Lecture Notes 01: Welcome to CSC 250

---

Before Starting:
Who's who and why are we here?

Pablo

Name: Pablo Frank Bolton ("Frank" and "Bolton" are last names);
Pronouns: He, Him;
you can call me "Pablo"

What do I do?

• Human-Computer-Interaction
  
  
  
• Biology-CS collaborations
  
  
  
• Teaching and STEM research
  

My Dog Yak

this is my dog, Yak:
(Informal Dog-Walk Hours can be used for petting Yak, chatting with me, or even to talk shop)

Instructional Team

OH times (Provisional)

Mariem: Sunday 1-3; Location TBD

Jingwen: Monday 7-9 and Tuesday 7-9; Location TBD

The Students

Please fill out this small 3-minute-biography so I can get to know you a bit.

The Class

Class Objectives

This class has three main objectives:

• Learn the language of computation: learning how to understand, analyze, and solve problems through the language of computation (not programming).
• Try to answer: what is doable with a computer?: Explore the limits of computation.
• Try to answer: What is efficiently doable with a computer: Explore computational complexity.

The topics we'll explore include:

• Logic and proofs
• Regular languages and expressions
• Context-free languages
• Finite automata
• Turing machines
• Decidability
• Enumerability
• Mapping reducibility
• Computational complexity
• Advanced topics
• Some fun examples from cryptography, ML, and more

---

Remaining checklist for today:

1. Course Information
2. Problem Sets
3. Locate the course page on Moodle
4. Locate Slack info on Moodle and Sign up to Slack.
5. Locate Repl.it info on Moodle and Sign up to Repl.it
6. Locate Overleaf info on Moodle and Sign up to Overleaf
7. Meeting and Accommodations

---

Course Information

The class information is located in the Class Info link of the navigation bar. We will go over it now. When we are done checking it out, make sure to continue here.

---

Problem Sets

• 6 to 8 ~weekly problem sets
• Due on Thursdays by 5pm EST (starting next week)
• Submit your work on Moodle as an organized, legible PDF
• A LaTeX template will be provided for typesetting your assignments
• Recommendation: try Overleaf! (Smith has a site license)
• Collaboration: study groups are strongly recommended, but you should submit your writeup on your own
    (see the course website for full policy on Academic Integrity)
• Important note: clarity of thought >> rigor
• Late policy: -20% per day late, up to 2 days
    (after which the assignment is ineligible for credit)

---

Using Slack

We will use Slack as our main communication hub.

• Please sign up for Slack:



• We'll be working inside a Workspace for the course (CSC-111-01-202203). Each workspace has channels (#general, #random) where different subjects can be discussed. And lastly, you can reply to a speciffic post and continue the conversation inside a Thread. This lets us group conversations by subject matter.
• Join the csc-250-01-202301.slack.com workspace.
  (You should have been invited already, otherwise talk to me after class)
• You can read this tutorial to get an idea of how to use it.

---

Using Moodle

Access Moodle here: https://moodle.smith.edu/
We'll keep links to each lecture in Moodle. In addition, we'll have any PDFs, readings, and other resources.
I'll update the course Moodle with the appropriate links and information as we move forward in the course.

---

---

Using Overleaf

Overleaf is an online LaTeX editor.

What is LaTeX? you ask.
From https://www.latex-project.org/:

"LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system; it includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents."

Overleaf lets you add a llittle bit of metadata info to a document to make it look better:

---

Meeting and Accommodations

I would be very happy to meet you during office hours.
This will help me get to know you and learn how best to communicate.

Office Hours are not for remedial or emergency meetings, its part of the academic experience!
In OHs, we can talk about the class work and organization, but also about aspirations, expectations, curiosities, and more.
I really like office hours, so please feel free to drop by.

You may take this opportunity to let me know if you have arranged any accommodations with ODS.

---

Acknowledgements

This course has been designed with the help of Jordan Crouser.
(Thanks, Jordan)

---

Homework

[Due for everyone] register to Overleaf, Slack, and bookmark the class schedule webpage.

[Optional] ...