UCSD CSE 12 Spring 2023

Asking Questions and Getting Help

There are 17 staff members (instructor, TAs, and tutors) to help with your learning, and a few different ways to get in touch and ask for help.

Quick links:

Do NOT use the Canvas mailing feature to contact us. We will NOT respond to those messages. If you need to send a private message to the instructor, you can use his ucsd email address (but any course related questions should ideally be through Piazza).

Message Board Questions

You can post questions on our Piazza message board at any time: https://piazza.com/class/lfkeh7em1lb7n3/

The message board is a good place for questions about something that was confusing in class, in videos, in the book, or generally about course content. It’s not always the best place for help with programming details on your assignments (remote or in-person lab hours are better for that). If you do post for help with a programming assignment, we ask that you use good judgment in how much code you share – sharing too much as part of your question could harm others’ learning if they aren’t expecting to see parts of a solution.

Feel free to engage with your classmates and help answer their questions. Always be polite and assume the best intentions. Always assume that the person you’re talking to is asking an honest question, and don’t assume they “should know” something; if they seem to not know something from the course, reminding them with a link to where it was taught can be useful (instead of saying something like “that was already covered”). Try to guide your classmates to useful conclusions on their own rather than solving their problems for them. Using emoji can always help with a positive and friendly vibe 🙂

During the times where we have take-home programming exams, Piazza will not allow posting public to the class.

Meeting with Staff and Office Hours

Please see the Help Hours page for more details on meeting with staff and attending office hours.

FAQs

Do I have to participate if I’m on the waitlist?

Yes, you’re responsible for everything as if you’re a normally-enrolled student while you’re on the waitlist, including any submission deadlines, and your work will be graded as usual.

I have a question about enrollments and the waitlist.

Please contact CSE student affairs, who can give the best advice and information about the enrollment process. They are friendly and helpful and know much more about timing and any updates you will see through the registration system.

There is some useful advice at Enrolling in CSE Courses that likely summarizes a lot of what they would tell you to get you started.

What’s the course material like?

You can see a previous version of the course, which will give you a sense. This offering will not be identical, but will be similar.

There is no required textbook for you to purchase for the course. The course uses a combination of online resources and notes from the instructors.

Can I audit the course?

You can use all the public resources on this website, and if you’re a UCSD community member, you can view all the podcasts for the problem sessions at https://podcast.ucsd.edu/. Beyond that we don’t have any formalized support for auditing the course.

Do we need a clicker for this class?

No. We use Gradescope to collect worksheets for lecture participation credit.

Where are the icons from?

Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com.