Getting Help

There are two primary ways to get help in this class: Ed Discussion and office hours. Many problems can be handled effectively and efficiently on Ed. Some problems can only be handled during office hours. You'll get better at figuring out which is which over time.

Ed Discussion

As you work through the homework assignments, it is likely you will have questions along the way or will get completely stuck at some point. Your first instinct may be to go to office hours and pause your work until your issue is resolved. While office hours are definitely one way to get help in this class, we encourage you to consider Ed Discussion as your primary means of getting help, with office hours serving as a secondary means of support whenever something is difficult to resolve over Ed.

You will often get help faster on Ed than through office hours, where there can sometimes be a substantial waiting time to see an instructor or TA.

We recognize that some students may not be accustomed to courses that make heavy use of an online discussion platform and may be reluctant to seek help this way. In this class, and in many other computer science courses, we have found Ed to be an effective mechanism for providing support outside the time limits of office hours. Unlike office hours, where time is limited and students must wait their turn, every question on Ed will receive a response.

We aim for a 24-hour turnaround time on Ed questions during weekdays and a 48-hour turnaround time on weekends.

Another advantage of Ed is that the entire instructional staff can see your question. If you are dealing with a particularly difficult bug, multiple instructors and TAs can review the issue and contribute ideas. In office hours, you typically receive help from only one person, who may or may not be able to identify the problem immediately.

When you get stuck, we encourage you to use Ed as your first line of defense. To make that process effective, you need to help us understand exactly what you are experiencing. The more information you provide, the easier it is for us to help.

Asking Questions on Ed

Before posting a question:

• Search before asking. Before posting, check whether your question has already been answered. Ed's search feature can often uncover previous discussions of the same issue.
• Check pinned posts. We frequently maintain a pinned Frequently Asked Questions post for each assignment. Start there before creating a new thread.
• Ask an actual question. Explain the specific issue you are encountering and why you are stuck. A post that says "Task 4 doesn't work" gives us very little information to work with.
• Push your code. If your question relates to code, make sure you have committed and pushed your latest changes before asking for help.
• Include a link. If you want us to review code, include a direct link to the relevant file. This saves time and helps us get to the issue more quickly.

Public vs. Private Questions

Ed allows you to ask either public or private questions.

Private questions should be reserved for personal matters. Examples include medical situations, family emergencies, accommodation questions, or other circumstances unique to you.

Questions about coursework, assignments, grading policies, logistics, or course content should generally be asked publicly. If you prefer, you may ask anonymously. Public questions allow everyone in the course to benefit from the answer and reduce duplicate questions.

If a coursework question is submitted privately, we may ask you to repost it publicly before answering.

What to Include in a Question

The more information you provide, the easier it is for us to help.

Our goal is often to reproduce the exact issue you are encountering. To do that, we need a complete description of what happened.

• Describe the steps that lead to the problem. Tell us exactly what you ran, which inputs you used, and what sequence of actions produced the issue.
• Include complete error messages. If a command produces an error or unexpected output, include the full output. Partial summaries such as "Python says something about a KeyError" are usually not sufficient.
• Use code blocks. Terminal output, test failures, and error messages should be formatted using Ed's code block feature.
• Explain what seems wrong. If the program behaves unexpectedly, tell us what you expected to happen and what actually happened.

What Not to Include

• Do not post your code. As described in the course academic integrity policy, you should never share assignment solutions with other students. If we need to inspect your code, push it to GitHub and provide a link.
• Do not post screenshots. Screenshots are difficult to search, difficult to copy from, and can create accessibility issues. Copy and paste text output instead.

Additional Notes About Ed

• Anonymous questions. Anonymous posts are anonymous to other students, but not to the instructional staff.
• One question per post. Avoid combining multiple unrelated issues into a single thread. Separate questions are easier to answer and easier for future students to find.
• Comments vs. Answers. Use comments for follow-up questions or additional information. Reserve answers for actual solutions.
• Turnaround time. We aim to respond within 24 hours on weekdays and within 48 hours on weekends. Questions submitted shortly before a deadline may not receive a response before that deadline.

Office Hours

Attending office hours can feel intimidating, especially when you are new to computer science. Remember that the purpose of office hours is to help you learn. The course staff cannot help if they do not know that you are having difficulty.

The goal of office hours is not simply to fix bugs for you. Instead, the goal is to help you understand concepts and make progress independently. We want you to leave office hours with a clearer understanding of both the immediate issue and the broader ideas behind it.

Making the Most of Office Hours

• Prepare questions in advance. Especially near deadlines or exams, office hours can be busy. Knowing what you want to ask helps you use your time effectively.
• Identify what you do and do not understand. A clear list of specific points of confusion makes it easier for us to help.
• Be as specific as possible. Clear questions are easier to answer. If your question is difficult to articulate, that is okay—we will work through it together.
• Be ready when it is your turn. Have your laptop open, your code available, and your work pushed to GitHub if the issue involves programming.

Sometimes a bug can be identified immediately. Other times, solving the problem requires more investigation. In those cases, the role of the instructor or TA is not to solve the problem for you, but to help you reach the point where you can continue making progress on your own.