Course overview

Welcome! This is an overview of the Spring 2025 edition of CSE 210A (“Programming Languages”), a graduate course in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the UC Santa Cruz Baskin School of Engineering.

Instructor

Hi, I’m Owen Arden!

• Contact: for anything CSE 210A-related, post or send a DM on the course discussion forum instead. Otherwise: owenarden@ucsc.edu
• Office location: Engineering 2, Room 349A
• Office hours: By appointment on Zoom or in person
• Pronouns: he/him/his (singular they is fine too!)

A few essential details about the course

• Class meets in person Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 2:40-3:45pm, in Stevenson 175
• Canvas (for reading responses and grades): https://canvas.ucsc.edu/courses/82496
• Ed Discussion (for announcements, live chat during lectures, Q&A, communicating with Owen, TAs, and your fellow students, etc.): https://edstem.org/us/courses/77254/discussion
• New experiment: #general channel on Ed https://edstem.org/us/courses/77254/discussion/chat/channels/18283
• Webpage (here): https://ucsc-cse-210a.github.io/spr25/
• Textbook: Software Foundations, Volume 1 and Volume 2 (available free online)

Grading

Grading is primarily (85%) based on completion of ~9 homework assignments. Class attendance and participation in discussion (15%) is highly encouraged. Some lectures may have in-class components like proving things as a group, etc.

Full participation credit does not require perfect attendance. Participation in ~75% of lectures will result in full credit. The extra slack is for unforeseen circumstances that prevent you from coming to class, so you do not need to have absences “excused” (i.e., please don’t email me to ask – as long as you don’t go over 25% you will fine).

Late Policy

• You have a total of 72 late hours that you can use throughout the quarter as you need them.
• A late hour means anything between 1 second and 59 minutes and 59 seconds past a deadline.
• You should save your late hours for when unexpected circumstances arise that prevent you from turning in your homework on time.
• It is very unlikely that additional extensions will be approved, so use them wisely.

A note on accessibility

If you have a disability and you require accommodations to achieve equal access in this course, please submit your Accommodation Authorization Letter from the Disability Resource Center (DRC) to me via the Accommodate system, preferably within the first two weeks of the quarter. I am eager to discuss ways we can ensure your full participation in the course.

I encourage all students who may benefit from learning more about DRC services to contact the DRC.