CS w186
Introduction to Database Systems
Prof. Josh Hug
Essential Queries
• Why take this class?
• What is this class all about? • Who is running this?
• How will this class work?
Who Am I?
• 6th year faculty at UC Berkeley. Freshly tenured as of July 1st.
• My title is “Associate Teaching Professor”. Note the title has the extra word “teaching” in
there.
• PhD at Berkeley in 2011 modeling signal transduction in bacteria (it was cool).
• Moved on to a teaching focused track after grad school because I thought it was more fun.
• First job out of grad school was as a lecturer at Princeton from 2011-2014, before coming back to Berkeley.
• Came back because UC Berkeley is such a cool place to be. Also the weather and the ocean and the friends.
Who Am I? Outside of work
• Grew up in Texas. It was fine, but not ideal.
• Dad of a cool two year old.
• The ocean is my best buddy, and it’s only ~45 minutes away.
• When faced with a choice between doing the activity and not doing the activity because I feel a little lazy, I try to always do the activity (and you should, too).
• I really like sneaking into places, as well as interesting antics and schemes.
Your Amazing TAs
Angela Xiao
Eric Sheng
Jiayue Li
Jenny Huang
Jenny Wang
David Kim
David Wang
Lakshya Jain (Head TA) Ethan Shang
Daniel Zhang Sai Mandava Jeremy Dong Charles Lin
Ian Rodney
Jamie Gu
Brian DeLeonardis John Yang Jasmine Le
You!
• This class is in your hands.
• Everything is doable, with steady work.
• We will help pace you
• Weekly section worksheets, vitamins keep you on schedule • Weekly in-person sections and office hours
• But now more than ever, success is in your hands
Essential Queries
• Why take this class?
• What is this class all about? • Who is running this?
• How will this class work?
A Note on CS w186
This course was created by Joe Hellerstein!
• His decades of experience with databases are the soul of this course.
By contrast, I (Josh Hug) am basically the equivalent of a machine operator. • No live lectures.
• Will not be designing new homeworks or exercises.
• My role will be almost entirely behind the scenes – but feel free to come to office hours.
Why w186?
• In Fa07/Sp08, EECS taught 22,660 student credit hours worth of courses.
• In Fa19/Sp20, we expect to teach 90,000+.
• Though teaching load has quadrupled, the faculty has gone from ~90
to ~114.
• This semester’s class is an experiment to try to serve the students better by streamlining faculty teaching load. Let us know what you think on surveys.
What is different about CS w186?
• Main difference: online lecture content
• Noin-personlectures
• 3-5 minute videos on edX
• Each followed by an online Quick Check
• Reinforce the basics
• Otherwise, things are largely standard • In-Person Discussion sections
• Worksheet will be online in advance • In-person TA and Prof Office Hours
Main Sources of Information
• Piazza discussion forum
• This is your most important resource, and you are responsible to read pinned posts!
• Course Website: www.cs186berkeley.net • Calendar: sections and OH
• Links to resources like course drive, edX
• Syllabus
• FAQs
• Course Content on EdX
• Video lectures corresponding to slides
• Quick Check exercises to reinforce lecture content
• Mandatory weekly Vitamins to assess understanding
• All this info linked on website.
Workload
• Weekly “lecture” style work
• Lecture exercises:
• Intermixed with lecture videos
• Vitamins: simple weekly online quizzes – 10% of your grade • You can drop 2
• Exercises must be completed to submit vitamin.
• 5 programming homeworks (next slide) – 35% of your grade
• 2 midterm exams: 30% of your grade
• MT1: Friday, Oct. 4, 8-10 PM • MT2: Friday, Nov. 8: 8-10 PM
• Worse exam is 12% of your grade, better exam is 18% • 1 final exam – 25% of your grade
• Wednesday, Dec. 18, 11:30 AM – 2:30 PM
• Schedule for homeworks and exams on the website
Homeworks
• Real-world focus
• SQL querying: basics and algorithmics • Building pieces of a DBMS
• B+-tree indexes
• Join Algorithms
• Dynamic Programming Query Optimizer • Concurrency (2PL) and Recovery (ARIES)
• HW0 out now!
• HW1 goes out next week!!
Cheating policy
• Zero Tolerance. It is uncool. Don’t.
• We have the technology to find out.
• We know that most cheating happens due to stress
• Plan ahead and stay on schedule to minimize stress • You have built-in safety valves
• Dropped vitamins
• Slip days on homeworks: save for when you need them, don’t micro-optimize!
• Midterms weighted to the higher grade
• Keep an eye on the course drop date. Don’t take too many courses!
• Feeling stressed? Reach out!
• Campus resources
• Course staff is here for you
• Incompletes are appropriate for health issues of any kind
• Staff perspective
• We want you to learn and to succeed
• We want things to be fair, so need to stick to rules
Staying in touch
• All class communication via Piazza
• https://piazza.com/berkeley/fall2019/csw186 • We will go live with answers today
• Announcements and discussion
• read it regularly
• post all questions/comments there • answer each other’s questions!
• Direct email to cs186berkeley.issues@gmail.com if you have a logistical or otherwise sensitive question that you’d prefer not to post on piazza.
See you online!