General Computer Science 320201 GenCS I & II Lecture ... - Kwarc

Data
Machines
Algorithms
Figure 2.1: The three key ingredients of Computer Science
Representation: One of the primary focal items in “General CS” will be the notion of representation.
In a nutshell the situation is as follows: we cannot compute with objects of the “real world”,
but be have to make electronic counterparts that can be manipulated in a computer, which we
will call representations. It is essential for a computer scientist to realize that objects and their
representations are different, and to be aware of their relation to each other. Otherwise it will
be difficult to predict the relevance of the results of computation (manipulating electronic objects
in the computer) for the real-world objects. But if cannot do that, computing loses much of its
utility.
Of course this may sound a bit esoteric in the beginning, but I will come back to this very
often over the course, and in the end you may see the importance as well.
2.1.2 Administrativa
We will now go through the ground rules for the course. This is a kind of a social contract between
the instructor and the students. Both have to keep their side of the deal to make learning and
becoming Computer Scientists as efficient and painless as possible.
Grades, Credits, Retaking
Now we come to a topic that is always interesting to the students: the grading scheme. The
grading scheme I am using has changed over time, but I am quite happy with it.
Prerequisites, Requirements, Grades
Prerequisites: Motivation, Interest, Curiosity, hard work
You can do this course if you want!
Grades: (plan your work involvement carefully)
Monday Quizzes 30%
Graded Assignments 20%
Mid-term Exam 20%
Final Exam 30%
Note that for the grades, the percentages of achieved points are added with the weights above,
and only then the resulting percentage is converted to a grade.
Monday Quizzes: (Almost) every monday, we will use the first 10 minutes for a brief quiz
about the material from the week before (you have to be there)
Rationale: I want you to work continuously (maximizes learning)
Requirements for Auditing: You can audit GenCS! (specify in Campus Net)
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