Student Support

1. Discord Server

Join the Discord server

Announcements

Important course announcements will be posted by the course staff in the #announcements channel. It is your responsibility to check these updates weekly to stay informed.


Content Questions

For assistance with homework, MPs, quizzes, or general questions about the course, please post in the appropriate forum channels on Discord (e.g. hwk-support). Course staff and fellow students will help, but will not provide complete solutions. Do not post your own complete solutions publicly.

Note: We do not debug code via Discord. For debugging assistance, please attend one of our office hours.


Private Concerns

For private matters, use the #private-tickets channel on Discord to initiate a conversation with the course staff or instructor.
Please do not email course staff directly! We use Discord to make sure that all questions are addressed efficiently and accurately.


2. Office Hours

Office hours start from week 2, and are available both in-person in the Siebel basement and virtually via Discord.

Schedule Changes: Check Discord for any updates to the office hours schedule before attending.

Using Discord for Online Office Hours: Please join the "⁠Create New OH Room" channel to create a voice channel, and then join the Queue! We will join your voice channel once we're ready to help you. Also see the #coordination channel on Discord for more info.


Office Hours Calendar

Click on an event to see more details!



3. Happy Hour - hosted by Mariana

Tuesdays 3pm-4pm, Siebel 2213

This is not the "traditional" office hours. This is just a time when I will be at my office to connect with students. We can talk about anything you want: career goals, projects, research, hobbies, big-picture conversations about course content, other courses and programs, weather, food, etc. This is a great opportunity to foster community and connections! I have really enjoyed these happy hours in previous semesters, I hope you have a chance to stop by! Make sure to check Discord for announcements before you go to Siebel, since I may need to cancel or move the scheduled time in some weeks.

If you have specific questions about homework, and need someone to look at your solution and/or code, this is not the best venue for that. We have over 25 office hours per week with course staff that can help you with these type of interactions.


4. Tips for using course resources

We often get this question from students: "How can I study for this course?". We will give here recommendations based on observations, personal experiences, and feedback received over the years. Of course, every student is different, and the recommendations below may not apply to you.

  1. Complete the pre-lectures first. Either watch the pre-recorded videos and/or read the relevant content from the Online Textbook (you can also find the slides there).
  2. Start the homework AFTER you go over the course content and have a good understanding of the material. Use the homework to test your knowledge. Go back and review the concepts when you get questions marked as incorrect. I know it can be tempting to just keep trying until you get the question marked as correct (the so desirable PrairieLearn green badge!), but you will be missing the opportunity to actually learn from your mistakes.
  3. Make sure you complete the pre-lectures BEFORE the corresponding group activities. You will have more productive and interesting conversations with your team mates if you know the content.
  4. You will have access to the Practice Quiz the week before the Quiz. Don't start creating your Practice Quizzes until you completed the steps above. This is a great opportunity to really see how well you have learned the material before you take your actual quiz.


5. Course programming language

We will be using Python with the libraries numpy, scipy, and matplotlib for all course assignments. No other languages are permitted. Python has a very gentle learning curve, so you should feel at home even if you've never done any work in Python.

All graded course assignments are completed directly on PrairieLearn. Thus you don't need to install Python on your own device. However, if you wish to install Python and the Numpy+Scipy+Matplotlib stack, you are free to do so in any way that works. We recommend using Anaconda, which is a (free) Python distribution that includes Numpy+Scipy+Matplotlib. In addition, you should use Python 3.

The course staff has created a short Python tutorial that is available as a PrairieLearn assessment, for students that have not worked with Python before, or need some brushing up.


Third Party References