COMPSCI 250: Introduction to Computation

Marius Minea

Fall 2019

Topics: COMPSCI 250 is the undergraduate core course in discrete mathematics and will deal with logic, elementary number theory, proof by induction, recursion on trees, search algorithms, finite state machines, and a bit of computability. This course is primarily intended for undergraduates in computer science and related majors such as mathematics or computer engineering.

Basic Information:

Instructor: Marius Minea (marius at cs), office: LGRC A261, office hours Tue 5-6pm, Thu 3-4pm
TAs: Ojaswi Acharya, Maham Haroon, Pardis Malekzadeh, William Toohey, Lijun Zhang
See Piazza for office hours schedule
UCAs: Matthew Gregory, Janja Kovacevic, Ryan Lee, Patrick Lei, Steven Qiu, Shane Parr, Adam Rivelli, Agam Sandhu, Zhong Tang, Renos Zabounidis
Lectures: MWF 1:25 - 2:15, Thompson 104
Discussions: There are eight discussion sections, meeting at 11:15 and 12:20 on Wednesday, as indicated in SPIRE. Each discussion will have a written assignment which you will carry out in groups. Discussion attendance is required, so that missing a discussion will incur a grade penalty.
Exams:
Midterm 1: Thu 10 Oct (7-9 p.m.) on Lectures 1-15), ILC N151 Exam and Solutions
Midterm 2: Thu 7 Nov (7-9 p.m.) on Lectures 16-27, ILC N151 Exam and Solutions
Final Exam: Wed 18 Dec (1-3 p.m.), cumulative, Totman Gym Solutions

Prerequisites: COMPSCI 187 (programming with data structures) and MATH 132 (Calculus II) are prerequisites.

Textbook (required): David Mix Barrington, A Mathematical Foundation for Computer Science. Part 1 (chapters 1-4) is available as e-book, published by Kendall Hunt. Part 2 is available in printed form at Collective Copies in Amherst Center. Prior versions of the textbook that were intended for COMPSCI 250 may be used. Chapters 1-5 of the current version have quite a few more problems and solved exercises (10 of each per section in each chapter), so getting the e-book is recommended.

The course is using Moodle for quizzes and grades, Piazza (sign up here) for discussion and questions, Gradescope for submitting and grading homework, and the iClicker system for in-class questions.