Guidelines for CS 487/687

To make this course and the learning experience more enjoyable for everyone, here is a short guideline that we can always follow. Though this was motivated by the eight rules of fight club, as I am opposed to violence, the rules below are (largely) following the principles of ahimsa.

1. Guideline #1: You always talk about algebraic algorithms
2. Guideline #2: It is also cool to talk about lower bounds
3. Guideline #3: If someone asks a question on Piazza and you know the answer, please answer your classmate.
4. Guideline #4: At most two undergraduates per final project.
5. Guideline #5: Be kind to yourself and your classmates. Don’t judge anyone for asking questions (including yourself!) as the path to learning is different for each of us.
6. Guideline #6: If someone says something is “trivial/obvious” hit them with a stick (you should also hit me with a stick if I say it!)
7. Guideline #7: Think about the exercises and practice problems for a long enough time before you ask a question. (this will get you to think more about the material, make more connections, and improve your learning)
8. Guideline #8: If you are taking this class, then you have to do the exercises (practice exercises not mandatory but strongly encouraged).

Have fun with the course! :D

Elaborating more on the guidelines above:

1. Guideline #1: this course has a lot of exciting material, so get excited about it!
2. Guideline #2: lower bounds simply emphasize the limitations of any (or special types of) algorithm to solve a certain problem in a particular model of computation, and thus, lower bounds are also about algorithms!
3. Guideline #3: one of the best ways to learn something is by teaching it, so take advantage of this opportunity and teach/exchange ideas with your classmates!
4. Guideline #4: working in pairs can give you a sense of what research is like, and improves your collaborative skills.
5. Guideline #5: the goal of the course is for you to learn the material, but beyond that, kindness is a wonderful faculty/skill to have, and life is about building collaboration and growing from it! Also, kindness to youself makes you more resilient, because by being kind to yourself, you allow yourself to challenge yourself more and go further, because you will be less afraid to fail and try again!
6. Guideline #6: If you think something is “trivial/obvious” then instead of saying this (which gives nobody any information at all about the topic), simply write in a concise form the reason for this something to be true. This is the only instance where ahimsa can be broken.
7. Guideline #7: learning is really about playing with the material and internalizing it, and I believe that we only learn by doing. So exercises are one of the best ways to internalize the material. I will try my best to only give you exercises that highlight something important about the material you are learning.
8. Guideline #8: see explanation for guideline 7. For this reason, I will put many suggeted exercises, which you don’t have to turn in, but they will help you internalize the material, and you can discuss these with the entire class.