Exploration Sessions

Each week we will offer a different opportunity to explore extra topics in computer science with one of our TAs. You will accumulate one "exploration point" for each week that you attend the lecture and do the homework. At the end of the quarter, your total exploration points will be divided by 3 and will be added to your homework points. There will be 166 homework points total, so this isn't adding a lot to your potential score. As an example, if you were to participate in 3 exploration sessions, you would have 1 point added to your homework points, which is like getting one more point on a weekly programming assignment. The idea is to give people a small reward, but not something that is so large that people feel obligated to participate in these optional sessions.

Week 7 (Python) - Thursday, August 6, 2:30-3:20pm in CSE403

  • Presenter: Andrew Blackwood
  • Python is an example of functional programming, somewhat different than the object-oriented programming that the 142/143 classes have been focusing on with Java. 142 TA Andrew is going to show off some of the differences between Python and Java, and talk about modern applications of Python.

Week 6 (Javascript and Events) - Thursday, July 30, 2:30-3:20pm in CSE403

  • Presenter: Austin Weale
  • Have you ever wondered how web pages can change and react as you use the site? In this week's exploration session, TA Austin Weale will introduce the popular web programming language, Javascript. We will take a look at how programming based on user input changes the way we code, and introduce basic HTML.

Week 5 (Binary) - Thursday, July 23, 2:30-3:20pm in CSE403

  • Presenter: Rasika Bhalerao
  • Computers can only understand binary, but we write Java, a prgramming language that looks a lot like english. This week we'll talk about how computers represent complex information and instructions with just 1s and 0s.

Week 4 (Cryptography) - Thursday, July 16, 2:30-3:20pm in CSE403

  • Presenter: Varun Mahadevan
  • How do we protect the information that we share on and over the web? In this week's Exploration Session, TA Varun Mahadevan will speak about encryption and the math that underlies it. We'll see how some properties of prime numbers and the mod operator enable secure communication, via public key encryption.

Week 3 (HTML and CSS) - Thursday, July 9, 2:30-3:20pm in CSE403

  • Presenter: Andrew Blackwood