HS 207 Social Psychology

Course Description

An introductory course on social psychology. Since it is an introductory course, no prior background of Psychology is expected.

The course begins by describing what social psychology is and how its knowledge helps individual and society in general. It talks about basic human emotions, various theories in social psychology like Fundamental Attribution theory, social comparison theory, Framing effect, balance theory etc. Heuristics , Schemas, Attitudes, Dissonance, Prejudice, Persuasion are some of the concepts introduced in the course. Work of a lot of social psychologists is covered in class. The course is pretty much application oriented and concepts introduced in the class are supplemented by papers put up on moodle which introduces to various case studies done in the field

Course pattern & logistics

A presentation by a group of 2 is to be presented for one of the weekly papers put on moodle.

Exams- 30% -  Internal Assessment (1 Presentation + Class Participation + 1 HW)

70% - Midsem + Endsem. 35% each.

Comments on Instructor

(Mrinmoyi Kulkarni)

Prof is very good and makes classes interesting. She likes the class to be interactive and hence gives importance to attendance. She ensures that people who attend the classes are in advantage as the lecture notes are merely enumeration of topics covered in class with no explanations.

Who will find it interesting

Students who have slightest of interest in Psychology can explore this course. The course becomes pretty intriguing as one begins to see things from lens of the concepts taught in the course.

HS 307 Sociology

Course description

This is an introductory course on sociology. The course content varies slightly from instructor to instructor.

It begins with describing what sociology is, followed by philosophy of society by Karl Marx. It talks of communism, capitalism, philosophies of sociologists like Marx Webber, Emile Durkhaim.
Post midsem content includes nationalism, phases of Indian nationalist movement and politics of secularism. The lecture notes, which are often parts of some sociology book, are too lengthy (owing to content and english) to cover in one-two day's time, hence listening to classes attentively and making notes can save a lot of preparation time.

Course pattern & logistics

Pre mid sem stuff is pretty chill. Post midsem content is not so intuitive and hence attending classes becomes important.
Exams- 3 quizzes (2mcq & 1 subjective), 1 midsem (mcq) and 1 endsem(mcq). Endsem portion includes only post mid-sem content.

Comments on Instructor
(Kushal Deb)

The prof is very much approachable and open to discussions. He basically summarizes large portions of the book and makes boring content appealing by arousing curiosity in the subject.

Who will find it interesting

Students who have a slightest of liking for history and politics will like the course as it takes you back to the time when capitalism was taking over feudalism, national freedom  movement was happening, discusses politics of secularism.

CS 344 Artificial Intelligence

Prof. G Sivakumar

Course Description :

The course was a basic introduction to AI techniques and algorithms. The topics included Search :

• Minimax
• Alpha Beta pruning
• A* Search

Logic :

• First Order Logic
• Propositional Logic
• Resolution
• Prolog

Probabilistic models :

• Bayesian networks
• HMM
• Neural Networks

The course had an associated lab with it, which had assignments to be coded in Prolog.

This also had 2 projects - one to write an AI for Planet Wars (Galcon) and another open project

Course Pattern and Logistics :

Course :

3 Quizzes (12% each)+ Midsem(24%) + Endsem(40%)

Lab :

Project1(30%) + Project2(20%) + 2 Quiz (10% each) + Labs (30%)

Comments on the Course and Instructor :

The instructor gave more stress on the logic part. The entire labs were in Prolog only. The theory course also covered Prolog. The exams were very numerical. Almost all the questions included heavy calculations. Most of the questions tested our ability to simulate the models / formulae discussed in the class. There were no lecture slides, though relevant wikipedia links were given.

Who will find it interested ?

All those who are interested in logic and learning how to model interesting real life systems.

CS 207 Discrete Structures

Prof. S Akshay

Course Description :

The course content includes Proofs and structures, Counting and combinatorics, Elements of graph theory and Introduction to abstract algebra and number theory. The course had an associated tutorial with it.

Being a core CSE department course, CS207 was not open for non-CSE students under Prof. Akshay.

Course Pattern and Logistics :

4 Quizzes + Midsem + Endsem

Pop up Quizzes in class and assignments (5%)

Comments on the Course and Instructor :

Prof. Akshay was very enthusiastic and interested in student’s learning and answered questions in detail. The professor kept the class interactive as well. He was present in the tutorials and  supervised the TAs as well as helped students. This made it one of the best tutorial sessions. Attending the tutorial and lectures regularly was very useful.  Also there were multiple optional help sessions arranged.

Attendance was not mandatory. Even then turn up was very high. But very low attendance was taken seriously.

The course as well as instructor was very good.

Who will find it interested ?

Anyone who is interested in Mathematics will find it interesting. This gives you an introduction to various mathematics tools required in Computer Science.

CS305 : Computer Architecture

Course Description -

A core course. Fundamentals of computer architecture using MIPS. The course and the lab go hand-in-hand. A relatively easy course.

Course Pattern and Logistics -

Flipped classroom model. Have to attend tutorials once a week. 6-7 quizzes + Midsem + Endsem. The exams are open-book.

Comments on the instructor -

The teaching is mainly through videos, covering theory as well as nice examples for each concept. Only videos and slides are enough for the preparation, no other reading is required.

Who will find it interesting - Well, it’s a core course. A strong pre-requisite for understanding the course on Compilers.

CS631 : Implementation of DBMS

Course Description -

The next course after the basic database UG course. It covers implementation related topics in DBMS, to be specific chapters 10-20 from “Database System Concepts” by Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan. The course mainly covers  Data Storage and Querying, Transaction Management and Distributed Databases.

Course Pattern and Logistics -

Surprise quizzes => best n out of (n+2), generally 4<=n<=6

Midsem

Endsem

3-4 assignments

A course project

Comments on the Instructor -

Prof. Sudarshan is a renowned person in the field of DBMS, and also a great instructor. If one pays enough attention in the class, very less self study is required to get a good grade.

Who will find it interesting - Those who are interested in taking CS632 (Advanced Database Systems) should definitely register. Even if not, this course gives a good idea about recent advancements in DBMS, from the implementation perspective.

ID405 - Human Computer Interaction Design

Course Description -  Human Computer Interaction Design. The course will provide an introduction to the HCI design process, including how to understand users through contextual interviews, how to analyse interviews to identify problems and opportunities, how to define usability goals and user experience goals, how to model users with techniques such as stages of use model and personas, how to explore solutions through scenarios, how to prototype explorations and how to evaluate prototypes for usability.

Course Pattern and Logistics - Short Quizzes, Assignments, Project, Endsem

Comments on the Instructor - The instructor is very passionate about his teaching and has excellent slides throughout the course. His additions to the project were valuable. And exams were fun.

Who will find it interesting - If someone is planning to start up his own app, website, anything digital(There is significant discussion on non-digital object designs as well) this course helps in designing not just the look as one might think but also the feature set. This is for anyone who wants to build something on their own.