Meeting times

Reading assignments

1/11 - 1/13 no reading
1/18 - 1/20 Intro and Chapters 1-4
1/25 - 1/27 Chapters 5-10
2/1 - 2/3 Chapters 11-16
2/8 - 2/10 Chapters 17-21
2/15 - 2/17 Chapters 22-26
2/22 - 2/24 Chapters 27-31
2/29 - 3/2 Chapters 32-36
3/7 - 3/9 Chapters 37-38 and Conclusions

Makeup assignment

The original plan was that students would be required to participate in 7 of the 9 sessions we will have, but we lost one because of the snow days. You can still get credit by attending 7 sessions, but that means you can miss only one session. As an alternative, you can get credit if you attend 6 sessions and do the following makeup activity:

  1. Watch this episode of Frontline about facilitated communication
  2. Read The Truth Wears Off by Jonah Lehrer
  3. Write a short report about your reactions to these two. You don't have to produce an essay. You can write a few paragraphs discussing how you feel about the documentary and the article. You might want to connect it to the book we're reading, but that is not a requirement. Email your report to Stuart.

General honors section information

This quarter we are offering an opportunity for an honors experience this quarter in CSE 143. This is intended for students in the honors program and other high-achieving students. The students who participate will meet with me and one or more TAs once a week in a small group to discuss what I consider to be interesting issues, mostly issues in computer science but sometimes outside our field.

I don't believe in just giving honors students more work. In fact, I won't be asking people to write any programs for this. The main requirement is that you have to agree to show up each week and to participate in our discussions. This quarter I will also ask the students in the honors section to do some reading, either chapters from a paperback book relevant to CSE topics (that you would have to purchase), and/or from articles posted on the course web site from time to time.

Students in the honors section are graded in the same way as everyone else in the class, but their transcript will indicate that they took an honors version of the 143 class. This is most important for honors students who have to accumulate a certain number of honors credits.

In terms of what other topics we'll discuss, I expect it to be something of a grab-bag of topics that interest me. Here are some examples of possible topics we may discuss:

I usually have more students interested in the honors section than I can accommodate, so I usually have to make some tough choices. We will soon post an application form where students can apply to be considered for the honors section. The potential meeting times will be listed on the application form.