Homework

AI assistants are now widely available, and there is no reliable way to enforce a ban on using them for take-home work, or to tell apart work you produced from work an AI produced. A homework score used to be a reasonable proxy for your own ability and effort. It is not anymore. A homework score today can just as easily reflect how well you used an AI assistant, and how capable that assistant was, as it reflects your own understanding.

This is why the course no longer runs a full homework track. Most of what used to be a standalone, graded homework assignment is now built directly into the coursebook itself, as worked examples, review, and practice problems inside each chapter. You are expected to work through these as you go. They are not collected or graded, but they are the best way to prepare for the exams.

Two homework assignments remain, for a different reason. They involve running your data structures and algorithms against real data files, profiling their performance, and answering discussion questions based on the experimental results. That is a kind of practice the coursebook’s practice problems do not give you. See the Schedule for release and due dates. Submissions by the due date are graded and given feedback, but for the same reason as the rest of the homework track, that grade does not count toward your course grade. The two assignments are optional, and doing them is for your own benefit.

You may discuss coursebook problems and homework with classmates (see the Academic Integrity policy in the Syllabus).