Office hours are meant to help all students who attend, not just the few students who ask questions. There is no queue! Our limited time is best spent on issues that are relevant to as many people as possible. We will do our best to answer individual questions (for example, about already-graded work or emergencies), but as a general rule, students asking us to verify or debug their homework solutions will have lowest priority. (Please ask how to verify or debug your own solutions instead!)
Some of the office hours are specifically earmarked as conceptual office hours. These are centered on helping students building a correct mental model of the material introduced in lecture and readings and practiced in the homework. Questions specifically about the current week's homework are off-limits.
Office hours are most effective when students first make a good-faith effort to understand the material on their own (for example, by watching lectures, reading the corresponding lecture notes, and working through small examples by hand), and then formulate specific questions to address any remaining gaps. Our first response to most questions is ”So what have you tried?”
Space at office hours is unfortunately limited. If the room is crowded, please be kind and make room for others by leaving if you can find an alternative source of assistance. We strongly recommend starting on each homework early, so that you can take advantage of office hours all week long. If the room is not crowded, you are welcome to just hang out and listen, as long as you aren't bothering others. Please don't use CS 473 office hours to work on other classes.
In addition to these in-person meetings, the course staff regularly monitor Ed Discussion. As a matter of course policy, course staff will wait a minimum of three hours before answering any online question about the course material—except for questions about lecture material on the day of the the lecture—so that other students have an opportunity to answer first. (We will answer administrative questions as quickly as we can.)