CSE 101 Syllabus

Winter 2024

Lecture: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 12:00-12:50pm in CENTER 105.

Discussion Section: Monday 2:00-2:50pm in CENTER 212.
Course Webpage: http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~dakane/CSE101/
Professor: Daniel Kane
Email: dakane ”at” ucsd.edu
Office Hours: Wednesday 3-4, Friday 11-12 and Friday 3-4 in CSE 4212, or by appointment.
TAs:
Jeremy Lei Office Hours: Friday 1:30-2:30 in CSE B250A
Tuesday 11-12 and Thursday 11-12 on zoom at https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/4385138714,
Xinsong Lin Office Hours: Wednesday 2-3 in CSE B240A,
Thursday 3-5 on zoom at https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/94052327237
Onur Tepencelik Office Hours: Monday 10-11 in CSE B240A,
Wednesday 11-12 on zoom at https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/95832999900
Office Hours: TBA

Course Description: CSE 101 will cover the basics of the design and analysis of algorithms
with a focus on non-numerical algorithms. We will cover general algorithmic techniques such
as divide and conquer, greedy algorithms and dynamic programming. We will also discuss
some important graph algorithms as well as NP-completeness and techniques for dealing
with it. In the process of doing so, we will investigate several important algorithms such as
sorting, shortest paths and longest common substrings. Time permitting we may also cover
additional topics such as linear programming, number theoretic algorithms and quantum
computation.
Prerequisites: CSE 12, CSE 21
Textbook: The textbook for the course will be Algorithms by Sanjoy Dasgupta, Christos
Papadimitriou, and Umesh Vazirani.
Exams: There will be three in-class exams on October 18th, November 1st and November
22nd. The final exam will be on December 12th from 11:30-2:30.
Homework:
Submission Policy: Homework will be assigned on weeks without exams other than Thanks-
giving week and the last week of class, and will be due on gradescope on Friday at 11:59pm.

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I will attempt to have new homeworks available on the course webpage at least a week before
they are due. We will put time limits on when regrade requests can be submitted, which
will typically be about a week after when your grades have been returned. To accommodate
exceptional situations such as accidents or serious illness, your lowest homework score will
be dropped. To get an account for the gradescope for this course (if one was not created for
you automatically), use entry code EV2PGB.
Write-up Guidelines: Unless otherwise specified, all homework problems will require you to
justify your answers. This will usually mean that you provide some sort of mathematical
proof to justify your claims. As an example, a common type of homework question will be
to provide an efficient algorithm to solve some particular computational problem. A full
solution to such a problem should consist of the following:
• A description of your proposed algorithm and a claimed bound on the runtime: This
description should preferably be a high level English language description of what your
algorithm does (though detailed enough that it can be reasonably analyzed). This
description may be supplemented with pseudocode if desired.
• A proof of correctness. In particular, a proof that your algorithm does correctly solve
the computational problem in question.
• A proof that your algorithm runs in time given by your stated runtime bound.
The runtime analysis you give should provide an upper bound on the running time of the
algorithm (generally given in terms of the big-O notation). This upper bound is not required
to be tight (though you are encouraged to think about what the actual runtime of the
algorithm is and to see if you can find further improvements), but your solution will be
graded as if it were. For example, if you submit an algorithm and prove a runtime bound of
O(n3 ) operations, then even if your algorithm in actually ran in O(n2 ) time, your solution
would be graded as if it actually took the full Ω(n3 ) operations to run.
In addition to this you should make sure to write your solution either in clear handwriting
or typed using a computer, use of LATEXor similar typesetting package is recommended (for
those unfamiliar, there is a brief primer on LATEXon the course webpage). If the graders are
unable to decipher your writing, you will not get credit for it.
Collaboration Guidelines: Students are encouraged to collaborate on homework assignments.
You should feel free to discuss the problems and talk about how to come up with solutions
with each other. On the other hand, you are expected to write up your solution independently
of any collaborators, and you should not share written solutions to homework problems with
other students before the homework deadline. If you do collaborate with other students on
the homework, you should make sure to list any collaborators that you had on any given
problem.
Use of Outside Resources: You should not attempt to search for homework solutions online
or in sources outside of the course text. You may use such sources as a study guide, but if
you accidentally stumble upon a homework solution in such an outside source you should
cite it in your homework solution. If your solution proves to be too similar to the cited one,
you may lose credit on the problem, however failure to cite the other solution will be treated
as academic dishonesty.

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 Note that this includes the use of AI in order to solve homework questions.
Academic Integrity: Academic integrity will be taken very seriously be the course staff.
Breaches of integrity may have broader consequences outside of the assignment in question.
The following will all considered to be breaches of academic integrity:

• Collaboration on homeworks beyond the scope outlined in the section above (including
sharing of homework solutions with other students before the homework deadline).

• Failure to cite collaborators on homeworks or outside sources used to find homework

solutions.

• Collaboration or copying on exams of any kind.

• Use of aids on exams outside of explicitly allowed materials (this may vary by exam).

Grading: Course grades will be determined using the following breakdown:

Homework: 15%
Exams: 3 × 15%
Final 40%
I will attempt to keep the grade distribution for this class similar to what it has been
historically for CSE 101 (though I may adjust this slightly if I am particularly impressed
or disappointed with the class as a whole). That said, I often give very difficult exams, so
you should not be worried by low exams scores unless the rest of the class did much better.
Historically, the cutoffs for A- and B- have been about 75 and 60, respectively.
Schedule: Below is a rough schedule for topics covered in the class:
Graph Algorithms (Chapters 3 and 4)
Divide and Conquer (Chapter 2)
Greedy Algorithms (Chapter 5)
Dynamic Programming (Chapter 6)
NP-Completeness (Chapters 8 and 9)