Upcoming Deadlines and Events

Fri Mar 13
⚠️ Drop deadline (11:59pm)
Mar 14–22
Spring break — GPS and HW 7 due one week later than usual
Mon Mar 23
Guided problem set 7 due at 9pm
Tue Mar 24
Homework 7 due at 9pm

Recent Announcements

Thu Mar 12

Homework 6 solutions are available (along with with solutions for Lab 8a.)

Tue Mar 10

  • Midterm 1 grades have been released on Gradescope.

    • Regrade requests can be submitted until Tue Mar 24.

    • Here is the distribution of midterm grades and estimated course averages:

      Distribution of midterm grades and estimated course averages

      The orange curve shows computed course averages (35% Homeworks 1–4 and GPS 1–4 + 65% Midterm 1) for all students who took the regular exam and have at least a 40% course average, in sorted order. These averages were used to define the vertical letter-grade boundaries. The blue dots show the corresponding midterm scores for each student. Dots that are further above the orange curve indicate students with lower homework averages.

      Assuming a HW+GPS average of 91% (the class median), a midterm score of at least 41 out of 50 is consistent with an A, a midterm score between 30 and 40 is consistent with a B, and a midterm score between 18 and 29 is consistent with a C.

      Please keep in mind that this is an extremely rough prediction of your final course grades, based on roughly 30% of the overall work. Past experience suggests that most students‘ final course grades will be within one letter grade of these estimates, but differences of a full letter grade (in either direction) are quite common, and there are a few differences of two letter grades (in either directions) every semester.

  • Students are strongly encouraged to talk with Emily and/or Ruta before dropping the class.  Emily and Ruta will hold extra office hours this week, exclusively for students who are thinking of dropping the class and/or are seriously concerned about their midterm performance.

    • Emily: Wednesday 10am–12pm and Thursday 1:30–3:30pm in 2336 Siebel
    • Ruta: Tuesday 1:30pm–2:30pm in 3218 Siebel

  • Homework scores are showing a very large variance. In particular, there are a large number of students with much higher exam scores than homework averages. Please double-check your scores on Gradescope and submit regrade requests for any administrative issues. We have already noticed several submissions where Gradescope was not informed about all team members, which means not everyone got credit for that homework. We are working to fix those issues as we find them, but with well over 1000 homework submissions so far, we are unlikely to find all such mistakes without your help.

Mon Mar 09

Today's homework party will be held from 6pm–8pm today in Siebel 1304. Sorry about the late notice.

Thu Mar 05

Homework 5 solutions are available (along with with solutions for Lab 7a.)

Tue Mar 03
  • In preparation for the next two written homeworks, the standard rubric for dynamic programming algorithms has been updated. Beyond than some clarifications, there is one major change: Any dynamic programming algorithm must include an English description of the recursive function being evaluated to receive any credit. Iterative pseudocode is allowed but is not required. However, solutions with iterative pseudocode still require an English description of the underlying recursive function to receive any credit, even if otherwise perfectly correct.
  • And on that note, Homework 6 is now available.
Sun Mar 01

For Homework 5 Problem 2, you may assume the elements of the input array $A$ are distinct (using this assumption is not necessary for full credit.) The handout has been updated to include this assumption.

Sat Feb 28

Due to HackIllinois 2026, homework parties for Sat Feb 28 and Sun Mar 1 will be held in Siebel 4124. There's a small chance we'll run out of room. If so, we'll try to spill over into nearby spaces or ask students who were around longer to make room for new arrivals.

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