Getting Help

Ed Discussion

As was true in CMSC 15100 (and CMSC 12100), we encourage you to use Ed as a first line of defense when you get stuck. We, however, need you to “help us help you”: over Ed, we can’t see what you’re seeing on your computer, which can make it challenging to debug the issue you’re encountering. That is why it is crucial that, when you ask a question on Ed, you provide as much information as possible. Our Asking Questions on Ed Discussion page provides guidelines on how to ask questions in a way that minimizes the amount of follow-up questions we’ll have to ask you.

Sometimes, you will ask a question and the immediate response will be a referral to our Asking Questions on Ed Discussion page (with instructions to include more information in your question). We realize this can be frustrating, but please know that we’re not trying to be difficult (nor do we want to be dismissive of your question); if we point you to that page, it is because we genuinely cannot help you unless you provide more information, or because we need to enforce these policies to make the system run efficiently enough that we can get to all of the questions and spend our time answering them well.

On the other hand, if your post includes all the information we need, it means we’ll be able to answer your question faster.

Office Hours

In addition to Ed, you will also be able to get one-on-one help at office hours.

JCL - John Crerar Library

Sunday

  • Henry Hale: 12-2pm, Peach’s Cafe, First floor of JCL.

  • Hannah Morgan: 2-3pm (by Zoom)

Monday:

  • Hannah Morgan: 11am-12pm, JCL 257

  • Anne Rogers 3-4pm, JCL 201

  • Sam Shatzkin: 4-5pm, JCL 354 (Starts April 11th)

  • Zhe Heng Eng: 6-7:30pm, JCL 257 (Starts April 11th)

Wednesday:

  • Allison Zhang: 11:30-1:30pm, JCL 207

  • Sam Shatzkin: 1:15-3:45pm, CSIL 3

  • Hannah Morgan: 4-6pm, JCL 236

Thursday:

  • Hannah Morgan 1-3pm (by Zoom)

  • Sumaiya Ahmed: 4-6pm, JCL 236

Friday:

  • Anne Rogers: 1-3pm, JCL 201

  • Zhe Heng Eng: 3-5pm, JCL 207

(*) See Ed for the Zoom link for Professor Morgan’s Zoom office hours.

Office Hours Protocol

We are going to start with drop-in office hours. You can simply drop by office hours and add your name to the list of people who need help.

If things get too busy, we’ll switch to scheduled office hours later in the quarter.

Office Hours Expectations

Our goal at office hours is to make sure that you leave in a better position to make progress on the assignment. In some cases, if you have an issue that requires debugging your code, we may not be able to fully debug your code during office hours. In some cases, if the instructor/TA cannot resolve the bug right away, they will instead provide you with a code review: they will look through your entire code and point out aspects that need to be improved or changed, and which could be the source of your bug.

While we realize that it can feel like we’re not answering your question, the code review will help improve your code and will often save you from getting point penalties. It may also resolve your bug but, even if it doesn’t, it will generally make it easier for us to help you debug your code if you ask about it on Ed.