To make your and your partner’s time in the ICS 21 Help Center as productive and pleasant as possible, we strongly recommend that you

Prepare before coming to the Center. Read the assignment beforehand, think about how to do it, talk it over with your partner and ask questions about it. Then, when you get to the Center, you’ll be your most productive.

Start early on each assignment. Lab assignments in computer science, more than in most disciplines, are time-consuming; working on a computer until a program is complete and correct typically takes much more time than on-paper assignments. Your pair should start a lab as soon as you complete the lab exam associated with the previous assignment; you can’t do a week-long lab in just a couple of days. Do not wait until the Center is next open to begin a lab assignment: all the necessary information for each lab is in this manual. Starting promptly reduces your frustration, since you’ll have time to ask questions when difficulties arise, and will have sufficient time to finish the lab before the lab exam date.

Pay close attention to detail. Computing, more than many other disciplines, requires precise, literal attention to detail. Take things slowly and deliberately. Wring every bit of information you can out of the assignment description; read the lab exams carefully to know what they require of you.

Remember you’re not alone. As you work on your assignments, we encourage you to seek assistance from your partner (obviously!) and from the TAs, the tutors and your colleagues. TAs and tutors will help you with the mechanical details of using the hardware and the software, and they will give you help and hints towards solving the assignments. Be careful, though: if you receive so much help that, in effect, others did the assignment for you, it’s very likely that you will not have learned enough to pass the lab exam.

Come to the Center regularly, even if you or your partner have access to a computer elsewhere. In past offerings of this class, there has been a strong correlation between attendance at labs and passing lab exams without several retakings of them; your interaction with your partner, other students and course staff helps you learn the material more completely and quickly. And it’s obviously hard to do pair programming if only half the pair comes to lab.

Feel free to experiment. Much of computing is learned by trial and error, trying things out to see what works. (That’s why little kids are so good at it; they learn most everything that way.) But adults are often uncomfortable with the “error” part; they hate to “waste time ” and are embarrassed when they make mistakes. But to learn the practical details, you’ll have to put that discomfort aside and be willing to experiment. If you are concerned an experiment might foul up your assignment, make a copy of that work before doing the experiment. If the experiment goes awry, you can use your copy to back up to where you were. Be prepared to tell TAs and tutors what you’ve already tried when you ask for their help. Experiment while working on the assignments—but not on the lab exam: you should have things figured out by then!

Don ’t lose it. Computers can be frustrating; it’s challenging to communicate with a dumb machine. If you feel like losing your temper (and nearly everyone who works with computers occasionally does), take a deep breath and remember: It’s only a machine. It’s only an assignment. It’s only a class. Someone is available who can help you find a way out of your difficulty (especially if you’ve started early and left adequate time).