Should you choose COMP30191?

The course

COMP30191 is a theoretical course, as the third digit in its code indicates. The first part of it is decidedly mathematical in nature, and there will be quite a few proofs. The middle bit is concerned with writing programs for finding good strategies, which is where it becomes most computer-sciency. However, we will only look at general principles rather than issues that occur in implementation. There is no code in the lecture notes. Lastly we have a look at the use of games as models, which shows connections with the social sciences and biology. Here's a short description.

Pros and Cons

In my experience, students find games a much more interesting part of mathematics than most others. The subject certainly isn't as dry as some, and everybody can relate to the examples. Every year I get a few students who say it's the most interesting course unit they've taken.

That said, we are talking about a theoretical course, which has examples classes rather than labs. This has a number of consequences when it comes to how one goes best about learning the material.

• The concepts can be quite difficult to get used to. Hence working throughout the term is a necessity if you want to do well in the exams. If you leave it all until the revision period you are likely to have some idea of what most of the concepts are about, but due to the mathematical nature of the material, that won't get you very far in the exam. You've got to give this stuff some time to sink in! The timetabling effectively tells you what you are supposed to have studied by then - there are topics published for each examples class and question session.
• It can be difficult to learn the material by yourself, without any additional help. The only existing source are my lecture notes, there are no text books you can refer to if that isn't enough. Hence attendance of examples classes is vital, and you should make use of the question sessions unless you understand the lecture notes by yourself.
• A number of the exam questions are going to be more similar to a typical maths question than what you might be used to from other CS courses. In particular, I will ask you to show that you can apply the techniques you have learned to examples you have never seen before. In order to be prepared for this you have to have practiced answering this kind of question. That means you will have to go through the exercises in the notes. Leaving that to the revision period means leaving it too late. Again, working throughout term is the best strategy for doing well in the exam. On the other hand, if you do that and understand what's going on, you should be fine in the exam! If you know your stuff you can score highly on such questions.
• It's easy to convince oneself that the course material isn't that difficult. However, when it comes down to answering exam questions students will have to be able to do these things themselves rather than watch somebody else explain them! Every year I have a few students in the exam who try to answer such questions, but their solutions bear little resemblance to the model answers. In the past every year at least 10 students have failed this course, so don't underestimatet it.
• There will be some bookwork in the exam too. That will require you to intelligently summarize the most important points of some section, or to explain some concept, or result. Don't underestimate the understanding required to do in particular the former well. Every year I get answers where students try to do some kind of memory dump, going into incredible detail on some issue - but forgetting the really important aspects of another. They'll lose on the marks assigned to the second issue!

In 2002/2003, 107 students chose this course. A number of them told me that they thought it was too hard, and that there was too much material. Since for the most part this criticism only started to arise a fortnight before the exam it seems clear to me that many students did not heed the advice given above: They did not work for the course during term, and found themselves overwhelmed when they started revising for the exams. In the last few days before the exam I received more than 30 emails with questions or requests for a meeting to discuss the course. On the other hand nobody had any suggestions for the revision lecture in the last week of term.

In 2003/2004, 121 students chose this course. This time I made it clear that I wouldn't be available in January other than for the revision session. The revision session was fairly well attended and quite a lot of questions were put to me via email in advance. I also didn't get so many emails!

Here is my feedback in ps format, feedback in pdf format for the exam in 2002/2003.

Here is my feedback in ps format, feedback in pdf format for the exam in 2003/2004.

In the CEQs for 2003/2004, the course got a mark of 7.6 for interest (slightly down from 7.7) and 6 for difficulty (up from 5.71). Quality was marked with 8 (up from 7.8) and suitability with 7.9 (slightly up from 7.8).

Here are some quotes from past CEQs.

• `Interesting course. Maths bit could be dull and boring sometimes.'
• `Some bits tricky to learn.'
• `Just enough for 1 module. A lot to cover...'
• `Interesting to do something new that doesn't involve any Java.'
• `Need more opportunities to win chocolate bars!'
• `Tricky, but challenging - a good thing - keeps motivation.'
• `Excellent. Best course out of all the ones I've done.'

I think it is fair to say that some people enjoyed the course immensely while others liked the introduction, and then started to lose interest as it all became more technical.