Computer Science 250: Introduction to Computation, Spring 2009

CMPSCI 250 is one of the two undergraduate core courses in discrete mathematics. Its main material consists of fundamental mathematical concepts, proof techniques, elementary number theory, induction, trees, graphs, search, regular expressions, and automata theory. The course is primarily intended for undergraduates in computer science and related majors such as mathematics or computer engineering. CMPSCI 187 (programming with data structures) and MATH 132 (Calculus II) are corequisites and most students in the course have already taken both.

Instructor: Philipp Weis, pweis@cs.umass.edu, office hour Tuesday 1:00 - 2:00, and by appointment, LGRC A302

Teaching Assistant: Grant Sherrick, sherrick@cs.umass.edu, office hour Monday 3:00 - 4:00, LGRT 220

Class Meetings: Lecture Tuesday and Thursday 2:30 - 3:45, Discussion Monday 1:25 - 2:15, LGRC A301

Textbook: Kenneth Rosen, Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, sixth edition, McGraw-Hill, 2007. Most of the course will closely follow this book, and it is essential that you have access to the sixth edition. The book is available at the textbook annex, but you can of course get your copy from wherever you prefer.

Grading: There will be about ten homework assignments, group exercises in the discussion section, three evening exams and one cumulative final exam. The homework assignments count for 20% of the grade, the discussion exercises for 10%, the evening exams for 15% each, and the final for 25%.

Academic Honesty: All work submitted must be your own work in your own presentation. However, I do encourage discussions about the homework with other students to exchange ideas and help each other, as long as your write-up is your own, and in your own words. All sources besides the textbook need to be properly cited, and you will not get credit for anything that is not your own work. Cheating on the homework or on the exams is taken very seriously and will have severe consequences.

Syllabus Homework
Last modified: Mon Feb 2 10:25:06 EST 2009