| 1 Week of Jan. 23 | Regular Expressions |
| 2 Week of Jan. 30 | Regular Expressions |
| 3 Week of Feb. 6 | Dynamic Programming |
| 4 Week of Feb. 13 | Dynamic Programming |
| 5 Week of Feb. 20 | Snow Day |
| 6 Week of Feb. 27 | Shortest Path |
| 7 Week of March 6 | Spring Break |
| 8 Week of March 13 | Shortest Path |
| 9 Week of March 20 | ?? |
| 10 Week of March 27 | ?? |
| 11 Week of April 3 | |
| 12 Week of April 10 | |
| 13 Week of April 17 | |
| 14 Week of April 24 | |
| 15 Week of May 1 | Finals Week |
Thank you for reading this long syllabus. Now that you've read the whole thing, you probably won't have this problem. If you think something is missing or isn't clear here, please let me know so I can clarify and improve my syllabi. The purpose of this "contract" is not to help you optimize your grade. Instead it is a mechanism to promote intellectual honesty and curiosity. I think I like this syllabus better, but it lacks the formality needed to address complaints.
