Instructor¶
Office Hours
Elizabeth Shirakian
Hi, I’m Elizabeth! I am so excited to have you all in CSE 122! I was raised in Kirkland, Washington, but ethnically, I am Armenian. I recently graduated from UW with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science. During my time at UW, I TAed CSE 12x for 9 quarters (ever since the first offering of CSE 12x!) and I TAed CSE 122 for 8 of those quarters. This is my first time instructing this course, and I am very excited! I am very passionate about computer science education, particularly introductory courses, and I plan to continue teaching introductory CS beyond UW.
Outside of my courses, I love to write music, sing, bake, learn new languages (currently learning French), solve logic puzzles, and I am currently perfecting my matcha-making skills. I am also a film fanatic and adore anything with Audrey Hepburn.
Really excited to work with you all this quarter!
Office Hours
Colton Harris
Hi everyone, I’m Colton! Originally from Vancouver, WA, I’ve spent the past four years in Seattle completing my B.S. in Computer Engineering. I’ve been a TA for five quarters in CSE 122, one in CSE 121, two in CSE 371 (FPGA design), and three quarters as the TA Coordinator for the entire CSE 12x sequence. Additionally, my research focuses on building educational tools for hardware-oriented CSE/ECE courses.
Off campus, I’m still a huge nerd and enjoy playing board games, watching actual-play D&D shows (A Crown of Candy is my favorite), and honing my disc-golf skills.
Looking forward to meeting you all this quarter!
Teaching Assistants¶
Colin Lim
Quiz Section: AB
Hi everyone! I’m Colin and I’m a third year studying CS. In my free time I like playing games, cooking, hiking, and visiting cat cafes! If you have any pet pictures you wanna share please don’t hesitate to hunt me down and show them to me - I’ll greatly appreciate them :)). Looking forward to meeting you all!
Christopher Tan
Quiz Section: AA
Hi, I’m Christopher and I’m a sophomore studying Computer Science. My hobbies include playing sports like tennis and volleyball and watching anime! I hope to have a great quarter as a TA with you all!
Hanna Pan
Quiz Section: AE
Hi, I’m Hanna! I’m an incoming junior majoring in Informatics and ACMS, and minoring in Business. I love playing and watching sports, traveling, listening to music, binging kdramas, and shopping. I’m looking forward to meeting you all :))
Ivory Wang
Hello everyone! I’m a rising 3rd-year CS student from Bellevue, WA, currently struggling through my math & stats double minor. Outside of school and work, I’m probably haunting the IMA dance studios, making dubious music, or waiting on my cats. My inbox is open anytime if you want to chat :)
Nicole Ham
Quiz Section: AD
Helloo everyone!! My name is Nicole and I’m a second year majoring in ACMS. I’m a foodie, I love to go out to eat anything and everything (my wallet is crying, but my stomach is not >:D). I also like to game, run, and stare at pictures of my pet cat who’s back in California. Feel free to reach out to me to share pictures of your pets, give restaurant recommendations, or chat! I look forward to meeting you all!
Getting Help¶
Having questions or getting stuck on something is entirely expected in the learning process. If you find something challenging with your studies, that is a sign you are learning! Learning is not something that you need to do alone though! In fact, connecting with your peers or asking a member of the course staff for help can add extreme depth to your knowledge.
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Synchronous Help (Office Hours): One place to go to get help is our Office Hours hosted throughout the week. TAs staff office hours for many hours a day to provide you the help you need when you need it! This is a great place to go if you want to review a particular course concept, work on a practice problem with the help of a TA or your peers, or get help on a Creative Project or Programming Assignment if you are running into difficulties.
Tip
A common misconception is that you can only go to office hours with specific homework questions. That is not true! If you have any questions about course concepts (e.g., from class that day), you are super encouraged to go work on that concept with a member of the course staff at office hours! Getting help with a concept earlier, when you first are feeling unsure, is much better than saving it until you need it on the homework.
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Asynchronous Help (Ed Discussion): With a class of our size, directly emailing a member of the course staff is not always recommended. There are many of you and only few of us, so if you email one person directly we can’t make a guarantee how quickly we can respond! To alleviate this one-on-one communication of email, we have a course discussion board that will be a much more lively place for discussion and a way to make sure you can are helped more quickly. The message board is set up so that all of the course staff can help you, which will make it more likely for you to receive a quicker response!
Ed Tips
- If you are asking a general question about the course logistics or content, you can make a public post. This way other students can benefit from seeing your question, and you can even answer each other’s questions to share your perspectives!
- If you want, you can choose to post anonymously so that other students in the course can’t see your name. Note that anonymous posting does not hide your identity from the course staff.
- You’re encouraged to answer each other’s questions as well! Explaining a topic to someone else (even on a discussion board) is a great way to help you better understand the material. The course staff will still look over student answers and can nicely point out some misconception if there is one so that everyone benefits.
- If you have a question that’s pretty specific to your homework solution, or, is about some personal details that you would not want to share with the class (e.g., DRS accommodations), you can make a private post on Ed that is only visible to the course staff. This way, any member of the staff can respond to get you the help you need!
- For sensitive matters that you only want to discuss with Colton and Elizabeth, you can instead email Colton and Elizabeth if that makes you feel more comfortable or schedule a 1-on-1 meeting with them. Note that the response time for the instructors’ email is longer than posting on the Ed board.