One last comment

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 03 September 2021, 12:56:04 AM.

Oh hi again,

I knew I forgot some things from the previous notice (I had a list in my head).

1. Exam

I have released to your grades page your exam mark breakdown (though short answer is lumped into one mark). I want to be really clear that it's normal for your marks to be lower than you expected - exams are just like this quite often. In my experience a student who thinks they got an 85% will get like a 60%, and those who think they got a 60% will get like a 35%. Or something like that. Because exams are quite "time-poor" its just easy to make mistakes, miss things, miss-interpret things without having the benefit you do with assignments - chatting to friends, sleeping and coming back the next day, etc.

The average exam mark was 22/40. If you got 20/40 in the final exam that puts you in the top half of performers. Keep things in perspective.

2. If you're feeling sad about marks

Look - sometimes marks suck. Marks can carry some pretty bad implications and feelings sometimes - whether it be with family, friends, or more practical things like academic standing, scholarships, visas, etc.

I have been surrounded by a lot of people who failed courses in my life - as a student, as a tutor, as a lecturer. In the vast majority of those situations I can speak confidently that doing poorly or failing a course was something people picked themselves up from and made progress in spite of it. After months or a year they'd completely forget about their marks.

So many people I know that have failed courses are now doing amazing things like engineering at Tesla, or fancy jobs overseas, with big salaries. A poor mark in a course is just a speedbump for most people. And the reality for many is that a bad mark in the course is only as bad as what you follow up with in future terms. These things happen, and I have faith in most of you to be able to put it in perspective, pick yourself up, and make the most out of what comes next. For anyone feeling in a bad place with their marks send me an email about it anytime if you want to chat.

Regardless of anything I try and say, it's easy to get into a bad headspace about all this stuff. For a small number of students, failing courses can have practical implications (e.g. visas) that can't be waived by thinking positively. It's just awful. Always reach out to people you know and trust if you're ever feeling down - it will be OK. And remember that UNSW has a bunch of services like CAPS that you can seek support from.

Top Students

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Thursday 02 September 2021, 11:18:05 PM.

Hi everyone!

I'd like to congratulate our top achieving students, in order:

1. Jack Li (top mark in the course)
2. Matthew Winfred
3. Cameron McGowan
4. Yasiru Jayasooriya
5. Varun Sethu
6. Andy Huang
7. Kaustubh Mishra
8. Trent Russell
9. Vincent Nguyen
10. Harry Zhang

A big congratulations to everyone again for their incredible work this term. And thank you for all the both kind and constructive words from MyExperience. They've been passed onto the team and will no doubt be taken back on board :)

As many of you know this was the first time running this course, so thank you again for making it such a great and pleasant experience. Before the term started I was quite unsure if I'd made the right decision in saying yes, but after interacting with so many great students and working with an incredible team of tutors it has awesome.

If nothing else, I hope your takeaway from COMP2521 is that you remember that every situation has a different problem-solution fit, and that particular fit sometimes needs to be considered in terms of the time and memory needed at scale. You'll forgot about Tries and Hamiltonian paths in a few months, but never lose the habit you have hopefully developed of thinking critically about algorithms and data structures.

Hoping we all see each other around!!

Hayden

Supp exam when close to failing

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Thursday 02 September 2021, 03:44:57 PM.

If you are a student in your final term and this was the only course you have failed; you will have been identified by the student services team as a student who's potentially eligible for supplementary assessment (e.g. a Supp exam).
If this is not your final course in your final term, we cannot offer you supplementary assessment, except via Special Consideration.
- CSE

Supplementary Exam

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Wednesday 01 September 2021, 10:15:32 PM, last modified Thursday 02 September 2021, 03:47:11 PM.

Students sitting the supplementary exam will have details sent to them 10 minutes prior to the exam start time. UNSW Exams unit has emailed you with date details. The exam will run from 2pm-5pm.

Informal Chats

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Wednesday 25 August 2021, 08:37:34 PM, last modified Wednesday 25 August 2021, 08:50:45 PM.

Hi everyone!

If you want to come say hi, ask me any questions, talk about CSE, degrees, or really anything random - come and join a call tomorrow open to anyone in our community. Just a chance to chat and catch up. Anyone is welcome.

1:30pm - 3pm Thursday 26th August

<label></label> https://unsw.zoom.us/j/85898033662

Ass2 Results Released

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Monday 23 August 2021, 02:12:53 AM.

Assignment 2 marking has been completed.

You can find your grade for assignment 2 on the Webcms3 grades page .

You can find the details of your marking and associated feedback by clicking the "Collect Submission" on the assignment 2 page .

If you believe errors in the automarking could have been fixed by a few simple changes to your code (either because it didn't compile or didn't pass tests), then please fill in this form . We will only be accepting form submission until Wednesday 25th August @ 11:59pm.

Congrats 🥳🥳

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 20 August 2021, 10:31:41 AM.

Hi everyone,

Congrats on making it through the exam yesterday :) I hope it was OK!

Generally speaking we've been very lenient on nearly everyone who submitted 5-10 minutes late (or even more late in cases where I've emailed you) due to technical issues. Unless you submitted 10+ minutes late and didn't email me, you should rest easy about that. Pretty much everyone who reached out we sorted out.

I'll post over the weekend (likely end of weekend) with your assignment 2 results.

Thanks!!

Hayden

Final Exam

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Thursday 19 August 2021, 09:00:11 AM, last modified Thursday 19 August 2021, 09:11:38 AM.

Please check your UNSW email for instructions about the final exam.

Alternatively check the forum: https://edstem.org/au/courses/5920/discussion/5564...

Exam Revision + Ass2 Mark Update + Exam Reminder

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Monday 16 August 2021, 10:20:35 PM.

Hi everyone!

A few quick things from me:

• For the recording of the revision lecture, see it HERE .
• I will email you on Thursday morning (19th) with instructions about the final exam just prior to the start.
• If you have ELS or exam time adjustments, you will receive an email from me before 8pm tomorrow (Tuesday). If you haven't received an email by then, but expect an update, please get in touch with me.
• Sadly, we won't be able to release any assignment 2 automarking marks before the final exam. There are some operational constraints that we didn't expect. These constraints make it very hard to separate it from your final mark and distribute it (sorry). Further, it's also a troublesome to release marks to students where you might artificially get a very low mark due to something like a compiler error - and we don't want people going into a final exam stressed, because we would not have capacity to review your ass2 marks until after the final exam. I am sorry that this news is not ideal for some, but rest assured that it was made on a balance of considerations.

Thanks everyone! Enjoy the next few days and I'll chat to you all again on Thursday morning :)

MyExperience Reminder! Only 48 hours left :(

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Tuesday 10 August 2021, 07:00:15 PM.

Hi everyone!

Please fill out MyExperience ASAP! 😲 😲 Only 38% of people have filled it out.

CLICK HERE TO FILL IT OUT
CLICK HERE TO FILL IT OUT
CLICK HERE TO FILL IT OUT
CLICK HERE TO FILL IT OUT

This will be the last reminder. It takes a few minutes. Leave trash in the comments if that's what it takes, at least fill out the ratings :) Or you can leave a funny joke (if the joke is funny). Thank you!!!!

Hayden

🦓 End of week 10 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Saturday 07 August 2021, 02:32:49 AM.

Hey team,

Congratulations on most people for getting their assignment 2 in this week. Term 2 usually is where fatigue starts to set in, so I'm proud of everyone for pushing through. Just the home stretch to go now, let's get you over the line.

Updates below:

MyExperience

Please don't forget to fill in MyExperience.

FILL IN MYEXPERIENCE HERE: https://myexperience.unsw.edu.au/

Did you know that 3 out of 4 students haven't completed MyExperience? Let's please get more people filling it in, otherwise I get in trouble! Participation is really important for us to understand how students feel about a course.

Revision Q&A

I will be hosting a revision Q&A on Monday the 16th of August from 10:30am-12pm . It will be done via YouTube and links will be available on the timetable page just before.

If you have any other questions about the exam or need help, please post on the forum - we'll be there to help out.

Sample Exam

The sample exam should be polished off now. We're trying to find some sample answers too - we'll keep working on that over the next week or so :)

Have a great weekend!

✈️ End of week 9 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 30 July 2021, 09:46:48 PM, last modified Friday 30 July 2021, 10:26:32 PM.

Hi everyone!

I hope you're all keeping your head mostly OK throughout lockdown. I know it's a tough time for all... I do have some updates for you below, though!

Assignment 1 marks released

Assignment 1 marking has been completed.

You can find your grade for assignment 1 on the Webcms3 grades page .

You can find the details of your marking and associated feedback by clicking the "Collect Submission" on the assignment 1 page .

If you believe errors in the automarking could have been fixed by a few simple changes to your code (either because it didn't compile or didn't pass tests), then please fill in this form .

If you have questions about your style or other subjective feedback, please email your tutor & lab assistant.

CSESoc COMP2521 competition with prizes!

If you're looking for a chance to review COMP2521 content in a fun way, with the chance of winning prizes, then sign up to CSESoc's event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/226797369181884

The event is in a few days, so hurry!

MyExperience is now open

MyExperience for T2 is now open! It's open for a bit over a week, so no rush, though please make sure you take the time to fill in the forms and leave the feedback. It's a vital part of the evolution of every course (this one included!). As you know this is my first time running COMP2521 so I'm super excited to hear how you've all found it and what you think we can do better at :)

Exam information now available

Some exam information has been provided on the exam page . Take a read of it! We will talk through this more and answer questions you might have in the the week 10 lectures.

Informal chats & catch Up

At the end of this term, I'm going to hold a 90 minute open meeting/call/chat with anyone in CSE that wants to come and talk about courses they've done in the past, courses they might do with me in the future, have conversations about education, or just chat about anything amidst this fairly isolating world of COVID.

It will be 1:30pm-3pm on the 26th of August. The zoom link can be found here: https://unsw.zoom.us/j/85898033662

It is open to literally everyone. So come hang out and chat - if you want a reminder about it either put it in your calendar or shoot me an email so I can remind you!

See you on Tuesday! :) Sad this term is nearly over. Good luck with assignment 2.

From CSESoc!

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Tuesday 20 July 2021, 11:26:00 PM.

This weekend, CSESoc and SecSoc are running an introductory Capture The Flag competition targeted towards first-year students. Our team was wondering if a notification could be sent out to students undertaking your course to promote this event. The event details/blurb are as follows:

CSESoc & SecSoc bring you Newbie CTF! CTF’s are Capture the Flag Competitions 🏁 where you can hack! When participating you are given flags from finding exploits. Come along to get a taster of what Cyber Security involves!

📍 Where: Online, https://secso.cc/discord

Thanks for your time and continued support!

🥑 End of week 7 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Saturday 17 July 2021, 07:25:50 PM.

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share a big congratulations to most of you for submitting assignment 1. I've definitely seen some sighs of reliefs and the occasional concerned email come my way.

I think one thing I want to leave you all with is just a reminder that however you end up doing in these assignments, they're always learning experiences. If you worked hard and don't get the mark you want, you learn something about where to improve. If you didn't work hard because of procrastination, you have a chance to reflect on how to do better next time. If you were battling other priorities, it's always more learning about how you can manage them differently in future. These are weekly battles that you will continue to face for years to come. I continue to make mistakes regularly that impact me negatively!

So if you are feeling a bit beat down, don't worry. Do you remember what specific marks you got 4 years ago when you were ~16 years old? Probably not. Did it ruin or solve all your life problems? Very unlikely. In 4 years you'll feel the same about the details of a lot of what happened this year. Lockdown or being locked out of the country makes things harder, but I believe in you all for getting through the mud.

So! Some updates:

• We're releasing the rest of the tutorials and labs on Monday.
• There is a quiz and a lab due on Monday (just like most weeks! Nothing new).
• A new quiz will be available on Monday.
• Assignment 2 has been released and we have talked about it in the Thursday lecture (recording uploaded tonight, live link here ).
• Expect to see your assignment 1 marks returned to you around start-mid week 10 (it takes about 2 weeks to mark everyone).

See you on Tuesday!

💀 Monday 12th July update (UNSW Outage)

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Monday 12 July 2021, 04:13:50 PM.

Hi everyone,

UNSW had a major power outage today which led to intermittent CSE systems for 5 hours between 11am-4pm. In light of this there are some core updates about due date changes:

1. Lab05 is now due at 9am on Tuesday the 13th of July (16 hour extension)
2. Quiz04 is now due at 9am on Tuesday the 13th of July (16 hour extension)

I didn't feel comfortable extending the deadline by only a few hours given the length of the outage. I also would normally like to extend the deadline a little later in the morning tomorrow, but we need to get the automarker running before the first Tuesday tutorials. We we appreciate your understanding!

Some other key updates for you:

1. Assignment 2 has now been released . I am aware no one is going to look at this yet - that's fine, we're just letting you know it's released because we said we'd release it today :) It is due on the Friday of week 10.
2. A clarification regarding assignment 1 : Some students have asked what penalty will be incurred for memory leaks or other memory errors (basically anything that Valgrind gets angry about). We've decided on a 10% penalty on the performance section of the marks. That means a total mark loss of up to 8.5% . Please understand it's extremely difficult to assign "partial penalties" for this topic, so just assume that if Valgrind has issues whilst your program is run, you may lose those marks.

Anyway! I hope you had a good flex week. Sorry about the UNSW outage today and the stress that might have caused. Good luck with your ongoing work and I'll chat to you tomorrow during the lecture :)

Thanks!

🍍 End of week 5 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 02 July 2021, 07:05:39 PM.

Hi everyone!

I hope you get a chance to take a little bit of a break (even if one day) during flex week next week. It's been a busy 5 weeks and I'm sure some of you are tired! Very limited updates this week:

• Nothing is due in week 6 - the week 5 quiz and lab are due on the Monday of week 7 (so you have 2 weeks instead of 1).
• To get the marks for lab05 you need to demonstrate it to your tutor no later than the week 7 lab.
• If you didn't see it last week, checkout the daily running of your assignment code + leaderboard that Kevin made last weekend. It's very cool!

A big thanks to your great tutors as always for helping make what is a fairly difficult course a lot more manageable.

If I don't have any updates over the break, the next we'll chat is Tuesday of week 7!

🌻 End of week 4 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Monday 28 June 2021, 01:37:59 AM.

Hi everyone!

Not much to report on this week. Just smooth sailing. Hope everyone is keeping OK with all the COVID insanity. If you're feeling lonely in isolation just post something fun on the forum :) A life hack I'm sure many of you are familiar with: If you're feeling cooped up inside and a bit restless try putting on some headphones and listening to the rain .

General Updates

• Kevin is working on a leaderboard / centralised runner of your assignment code. Information will be posted here prior to the lecture on Tuesday (it's still a work in progress). I will briefly mention it at the start of that lecture.
• Quiz 4 will automatically be available 9am Monday of week 5.
• Week 7 tutorials and labs have been released.
• Week 7 lecture's will be released this week.
• To get the marks for lab04 you need to demonstrate it to your tutor in the week 5 lab (if you haven't already).

See you on Tuesday :)

ENGG2997 and GSOE9997

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Thursday 24 June 2021, 08:36:27 PM.

Slides from today: https://webcms3.cse.unsw.edu.au/COMP2521/21T2/reso...

You can contact Sarah on: s.grundy@unsw.edu.au

☂️ End of week 3 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Saturday 19 June 2021, 11:39:31 AM, last modified Saturday 19 June 2021, 11:53:54 AM.

Hi everyone!

We're officially one third through the time of the course (if you exclude flex week). If you're feeling a bit tired early on, don't worry, in 13 days you'll be at the beginning of flex week.

Here are some key updates about everything 2521:

1. Content & Work reminders

• Assignment 1 will be released at 9pm on Monday night (week 4) . We will try and discuss it briefly in the Thursday lecture.
• Quiz 3 will automatically be available 9am Monday.
• Week 5 tutorials and labs have been released.
• Week 5 lecture's will be released on Monday.
• To get the marks for lab03 you need to demonstrate it to your tutor in the week 4 lab (if you haven't already).

1. Other updates

• I have updated some of the binary tree code in the week 3 lecture code ("Exercises") to be a little bit cleaner for everyone.
• A student gave feedback around changing their name to their correct name on Webcms3. If you email me directly I can help you out with that. Sadly Webcms3 (I didn't design it) isn't synced to those UNSW databases, so things need manual changes.
• Thanks for being patient with some of the odd little mistakes and typos in the lecture. New slide decks + first time I'm lecturing this course. They're fixed up pretty quick, but just wanted to say thank you and that I appreciate your understanding.

See you on Tuesday!! Guess what we're talking about? More trees!

🌷 End of week 2 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Sunday 13 June 2021, 08:48:42 AM.

Hi everyone!

I hope you've had a great week 2. I think what's been the best part for me is having seen people "warmed" up into things. Week 1 always feels like a bit of a flurry because you're just back from break and then there are linked lists, pointers, queues, compilations, debugging, etc etc etc. But just talking to students and being on the forum this week it feels like you are all getting into the swing of things :) That isn't to say that you're finding everything "easy" (I wouldn't call it an "easy" course), but it's to say people are showing confidence in being able to pursue and tackle hard problems - and that's awesome. So keep it up.

Here are some key updates about everything 2521:

1. Content & Work reminders

• Quiz 2 will automatically be available 9am Monday (tomorrow). This quiz, like others, will sometimes require knowledge taught in week 3 to answer.
• Week 4 tutorials and labs have been released.
• Week 4 lecture's will be released on Monday (tomorrow).
• To get the marks for lab02 you need to demonstrate it to your tutor in the week 3 lab (if you haven't already).

1. Other updates

• The Youtube link on the lecture page was linking incorrectly. I've fixed that.
• I updated the Set-array-sorted.c code from the lectures and just generally fixed up little issues we uncovered during the week 2 lecture.

See you on Tuesday!! We'll be discussing trees this week. 🌲 🌲

I hope you are enjoying your long weekend. Make sure to go outside so you don't turn into an icicle 🥶🥶

🔥 End of week 1 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Saturday 05 June 2021, 07:47:07 PM.

Hi everyone!

Thanks for a great first week together. It was awesome seeing so many people at the lectures! And a few of the tutors I talked to said they had a great time with classes this week. I hope that it's been a balanced introduction to some of the new content. We've re-structured some of the labs so that we don't hit you with lecture content as quickly as previous terms (e.g. week 3 lab is mostly on week 2 lectures).

Here are some key updates about everything 2521:

1. Lab 1 due on Monday, demonstrated week 2

A reminder that you must submit your lab01 via give no later than 5pm on Monday (7th June) . There is no late penalty for late submissions, we simply don't accept them.

Submitting via give is not what guarantees you the marks though. To receive the remaining marks and confirm your automarks you are required to show your work to your tutor during your lab this coming week (week 2). There they will confirm your automark and award the rest of your mark.

2. "Working together" in labs

I would like to clarify something from the course outline. For the statement "Labs will be done individually or in pairs":

• You ARE allowed to discuss the labs in pairs, design strategies to solve it, work on pseudocode (week 2) etc.
• You are NOT allowed to work on the same code together, nor submit the same code. We will be running plagiarism detection on all submitted lab code from week 2 onward to sanity check this.

I understand a handful of people were confused about this in week 1, so we are not fussed if some students decided to work on the week 1 lab in pairs. Let's just get it clear going forward from next week :)

3. Quiz 1 released on Monday

Quiz 1 will be released on Monday (7th June) at 9am. You will have more than a week to complete the quiz.

The first quiz has a couple of questions focused on week 2 content, so don't be alarmed if you don't feel confident completing them until after the Tuesday lecture in week 2.

For new content, your week 3 tutorial/lab has been released, and the lectures for week 3 will be released on Monday.

See you on Tuesday!!

Have a great weekend.

🥳 Welcome to COMP2521 21T2 🥳

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 28 May 2021, 06:38:49 PM, last modified Saturday 29 May 2021, 02:07:23 AM.

Hi everyone!

Welcome to COMP2521 21T2 :)

This is my first time running COMP2521, and I hope you're as excited as me. Is this the easiest CSE course? Or the hardest? Probably not. Is it the most interesting? Well, that depends on who you ask. However - this will certainly be one of the most impactful courses any of you do at CSE in terms of how it helps you grow as a computer scientist.

We're going to be exploring the nuance and detail of how computers store data and process that data when solving problems. Most importantly, we'll be exploring how different storage and processing methods have vastly different outcomes at scale . It's easy to do anything in life once, but the real challenge is making something feasible when dealing with millions or billions of inputs. And that's going to be the journey we go on.

I'm going to be working with a teaching staff team of 30 tutors, many of whom have more experience teaching this course than I do, and I'm excited not only to work with them, but for you to have them support you throughout the term.

Key Points for now

1. First lecture is Tuesday 1st June, 2pm-4pm, streamed on Youtube - link will be ON THIS PAGE .
2. Join our Forum (on EdStem) if you haven't already joined it. Introduce yourself, and ask any questions you have.
3. Pay attention to your tutorial time and location . All tutorials and labs are run on Blackboard Collaborate, just like COMP1511.
4. Lectures for week 1 & 2 will be released on Tuesday of week 1.

About the course

I would encourage you all to take a moment to read the COURSE OUTLINE , because it highlights virtually everything. I will also go through this a little bit on Tuesday.

In terms of assessment, the course has 3 major components:

• 35% assignments (2 assignments)
• 25% labs & quizzes (Completing activities or multiple choice questions)
• 40% exam (no hurdle)

See you soon!

I'll see you all on Tuesday :)

Enjoy your holidays!

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Saturday 22 May 2021, 10:29:16 PM.

Hi everyone. I'll be sending a notice at the end of this week (Friday) to welcome you to the course and share more information. I prefer to stick to radio silence for now so you can try and enjoy your break. :)