CS 3, Spring 2011
Computational Thinking, or Ways to Think Like a Computer Scientist

Overview

Material may be changed and re-organized with minimal notice. This page will be updated on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. Lectures notes and homework will be linked off this page.

Date Topic Links Assignments

Week 1: Computational Thinking

Mar 30 Examples of computer science
Mar 31(x-hour) Introduction to Matlab [1][2]

Apr 1 The Turing test
HW1 out

Week 2: What makes online transactions safe?

Apr 4 Randomization and complexity [1] [2] [3]
Apr 6 Cryptography
Apr 8 Modern crytography continued [1] HW1 due, HW2 out

Weeks 3: From Google to Facebook

Apr 11 Social Networks
Apr 13 Social Networks & Graph Theory
Apr 15 Network Evolution + PageRank Algorithm HW2 due, HW3 out
Weeks 3: From Google to Facebook
Apr 18 Hyperlink Induced Topic Search (HITS)
Apr 20 Hyperlink Induced Topic Search (HITS) (contd.) [1]  
Apr 22 Search, Sort, and Color  HW3 due, HW4 out

Week 5: Building machines that can recognize words, faces, and more!

Apr 25 Introduction to Machine Learning, Probability Basics
Apr 27 Probability Basics, Bayesian Inference
Apr 29 Naive bayes classifer, Model complexity, Cross validation HW4 due

Week 6: Building machines that can recognize words, faces, and more!  (contd.)

May 2 Clustering  
May 4 How to Evaluate Classifiers?
May 6 Midterm Review  

Week 7: Mid-term, Watson, and the World of Simulations

May 9 Mid term exam
May 11 Understanding Watson
May 13 Simulations HW5 out

Week 8: Applications:

May 16 Robotics Project proposal due
May 18 TBD  
May 20 TBD HW5 due, HW6 out

Week 9: Applications:

May 23 Computation Finance  
May 25 Computer Vision
May 27 Natural Language Processing HW6 due

Week 10: Final project presentation

May 31 No class (Memorial day)    
June 1 Project presentation Project slides and code due
Open Link in New Tab Download