Assessment
Grades will be determined by a weighted average of assignments (50%), a midterm (25%) and a final project (25%). The final project will include an ungraded checkpoint for students to get early feedback on their progress.
Course Materials
There are no costs to take this course. All lecture notes will be made freely available online.
180 Hours of Work
Over 14 weeks, students will spend 3 hours per week in class (42 hours total). Assignments are expected to take approximately 10 hours per week for the first 10 weeks (100 hours). The final project is expected to take approximately 10 hours per week for the last 4 weeks (40 hours). Total: 42 + 100 + 40 = 182 hrs.
Attendance Policies
Students are strongly encouraged to attend lecture in-person for two reasons. First, dedicated focus in a distraction-free environment leads to better learning outcomes. Second, Will enjoys seeing the shining faces of his students. However, attendance is not mandatory. Lectures will be recorded.
Extensions
Given the weekly cadence of assignments, students must submit work on time to avoid falling behind and to ensure grades are released in a timely manner. All students are provided three late days which they can use at their discretion, maximum of one per assignment.
Accessibility and Accommodations
Brown University is committed to full inclusion of all students. Please inform me early in the term if you may require accommodations or modification of any of course procedures. You may speak with me after class, during office hours, or by appointment. If you need accommodations around online learning or in classroom accommodations, please be sure to reach out to Student Accessibility Services (SAS) for their assistance (sas@brown.edu, 401-863-9588). Undergraduates in need of short-term academic advice or support can contact an academic dean in the College by emailing college@brown.edu. Graduate students may contact one of the deans in the Graduate School by emailing graduate_school@brown.edu.
Academic Integrity Policy
In general, it is acceptable to get help to a problem, and it is not acceptable to get a solution to a problem. This rule applies no matter whether you are consulting Google, an LLM, a TA, a fellow student, or any other resource. But remember: only your instructors and TAs are trained to help you without giving you the solution. We will not prevent you from using other resources, but you must be careful when using them. Specifically:
Group work: It is acceptable to work on all problem sets in a group. It is acceptable to collaboratively generate ideas that help you make progress on an assignment. It is not acceptable for one person to solve a problem, and another person to copy their solution.
The internet: It is generally acceptable to use search engines like Google and help sites like StackOverflow, especially for problems unrelated to the learning goals of the course. For example, if you get a mysterious compiler error, it’s acceptable to Google the error if you don’t understand the error after reading it. It is not acceptable to search for complete solutions to all or significant portions of an assignment.
LLMs: It is generally acceptable to use AI-based coding tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor for either (a) getting help in the same contexts that you would use Google & StackOverflow, or (b) generating small snippets of code that you could otherwise write by hand, given enough time. However, you should not use LLMs to skip the parts of a problem related to the learning goals of the assignment / course.
