CSE 142

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Exploration Sessions

Thursdays, 5:30-6:30 in room JHN 102.

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. 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 approximately 150 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.

Please come prepared to listen to and ask questions of the guest speaker. Also, please bring your Husky ID card so that we can verify your attendance.

Week 9: Shells and Shell Scripting - Thursday, March 12 from 5:30-6:20 in JHN102

  • Have you ever seen hackers typing away at all black screens with blinking green cursors in a movie? Hopefully CSE has changed your perspective of programming, but there are still useful tools like this which computer scientists use every day. One of the 143 TAs, Tore Hanssen, will give an overview of the bash shell and shell scripting. Topics will include basic file system navigation, writing, compiling, and running java from the command line, and an introduction to automating tasks via shell scripting.

Week 8: Machine Learning - Thursday, March 5 from 5:30-6:20 in JHN102

  • A quick introduction to the fundamental concepts of machine learning. Machine learning involves identifying patterns in large datasets, and using these patterns to understand new and unforeseen situations. Topics will focus on decision trees and neural networks and how they can apply to college admissions and handwriting recognition.

Week 7: Web Pages: HTML and CSS - Thursday, Februray 26 from 5:30-6:20 in JHN102

  • Ever wondered exactly what goes into building websites? Remember using <b> and <i> to style your MySpace pages back in the day? There is a lot more to it than that, and in this session, Andrew Blackwood, a 143 TA, will talk about how HTML and CSS make up the content and style of webpages.

Week 6: Third Party APIs - Thursday, Februray 19 from 5:30-6:20 in JHN102

  • Getting a couple of integers from System.in or parsing a file on your computer isn't bad, but how do we access the rest of the publicly available data in the world in real time? CSE 143x TA, Roee Avnon, will explore how to use Third-Party APIs (Application Programming Interface) to get massive amount of real-time, real-world data to create truly interactive applications.

Week 5: Computational Biology - Thursday, Februray 12 from 5:30-6:20 in JHN102

  • 143 TA Karan Singh will discuss a few ways computer science is used in tandem with biology. We'll see how researchers use the BLAST algorithm to find similar sequences of DNA, touch on the potential of biological circuits, and explore how machine learning can help predict the onset of diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Week 4: Industry - Thursday, Februray 5 from 5:30-6:20 in JHN102

  • Want to hear about what it is like to develop software in the industry? Come hear a panel of current 142/143 TAs talk about their experiences at a variety of places including Google, NASA, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research, and Palantir Technologies. We'll talk about:
    • How the computer science industry integrates with other disciplines
    • The difference of working at a small company vs. a large one
    • Developing software that works at a large scale
    • The different types of problems that can be solved by the computer science field
    • Anything other questions you can think of

Week 3: Python - Thursday, January 29 from 5:30-6:20 in JHN102

  • Python is an extremely easy to use and powerful language with many applications, and this exploration session will be going into basics on some simple things to do with it, and additionally some discussion on modern uses of the language. 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.

Week 2: RSA Encryption - Thursday, January 22 from 5:30-6:20 in JHN102

  • How do we protect the information that we share on and over the web? In this week's Exploration Session, CSE142 TA Derek Coley 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 1: Binary - Thursday, January 15 from 5:30-6:20 in JHN102

  • Computers can only understand binary, but we write Java, a programming language that looks a lot like english. This week we'll talk about how computers represent different types of data, complex information, and instructions with just 1s and 0s.