CS109: Introduction to Probability for Computer Scientists Spring 2012-2013

Staff Email: cs109@cs.stanford.edu

Data sets for Problem Set #6: Data bundle for PC                 Data bundle for Mac

• The graded CS109 midterm exams will be returned after class on Friday, May 10. If you did not get your exam after class on Friday, you an pick it up in the handouts bins in the Gates building.
• Statistics on the midterm exam (out of 120 points) are:
  • Median = 100 (83.3%)
  • Mean = 95.4 (79.5%)
  • Std. Dev. = 20.01

  A histogram of the CS109 midterm scores is available here.

• Cameron Holt's office hours this week on Wednesday (May 8th) are moved from Wednesday 6-8pm to Friday 8am-10am in Gates B26A. (So, Cameron will have office hours this week on Friday from 8am-12noon.)

• The CS109 midterm exam is scheduled for Tuesday, May 7th from 7pm-9pm in CEMEX Auditorium.

  The will be a Midterm Review on Monday, May 6th from 6pm-9pm in Gates 463 led by intrepid CS109 teaching assistant Jamie Irvine.

  The midterm exam will be open book (Ross textbook only) and open notes, but closed computer/calculator. The midterm covers through material covered in the book and class through May 1st (i.e., problem sets #1-4).

• The CS109 midterm exam is scheduled for Tuesday, May 7th from 7pm-9pm in CEMEX Auditorium.

  The will be a Midterm Review on Monday, May 6th from 6pm-9pm in Gates 463 led by intrepid CS109 teaching assistant Jamie Irvine.

  The midterm exam will be open book (Ross textbook only) and open notes, but closed computer/calculator. The midterm covers through material covered in the book and class through May 1st (i.e., problem sets #1-4).

  If you have an unmoveable academic conflict with the midterm exam time, please email Mehran by 5pm Wednesday, May 1st to let him know about the conflict. In your email please list all the times you would be available to take an alternate midterm exam during the week of May 6-11.

• For those of you using LaTex to write your assignments, CS109 student Joe Delgado has written a nunber of snippets for Latex in Sublime, which he has made available on github. You an find a repo of statistical snippets at: https://github.com/djoeman84/Latex-statistical-snippets and a repo for more general math snippets at: https://github.com/djoeman84/Latex-Math-Snippets. Thanks, Joe!

• You can determine who grades your CS109 assignments based on your last name:
  • Last names starting with A-Cam: grader is Naran Bayanbat
  • Last names starting with Can-Del: grader is Susan Biancani
  • Last names starting with Dem-Fl: grader is Blake Carpenter
  • Last names starting with Fm-Gr: grader is Thomas Dimson
  • Last names starting with Gs-Jia: grader is Cameron Holt
  • Last names starting with Jib-Ki: grader is Ben Holtz
  • Last names starting with Kj-Ma: grader is Jamie Irvine
  • Last names starting with Mb-Pb: grader is Yan Largman
  • Last names starting with Pc-Seb: grader is Dilli Paudel
  • Last names starting with Sec-Ta: grader is Jessica Tai
  • Last names starting with Tb-Z: grader is Calvin Wang

• Dilli Paudel is a new TA for CS109. Dilli's office hours (also listed on the Staff page) are: Sunday 8pm-10pm and Friday 2:05pm-4pm in Gates B28.
• If you are interested in forming a study group for CS109, there is now a web site set up here to help students sign up for study groups at various times.
• SCPD students can try chatting with Blake Carpenter during office hours at the account cs109oh@gmail.com. Other TA's might eventually use chatting as well, but Blake is first trying this out.
• Susan Biancani's office hours are changed for this week only to: Wednesday (April 10) 9am-11am in Gates 200 and Friday (April 12) 9am-11am in Gates B26A. This is a one-time change; next week her office hours will return to their usual time/location

• Jamie Irvine is a new TA for CS109. Jamie's office hours (also listed on the Staff page) are: Monday 6pm-8pm and Tuesday 8am-10am in Gates B26A.
• Susan Biancani's office hours are changed for next week only to: Wednesday (April 10) 9am-11am in Gates 200 and Friday (April 12) 9am-11am in Gates B26A. This is a one-time change; after next week her office hours will return to their usual time/location
• Problem Set #1 was distributed in class on Wednesday and is due Friday, April 12th at 12:50pm (start of class).
• If you are interested in writing-up your problem sets using the LaTex system (this is purely optional), there is a short intoduction to LaTex available as a PDF document, and you can also obtain the original LaTex file that was used to generate that PDF (so you can see an example of LaTex source).

  If you are thinking of writing your solutions for the Problem Sets in LaTex, you might find it useful to start with this LaTex template file for Problem sets.

• Welcome to CS109!
• The first class is Monday, April 1st, 12:50pm-2:05pm in NVIDIA Auditorium.
• Please watch this web site for important class announcements or assignment errata.
• You might also be interested in the one unit course CS109L: Statistical Programming with R Laboratory.

• Handouts from class will be available on the handouts page. Any hardcopies remaining after class will be available in the handout bins on the first floor of the Gates building.
• Staff office hours and locations will be posted on the Course Staff page.

• The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled New Hiring Formula Values Math Pros talking about how employers are seeking computer scientists with training in statistics and probability. CS109 is specifically mentioned in the article.
• An article from the New York Times discusses the increasing importance of statistics in computing. The article is entitled For Today's Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics.