12.1 Placement AFQ
Q: Are there any prerequisites?
No.
Q: Will it be self-contained?
Yes. You will have Readings that provide all the material you need.
Q: What do I need to turn in work?
You will need a Brown Google account, because submission takes place through a Brown Google form. You should already have one to read your Brown email. If you are not a Brown student (e.g., RISD student), please ask your institution how you can get such an account. You cannot work around this by “requesting access” from a regular Google account.
Q: What do the “due” dates mean? What are the actual deadlines?
We want to accommodate a variety of summer schedules. At the same time, we don’t want to be in a constant state of grading ourselves (since we also have other, full-time work in the summer). Therefore, most assignments have (soft) “due” dates, but there is one (hard) final due date.
All work is technically only due by the listed final date. If you
can’t meet the earlier, “due” dates—
However, if you only turn everything in at the end, you may fare poorly. You may have made mistakes on earlier assignments that, given feedback, you could have fixed in later ones.
Therefore, most assignments have a soft “due” date. If you turn in your work for that assignment by that date, we will give you feedback soon after. You will then be able to use this feedback to improve your performance for the next submission. If you miss the “due” date, there is no guarantee you will get feedback on that assignment until after the final hard deadline.
In short, in the best of Brown traditions, we leave it to you to
decide how you want to structure your summer. You do not need
to inform us about your plans. Since the “due” dates are soft, you
don’t need to ask for an “extension”—
Note that this late policy applies only during the summer. There is a completely different policy once the semester begins.
Q: Can I submit work early?
Of course. However, you can submit only once per assignment. If, for instance, you get feedback and want to change your work, sorry. It creates far too much work for us to keep re-grading work. So, choose wisely and submit once.
Also, if you go the early route, please do not post questions on Campuswire about homeworks later than the one currently out. It is too disruptive to students who are following the timeline, and confusing for the course staff. Also, you may end up leaking answers to earlier homeworks in the process.
Q: Will the placement process be effective in helping me decide which class to take?
We believe so. It’s based on past placement activities that have been found helpful through both qualitative and quantitative checks as well as student input.
However, some students find that the pace and intensity of summer placement is much less than that of the course. This is by design: you are presumably doing other things in the summer and not trying to take a challenging computer science course in addition. Therefore, you can expect the course to be somewhat more demanding than the placement.
Q: Does the placement require prior knowledge of computer science?
This is a complicated question.
The other three introductory courses for concentrators—
0111, 0150, and 0170— are expressly designed for students who have not studied computer science before (and will give you all the same opportunities to concentrate in the subject). Therefore, for most students without any background, those other introductory courses are likely to be more appropriate. However, prior knowledge is not a requirement. We will in fact make available material for self-study that you are welcome to use. Therefore, if you’re motivated (or just bored over summer!), you are welcome to try the materials and then the placement. In fact, every year a small number of students with no prior computer science do take and do well in 0190.
That said, do note that the materials may be quite demanding to study on your own. If you feel this way, don’t be discouraged from studying computer science entirely! It might just mean that 0111, 0150, and 0170 are better for you. Please do take one of those courses.
Every year a small number of students who have had no prior exposure to CS get into the class and do well in it. This is a test of what you can learn here, not a test of your prior knowledge.
Coversely, prior knowledge may even get in the way. We will expect you to program in a particular way that probably doesn’t match what you’ve done before. If you decide you “already know everything” you probably won’t pay attention to this, and may very well fail to place into the course.
Q: Help! I didn’t do well on one of the problems! What do I do now?
Keep calm and carry on (with the problems). We find that students stop doing them too early when they should have kept going. We care about your overall progression, so if you can pick up your performance, that’s fine. Don’t panic, all is not lost!