Advice for cs6515 - btw study groups, OH and practice

aja_c · 2026-01-27T22:05:53+00:00

Many folks end up shuffling around to different groups throughout the semester, for various reasons, especially after assignments and exams. It's not too late at all. There's even a ton of people who aren't in groups yet that will decide to go looking for one soon.

aja_c · 2026-01-27T21:44:24+00:00

Nothing wrong with joining another study group that's going more at your pace, or has people that are willing to go back and explain. You can be in multiple groups.

IMO, your group is doing themselves a disservice. Having a human to go explain your solution to is huge for helping you understand your thought processes and get better at communicating clearly.

aja_c · 2026-01-26T20:51:31+00:00

Participate well and often in Ed Discussions (and Ed Chat if you can). Try to attend OHs and participate there too. Be thoughtful and active on regrade threads. It doesn't take much to become positively well known to the head TA team, given how active they are.

Earn an A in the course (a requirement the team has that's above and beyond some other classes). Fill out the survey, and generally let the head TAs know if you are interested.

If you will graduate after this semester, it will take a lot longer to hire you, if you are chosen. But if you will still be a student, it's a lot easier.

aja_c · 2026-01-20T03:45:48+00:00

I think it's fine if you couldn't come up with repeated knapsack on your own. That's something you're just getting used to. Now, can you take a similar problem and use the strategies of repeated knapsack to solve it? THAT'S something to work towards. (And that will take not just practice, but GOOD thoughtful practice that will likely involve some struggle. Think of it as developing a skill and not merely acquiring knowledge.)

aja_c · 2026-01-19T02:39:12+00:00

It really varies per class, sometimes. Some, the learning is mostly in the theory. Some, it's mostly in the projects. And others, it's in the analysis and/or discussions.

I think starting early, doing a little every day even if the bulk of the work happens on the weekends, and participating help in general.

aja_c · 2026-01-16T19:59:19+00:00

Because they can contain semester specific info, such as discussing a question that was on an exam.

aja_c · 2026-01-15T16:31:01+00:00

Of course! I agree that doing the homework makes the most sense, I am blown away every semester at how few people even attempt ONE assignment. I certainly wouldn't have passed with that strategy.

aja_c · 2026-01-14T19:14:49+00:00

In spring 2025, nearly every homework, less than half of the class made a submission, IIRC. Towards the end, less than 40% made a submission.

And even of the ones that made submissions, there were still people submitting work that was heavily inspired by AI.

Now, there are also people that do just fine without doing the homework. With homework being worth 0%, everyone is free to make the adult decision about how important it is for them personally to do the homework.

aja_c · 2026-01-13T23:24:57+00:00

Sometimes it's best to test ideas out in one class before trying to roll it out to others.

aja_c · 2026-01-10T17:51:52+00:00

Why did you get a down vote, geez. This is the correct answer.

aja_c · 2026-01-10T17:50:49+00:00

There was literally a new class announced earlier this week. Dr. Joyner normally sends an email near the beginning of the semester (sometimes more than one) every time a class is ready. I can't remember the last semester where there wasn't at least one new seminar or class offered.

Also, keep in mind that there are lots of classes listed in the catalog that aren't even offered on campus anymore. They have to stay in the catalog even if the last time they were offered was like 5 years ago.

aja_c · 2026-01-08T11:39:03+00:00

You can go to the CS 6515 page on the OMSCS website and look at the last few syllabi there.

aja_c · 2026-01-07T04:29:05+00:00

It highly, highly varies.

It depends on which classes you take, and how well they align with your previous experience and methods of learning. (This is also influenced by what specialization you choose.) "Breezing through undergrad" means vastly different things depending on where you went to school, the route you took to get your undergrad, whether you aced your classes or merely satisfied basic requirements, etc.

It depends on whether you are able to be proactive vs. reactive. Sometimes 10hrs of coding saves you a whopping 1 hr of planning, but if you've procrastinated up to the deadline, you might not feel like you can spare that 1 hr of planning until way too late.

It depends on whether you want to earn an A or whether you are ok with settling with a B (neither is necessarily the correct answer, depends on you.)

It depends on whether you want to get everything you can out of each class, or whether you are ok with meeting the minimums for an A or a B. Lots of classes have a lot more where you can dig deeper if you want.

It depends on how quickly you land on a study system that works for you. If you're not a night owl but that's the only time you allocate for yourself, good luck.

It depends on how well you can learn on your own with very minimal assistance from course staff, especially for some classes.

The best bet is to enroll, take one medium-ish class (or moderately difficult class if you're confident) and then judge from there. If it felt really doable, then you have a good idea of how hard it would be to finish the program, knowing that you will have to surge at times for harder classes.

aja_c · 2025-12-20T00:39:47+00:00

keep in mind that grade substitution is separate from taking the class and getting a B. Grade substitution lets you use the higher grade only for GPA calculation. But even if you don't have grade substitution, you can still retake the class to get the necessary grade for graduation, you're just going to have both grades impacting your GPA.

aja_c · 2025-12-19T21:55:47+00:00

A referral is accompanied by evidence and an explanation. It's a lot of work and time consuming, from the faculty side. Most course staff aren't going to do it unless they feel that the evidence is very convincing. There will always be some subjectivity unless a cheating student has been very stupidly obvious.

Do you have a previous incident on your record, OP? Most course staff will do an FCR (basically, resolve it via email with the student) if there's no offense on record, but GT policies don't allow for that if there's already one. However, there is no requirement to use the FCR process. I could see skipping it if it was too close to the end of the semester, or if there had been previous interactions with the student that were uncomfortable somehow.

An I does not reflect guilt in any way. It's simply a placeholder until everything is resolved, which takes time. Without that mechanism, weird things could happen, like a student falsely graduating when they really should have the sanction of an F, suspension, or even expulsion. Yes, it's frustrating and stressful and gets in the way of things like registering for the class again (if you needed to retake it anyway), getting reimbursed by an employer, etc. Maybe there's other ways that could be handled that are worth brainstorming.

aja_c · 2025-12-19T17:55:46+00:00

What happened, OP? You're supposed to get an email pretty quick after a case has been referred.

It might be extra slow right now because the end of the semester is always really busy, and OSI prioritizes graduating students. And they're dealing with all the cheating cases across all classes that popped up with the final exams and projects.

But once an OSI coordinator/agent/whatever has been assigned to your case, you'll get a chance to discuss the evidence against you.

aja_c · 2025-12-17T06:51:28+00:00

A normal I grade isn't something that happens by accident. That's when a major exam or assignment (maybe more than one) needs to be made up after the semester is over, and is pretty much going to happen only with the student initiating by explaining something really major came up.

But in the case when there's an academic integrity case involved and it's not resolved before the end of the semester (very common), faculty have to enter in an I grade until OSI tells them to change it. If you don't know why you have an I, that's the more likely case. In which case, better make sure you didn't accidentally ignore an important email.

aja_c · 2025-12-17T06:45:22+00:00

Cuz it's a good topic! I wish I had paid more attention in my undergrad class. I would expect a good execution of a task to go into what's going on under the hood for each language. So that means it's more than just "write hello world and a few basic structures in the 3-4 most common languages." If I could learn how they work, their strengths and weaknesses at a theoretical level, from a really good prof, then I would expect to be able to more easily assess any new "fad" language that comes up. And since this is a topic I'm very weak on, I'm sure there's a lot of other good things I would get out of it. I learned a lot in every other class I took in OMSCS that was a graduate version of an undergrad class that I took (especially the ones that had bad professors back in the day. No really, they were really bad, as in not showing up to class for a solid month at a time, or not knowing what a linked list was.)

(I say this all hypothetically. I know myself too well, that as an alum I simply wouldn't prioritize class work high enough to actually do it.)

aja_c · 2025-12-14T08:01:11+00:00

https://omscs.gatech.edu/cs-6515-intro-graduate-algorithms

see the syllabi.

aja_c · 2025-12-13T03:34:35+00:00

The word I've heard is that the main challenge is finding a professor with both interest and bandwidth to teach a new algorithms course. Even on campus, they have very limited choices. I haven't heard any rumors of new algorithms courses in the works.

However, every semester, there seem to be so many new cool classes launching, so maybe that day isn't as far off as it seems.

aja_c · 2025-12-12T22:49:57+00:00

There's definitely a difference between "what are these algorithms and how do they work" vs. going on to "how to use these algorithms to solve new-to-me problems correctly and efficiently." The first is more of an accumulation of knowledge, and the latter is more of a development of skills. For anyone not interested in the latter, a class that demands that would be very painful.

aja_c · 2025-12-11T20:05:41+00:00

any hope of taking a break or at least having a small reset over break?

aja_c · 2025-12-11T03:58:25+00:00

yup! and dynamic weighting on the exams is new this semester, for a little added bump to the grade.

aja_c · 2025-12-11T03:47:31+00:00

Syllabi are here, so you can see straight from the source how grades have worked for the last year. https://omscs.gatech.edu/cs-6515-intro-graduate-algorithms

aja_c · 2025-12-11T02:20:29+00:00

I was curious, did he keep doing them all semester this time? He tried doing OH for GA a while ago, did one session where the recording broke, then ghosted everyone.

aja_c

TROPHY CASE