CSC121H (StG, Winter 2018): Computer Science for Statistics

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Overview

[Mark Kazakevich]
Mark Kazakevich
L0101 (MWF12)
Office hours
mark@cs[dot]toronto[dot]edu

Welcome to the course webpage for the Winter 2018 term of CSC121H, Computer Science for Statistics, on the St. George campus!

This course teaches the basics of programming using the R programming language, which is widely used to create statistical software and analyze data. R is used in many fields that require data analysis, including Biology, Physics, Economics, and other Natural and Social Sciences.
Although we will look at some statistical applications of R, no specific knowledge of statistics is required to take this course. The main aim of this course is to teach you how to program, and to give you a lot of opportunities to practise what you learn by writing your own code.

CSC121 assumes no prior programming experience, so if you already have a good amount of experience writing programs in any language, this course may not be for you.
Please see this page for information on other introductory CS courses.
Note that you can not take this course if you have taken a CSC course before, except for CSC104.

Course Components

Lectures: The course is delivered through three 1-hour lectures (MWF) a week:

  • Monday 12-1pm in WB 116
  • Wednesday and Friday 12-1pm in MP 103

    • There is only one lecture section (L0101), taught by Mark.
    We will have our first lecture on January 5th in MP 103.

    Labs: The practical sections take place Wednesdays 1-3pm in the Computer Science Teaching Labs at the Bahen Centre.

    Outside of lecture and lab, all students will do exercises and assignments, two quizzes, and a final exam, as described in the course information sheet.

    Course Information Sheet

    All the important information about the course can be found on the Course Information Sheet, including the marking scheme, important dates, the late work policy, and information on academic integrity.

    It can be found here.

    Getting Help

    Have questions? Here's an overview of where to ask them (with more details in the Getting Help section).

    Source Description
    Discussion board: Piazza

    Need clarification on a handout? Wondering about a lab? Have an R style question? These are all excellent topics to post on the CSC121H Piazza discussion board because they will probably be useful to other students.

    Piazza is a little different than a regular discussion board. Each question has two possible responses: a student-edited one and and instructor-edited one. You can answer each other's questions.

    Anyone can edit any student answer. That means that you can add helpful information such as an example, and you can clean up grammatical and spelling errors. Students get to help each other out, and helping each other out is highly encouraged!

    Please do not post assignment or exercise solutions, or partial solutions, even if you know they are incorrect, to the discussion forums.

    Office hours Office hours are where you can ask any question you like about the course: get help related to lecture material, go over your assignment, ask for help with your marks. You don't need an appointment to attend these, you can just drop by.
    Email Use email to ask your instructor a personal question. Use a descriptive subject line that includes "CSC121". Here is an example: "CSC121: issue with my partner on assignment 1".
    Help Centre CSC Help Centre: Held in BA 2230, this is a place where students can drop in and ask course or computer science related questions for 1st and 2nd year CSC courses.
    The help centre will be open all term, Monday to Friday 2-6pm, starting on January 10.