600.105 M&Ms
(the freshman CS experience)
Fall 2008

Meetings:Thursdays, 3-3:50p, Shaffer 101
Course Coordinator:Dr. Joanne Houlahan
Course Web Page:http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~houlahan/cs105/fall08.html

Overview: This course is required for all freshmen Computer Science majors. Students will participate in four 3-week blocks of meetings with different computer science professors, each focused on a central theme. The class will be very interactive, enabling students to think about and explore topics in a fun way. Transfers into the major and minors may enroll by permission only.

BlockDatesThemePrimary ProfessorSecondary Faculty
A9/11-9/25Programming Languages/TheoryScott SmithRao Kosaraju
B10/2-10/16SystemsAndreas TerzisRandal Burns
C10/23-11/6SecurityAvi RubinSusan Hohenberger
D11/13-12/4Natural Language Processing/AIJason EisnerDavid Yarowsky

Grading: Pass/Fail is the only grading method available, and will be based on active participation and homework as described below. Attendance is required.

Class Structure: Each block will have 3 sessions. The first will be a lecture by a CS professor to introduce the theme. The second week will usually be a small group activity to get some hands-on experience and active learning. The third week of each session will be student news topics. Each student will choose one of the four blocks. During that block, those students will be required to lunch with one of the block professors, and also to do a 5 minute presentation (on the third week of the block) on a current news item related to the theme.


Computer Science Academic Integrity Code:

Cheating is wrong. Cheating hurts our community by undermining academic integrity, creating mistrust, and fostering unfair competition. The university will punish cheaters with failure on an assignment, failure in a course, permanent transcript notation, suspension, and/or expulsion. Offenses may be reported to medical, law or other professional or graduate schools when a cheater applies.

Violations can include cheating on exams, plagiarism, reuse of assignments without permission, improper use of the Internet and electronic devices, unauthorized collaboration, alteration of graded assignments, forgery and falsification, lying, facilitating academic dishonesty, and unfair competition. Ignorance of these rules is not an excuse.

Academic honesty is required in all work you submit to be graded. Except where the instructor specifies group work, you must solve all homework and programming assignments without the help of others. For example, you must not look at anyone else's solutions (including program code) to your homework problems. However, you may discuss assignment specifications (not solutions) with others to be sure you understand what is required by the assignment.

If your instructor permits using fragments of source code from outside sources, such as your textbook or on-line resources, you must properly cite the source. Not citing it constitutes plagiarism. Similarly, your group projects must list everyone who participated.

Falsifying program output or results is prohibited.

Your instructor is free to override parts of this policy for particular assignments. To protect yourself: (1) Ask the instructor if you are not sure what is permissible. (2) Seek help from the instructor, TA or CAs, as you are always encouraged to do, rather than from other students. (3) Cite any questionable sources of help you may have received.

On every exam, you will sign the following pledge: "I agree to complete this exam without unauthorized assistance from any person, materials or device. [Signed and dated]". Your course instructors will let you know where to find copies of old exams, if they are available.

For more information, see the guide on "Academic Ethics for Undergraduates" and the Ethics Board web site (http://ethics.jhu.edu).