Attendance Policy

CS1800 is an in-person class, and attendance is expected for both lectures and recitations. However, we don’t take attendance and we don't want or expect anyone to come to class when they're sick. We'll post the lecture notes from each day, along with short videos that you can use to catch up on missed material.

These videos were pre-recorded. We do not record lectures in CS1800. If you need to miss class/recitation...

  • Watch the videos and read the notes posted from the given lecture. Write down notes as you read/watch; it’ll help.
  • Complete the practice problems from your recitation, on your own or with a friend or in office hours.
  • Stop by Laney's or a TA's office hours to make sure you're caught up and feeling confident on the material.
  • There is no need to notify us about missing class.
The videos, plus the notes from class, are meant to be helpful for days when you need to miss class, but they will definitely NOT be an identical experience! They should suffice when you miss a class or two due to illness or emergency, but we do not recommend using them as a substitute for regular participation in the in-person lecture.

You must be present in-person for scheduled quizzes. Dates are posted in the class syllabus, on the schedule page of the course website, and on Canvas. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the schedule so that you don’t miss the exams.

Recitations (CS1802)

You must be registered for a lecture section (CS1800) as well as a recitation (CS1802). Recitations are in-person and attendance is expected.

CS1802 Recitations are dedicated time set aside to work on practice problems that specifically prepare you for the current homework or upcoming quiz. Homeworks are released on Tuesdays and your recitation will meet either Wednesday or Thursday; the recitation is your opportunity to solidify your understanding of lecture material, ask questions, and get support for the current homework or upcoming quiz.

Practice Problems, and their solutions, will be released each week for recitation. These practice problems are labelled according to which Homework or Quiz topic they will help you prepare for. You do not need to complete every practice question; we encourage you to do at least one per topic, and to prioritize the topics you would like to practice.

You do not need to submit practice problems; we will release solutions so you can check your work.

Your recitation is led by a Khoury College professor, assisted by a knowledgeable and wonderful Teaching Assistant. Professors and TAs are fantastic resources, and you have the opportunity in recitation to work with them in a smaller group -- I strongly recommend you take advantage of the time to review your solutions to these practice problems, ask for help on the homework, or review material from lecture.

Inclusive Classroom

We believe that diversity and inclusiveness are essential to excellence in academic discourse and innovation. In this class, the perspective of people of all races, ethnicities, gender expressions and gender identities, religions, sexual orientations, disabilities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and nationalities will be respected and viewed as a resource and benefit throughout the semester. Suggestions to further diversify class materials and assignments are encouraged. If any course meetings conflict with your religious events, please do not hesitate to reach out to Laney to make alternative arrangements.

Name and Pronoun Usage

As this course includes some discussion, it is vitally important for us to create an educational environment of inclusion and mutual respect. This includes the ability for all students to have their chosen gender pronoun(s) and chosen name affirmed. If the class roster does not align with your name and/or pronouns, please inform Laney of the necessary changes.

Lecture Questions

We invite everyone to raise their hands to ask and answer questions during class, and to engage in discussion with classmates. However, we know it’s not always the easiest thing to speak up in a big classroom, or to clarify your thoughts in real time.

Therefore, you can also ask Laney questions directly via https://forms.gle/5Gz988jzgyAfMdoi9. Laney will review these questions during the break and after lecture, and respond during lecture or on Piazza, keeping you anonymous.

To create and preserve a classroom atmosphere that optimizes teaching and learning, all participants share a responsibility in creating a civil and non-disruptive forum for the discussion of ideas. This includes all ways you interact with classmates and course staff -- in lectures, recitations, office hours, Piazza, etc.

Course Feedback

Your thoughts and concerns about this course are important. We invite you to give feedback throughout the term. You can reach out to any instructor or TA directly over email, or fill out our feedback form: https://forms.gle/VC5R7KCoaLnDQShW8

You will also be asked to fill out a formal course evaluation at the middle and end of the term.

Textbook

Recommended Textbook Discrete Structures by Harriet Fell and Javed A. Aslam. You can find the PDF free online. It can be useful to have on-hand while you're working on Homeworks and Practice Problems, but you don't need to study it before lecture.

Gradescope

Our CS1800 Gradescope page is https://www.gradescope.com/courses/1068541.

We'll use Gradescope for all homeworks. Exams will be administered on paper, but they will be scanned and you can find your exam grades and feedback on Gradescope as well. You should be automatically signed up, but make sure you're all set before the first deadline! Any questions about gradescope, post on Piazza and let us know how we can help.

All of your homework and exam scores will be available on Gradescope. They will not be posted on Canvas; you can compute your own CS1800 average with the weights given below.

Evaluation

Grades for CS1800 and CS1802 are merged. They appear on your transcript separately, but you will receive the same grade for both.
  • Homework: 45%
  • Quiz #1: 15%
  • Quiz #2: 15%
  • Quiz #3: 15%
  • Quiz #4: 10%
  • (Optional Final Exam - Replace your Score on Quiz Questions)
All quizzes and homeworks have the same weight regardless of the number of points allocated. The percentage score of each is computed in your final average -- for example, if you get 9/11 on Quiz 1, and 9/10 on Quiz 2, then the average of those two is (9/11 + 9/10) / 2 = (81.8% + 90%) / 2 = 85.9%.

Final Exam

The Final Exam is optional and will have questions similar to the quizzes; if you improve your score for a given question on the exam, then we will use the higher score when calculating your CS1800 grade.

Letter Grades

Your final grade for CS1800 will use the following breakpoints when we convert from letter to number grades.
A
94 - 100
A-
90 - 93
B+
87 - 89
B
83 - 86
B-
80 - 82
C+
77 - 79
C
73 - 76
C-
70 - 72
D
60 - 69
F
59 and below

Piazza

Sign up for our Piazza page: https://piazza.com/northeastern/fall2025/cs1800.

Piazza is here for you to ask clarifying questions on homework assignments, which the course staff is happy to answer. You should also feel free to jump into questions from others and engage in conversation.

Because this is a theory course, and solutions sometimes rely on one particular, specific insight, we have a few rules governing our CS1800 Piazza page:

  • You may not post solutions to problems.
  • You may not post a single, simple insight that enabled you to solve a problem (e.g., “Use Cantor’s diagonalization”), but you may post general approaches (e.g., “I thought this homework problem related to the class discussion on infinite binary sequences”).
  • You must be respectful of and courteous towards your fellow students and the teaching staff.
Violations of these rules will result in our closing the Piazza page.

We'll also use Piazza to post course announcements, so make sure your email settings are turned on!

Office Hours

Office hours are a great place to get clarification on concepts and have conversations with TAs and professors. You can schedule one-on-one meetings with Prof. Laney (more on course home page),or join TA office hours (more on the TA page). We don't hold office hours on university holidays.

It’ll be important that you come to office hours having already made an attempt on the homework. We will be happy to help guide you on concepts and provide clarification. We cannot provide you with answers to problems.

Homework

Homework will be assigned regularly in the course. In general, the homework will be released on Tuesday and will be due the following Tuesday at 9pm eastern.

Your solutions must be neatly hand-written. Typed submissions will not be accepted. Begin each problem on a new page. When submitting your solution, you’ll tag your pages with the specific homework problem they refer to. Failure to tag your pages upon submission will result in lost points on your homework.

Homeworks will be scored and returned to you, on Gradescope, within one week. After getting your homework back, you have the option to file a regrade request. under one of the following categories:
  • Clarity -- you’re not sure why points were taken off, even though you’ve read the rubric and your grader’s comments.
  • Mistake -- your grader mistakenly took points off.
When filing a regrade request, specify which category the request belongs in. You’ll receive a response, and possibly an updated score, from your grader. After that, if you still have concerns or questions about your grade, email laneys@northeastern.edu.

Homework Late Policy

You can submit any/all homeworks up to 48 hours late with no penalty. However, once the late deadline has passed, no submissions will be accepted. This policy exists so you take extra time when you’re especially busy, not feeling well, tending to your family, etc.; we won't make any exceptions to this policy.

Second-Chane Homework

You will have an opportunity at the end of the semester to submit one homework (HWs 1-6 only) for a new grade. This is a chance to have another go at a homework if there was one where you didn't do as well as you could have, were extra-busy or dealing with family/life stuff, or missed the deadline. On the second-chance homework, you'll get a new score that will replace your original. For this reason, homework solutions will not be released (other than HW7).

Quizzes & Final Exam

We will have four quizzes during the semester. They will be administered on paper during our regular lecture. The final exam is optional and is an opportunity to improve your quiz scores; every quiz question will have a similar question on the same topic on the final exam and you keep whichever is better.

Final exam schedules are released by the University a few weeks into the semester, and we will announce our final exam date as soon as we have it. You must be present in-person for scheduled quizzes, and for the final exam if you choose to take it. Please note the quiz/exam dates on your calendar.

Quizzes

Each quiz comprises one or two questions, but you will have the entire lecture period to complete it. Take your time, review your solutions, and make sure you feel confident about what you are submitting. You may bring one 8.5x11-inch cheat sheet, with anything written/typed on it, one side only. No other materials or devices are permitted. Phones must be silenced and put away.

If you have a relevant DAS accommodation, arrange to take the quizzes in the DAS office. Make sure you set this time up at least a week ahead of the scheduled quizzes to guarantee the time and space you need.

We expect everyone to be present for scheduled quizzes. In the case of an unforeseeable, unavoidable emergency that causes you to miss an quiz, reach out to Laney before the quiz date. I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to reschedule, but the earlier you reach out the better. If you reach out after the quiz date, we won’t be able to reschedule.

Quiz Schedule
  • Friday, October 3. Quiz one in lecture (two questions).
  • Friday, October 24. Quiz two in lecture (two questions).
  • Friday, November 14. Quiz three in lecture (two questions).
  • Friday, December 5. Quiz four in lecture (one question).

Final Exam

The final exam is optional and is an opportunity to improve your quiz averages. There will be 7 total questions on the final, each corresponding to one quiz question and on the same topic.

For each question, we will keep the score from the quiz or from the final, whichever is higher. You can complete as many questions during the final as you would like; if you are happy with your quiz score on a give topic/question, skip the corresponding one on the final.

If you are happy with all of your quiz scores, then there is no need to take the final exam.

The final exam schedule is usually released by the University within the first few weeks of the semester, and we will notify you as soon as we know it. You must be present in-person for the scheduled final exam if you choose to it; final exams cannot be rescheduled.

If you have a relevant DAS accommodation, arrange to take the final exam in the DAS office. Make sure you set this time up at least a week ahead of the scheduled time to guarantee the time and space you need.

Academic Integrity

Details of our academic integrity policies for Homework & Quizzes/Exams are below. If you have a question about what is considered a violation of this policy, please ak! The university's academic integrity policy discusses actions regarded as violations and consequences for students: https://osccr.sites.northeastern.edu.

Homework Policy

We encourage you to work with classmates on homework problems; list all collaborators on the first page of your submission. You may also consult outside sources, including generative AI; list all outside sources you referenced and how you used them on the first page of your submission.

However, you must hand-write all your solutions yourself, in your own words. Do not submit anything you can’t explain. Typed submissions will not be accepted. Copying solutions from another person or an outside source is a violation of our academic integrity policy.

Any violation of our academic integrity policy will result in a 0 on the assignment, and will also be referred to OSCCR for formal evaluation.

Here are some concrete guidelines.
  • Never look at someone else's written homework solutions -- not a classmate’s, and not chatGPT’s.
  • Do not consult any person outside of our CS1800 semester.
  • If you produce a solution with another person on a whiteboard, don't simply copy it down afterwards. You must, on your own, write your own solution by hand.
  • If someone explains an answer to you, including an AI someone, do not write down their exact words; instead, on your own write up your solution afterwards.
  • If you collaborate with any other person or tool, write their name on the first page of your homework submission

Quiz & Exam Policy

Quizzes and the final exam will be administered in-person, on paper. You may bring one 8.5x11-inch cheat sheet, with anything written/typed on it, one side only. No other materials or devices are permitted. Phones must be silenced and put away.

During a quiz/exam, you may not look at a classmate’s paper and you may not look for solutions from any source besides your cheat sheet.

Please do not discuss the exam/quiz with anyone (including on Piazza) until after it has been graded and returned.

Accessibility

If you require support during the course due to a disability please ensure that you are already registered with the University’s Disability Access Services, and contact Laney to coordinate any support needed during the course.

Title IX makes it clear that violence and harassment based on sex and gender are Civil Rights offenses subject to the same kinds of accountability and the same kinds of support applied to offenses against other protected categories such as race, national origin, etc. If you or someone you know has been harassed or assaulted, you can find the appropriate resources here: Northeastern OUEC.