Contents
Office Hours
Office hours are dedicated times set aside by the instructor and teaching assistants where you can ask questions about the course. You can come to seek guidance, advice, and feedback about content, assignments, or whatever else is on your mind. Office hours will begin the second week of class and continue through the last week of class, except on University holidays and breaks.
- Professor Fain. 9:45-10 am M/W (I block off the 15 minutes right after class to be available), plus 3-4 pm Mondays and Wednesdays in LSRC D104. Zoom available by appointment request.
- Xinyu Tian (xinyu.tian@duke.edu). Starting Monday 10/23, the Monday and Tuesday hours are reserved for regular meetings with project groups every other week (see the signup on sakai resources). Fridays are open drop-in hours for individuals or teams.
- Mondays 3-4 pm on zoom at duke.zoom.us/j/98979016253.
- Tuesdays 4-4:45 pm on zoom at duke.zoom.us/j/96183803191.
- Fridays 1-2 pm on zoom at duke.zoom.us/j/99553020151.
Academic Resource Center
The Academic Resource Center (the ARC) offers services to support students academically during their undergraduate careers at Duke. The ARC can provide support with time management, academic skills and strategies, course-specific tutoring, and more. ARC services are available free to any Duke undergraduate student, studying any discipline.
(919) 684-5917, theARC@duke.edu, or arc.duke.edu.
Disability Accommodation
If you are a student with a disability and need accommodations for this class, it is your responsibility to register with the Student Disability Access Office (SDAO) and provide them with documentation of your disability. SDAO will work with you to determine what accommodations are appropriate for your situation. Please note that accommodations are not retroactive and disability accommodations cannot be provided until a Faculty Accommodation Letter has been given to me. Please contact SDAO for more information: sdao@duke.edu or access.duke.edu.
Mental Health Resources
- DukeReach. Provides comprehensive outreach services to identify and support students in managing all aspects of well-being. If you have concerns about a student’s behavior or health visit the website for resources and assistance: https://students.duke.edu/wellness/dukereach/
- Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). CAPS services include individual and group counseling services, psychiatric services, and workshops. To initiate services, walk-in/call-in 9-4 M,W,Th,F and 9-6 Tuesdays. CAPS also provides referral to off- campus resources for specialized care. (919) 660-1000 or https://students.duke.edu/wellness/caps/
- TimelyCare (formerly known as Blue Devils Care). An online platform that is a convenient, confidential, and free way for Duke students to receive 24/7 mental health support through TalkNow and scheduled counseling. bluedevilscare.duke.edu
- DuWell. (919) 681-8421, provides Moments of Mindfulness (stress management and resilience building) and meditation programming (Koru workshop) to assist students in developing a daily emotional well-being practice. To see schedules for programs please see https://studentaffairs.duke.edu/duwell. All are welcome and no experience necessary.
Algorithms, Programming, and Writing Resources
You are expected to have taken a course like CS 201 Data Structures & Algorithms and college level mathematics such as CS 230 Discrete Math. You should also have at least two semesters of programming experience, and should be comfortable reading documentation and implementing algorithms on your own.
The following resources are nice free and online resources if you want to brush up or expand in any of these areas. You are not expected to read all of these books for this class; they are provided for references as needed.
- Data Structures. See Open Data Structures book by Pat Morin.
- Algorithms. See Jeff Erickson’s book on Algorithms.
- Math for Algorithms. See An Active Introduction to Discrete Math and Algorithms by Charles Cusack.
- Python. While there is no expected or required language for programming in this course, most students prefer to use Python. The Python standard library documentation has a nice tutorial.
- Git. You should use Git and Gitlab or Github for collaborating on Code. Some resources:
- Project Websites. As part of the course you will be asked to create a project website. You are not expected to build this from scratch or get into the weeds of the html or css. We encourage you use one of the following convenient platforms:
- LaTeX. If you need to typeset mathematics, you should use LaTeX. Learn more at the Overleaf Tutorials.
