ECE374-B FA23: Home

This is not the current CS/ECE-374-B site. I have received many emails asking for my past course materials (mostly my lectures and exams) so I am keeping this site alive as a repository of the content I created during my tenure as a ECE374 instructor. I also spent a year learning Jekyll to create course website that is simple, clean, and lightweight on the front-end and is easy to update on the backend. I invite any professors to contribute to this effort and feel free to email me with any suggestions.

One of the most important things I've learned teaching a large course is that one's success is predicated on the abilities of the company he/she keeps and I have been very lucky to have great company. In particular I would like to thank Sariel Har-Peled for guiding my through this course my first semester. He is one of the most under-rated professors in UIUC and a large part of my teaching is based on what I learned from him. Andrew Miller is also an awesome instructor and the semesters I've taught with him have definitely been my favorite. I would also like to thank my amazing graduate and undergrdauate teaching assistants that have shown so much dedication to the students and helped prop me up even when I was completely overwhelmed. Teaching assistants make or break the course and these guys definitely made it.

Course Description

CS/ECE 374 covers fundamental tools and techniques from theoretical computer science, including design and analysis of algorithms, formal languages and automata, computability, and complexity. Specific topics include regular and context-free languages, finite-state automata, recursive algorithms (including divide and conquer, backtracking, dynamic programming, and greedy algorithms), fundamental graph algorithms (including depth- and breadth-first search, topological sorting, minimum spanning trees, and shortest paths), undecidability, and NP-completeness. The course also has a strong focus on clear technical communication.

Forum (Piazza) Submit HWs (Gradescope) Gradebook (Canvas)

News

January 08, 2024
For the first time in more than three years, I will not be teaching ECE374. I recently had a baby and am not teaching, so I can better spend time with him. I am sorry to those of you that I have disappointed and wish you all the best. This school is full of amazing professors and I encourage you to give my replacements a chance, and be kind to each other. While this has always been a CS course with a syllabus determined by the CS administration, I have tried my best to develop content (including this website) that would make the subject accessible and maybe a bit entertaining. I am maintaining this website so that the content I (and my excellent TA/CAs) developed may always be accessible to future students. Last note: in Fall2023, I only delivered half the lectures because my son was born. Hence, I mixed links to my Fall2023 and Spring2023 lectures so that all the lecture content I developed is easily accessible. Please pardon any indexing errors since the lecture/lab indices changed between the semesters.
December 25, 2023
I am incredibly pleased to announce that Sumedh Vemuganti has won the Harold L. Olesen Undergraduate Teaching Award! This is the first time that I know of that someone has won this award in his first semester of being a TA. And you know what, he completely deserves it. Sumedh has gone way above and beyond in his TA duties and he propped me up during a semester when I needed it the most. Thank you to those of you that nominated him. We are all blessed to have him and let’s keep working hard to make sure our favorite people feel appreciated.
August 20, 2023
Welcome to the ECE374-B website for the Fall 2023 semester. It is always under construction and will be progressively populated as the semester goes on so make sure to check back often and and still being populated. I ‘m sure there are many typos and such. If you see any errors please submit a issue in the website’s github repo! Raising issues improves the course site, ups your GitHub participation stats and will be rewarded in other ways as well!