Introductions

Assignment: Introductions

This is an ungraded psuedo-assignment (completion counts toward participation) in which you introduce yourself to the course staff and do a few things to get ready for the rest of CS240. Please complete all parts by the end of the day on Friday, September 4.

Contents

Parts

1. Familiarize yourself with the course

Read through the syllabus and tentative course schedule. Jot down any questions that arise to either (1) ask on your Get to Know You form in Task 2 or (2) ask in class.

Note that the Zero assignment includes a section that will ask you questions about the syllabus.

2. Introduce yourself to the course staff

Introduce yourself to the instructors and tutors by filling out the forms at these links:

  • Create a CS240 CourseIntros introduction. Be sure to upload a brief video in which you pronounce your full name (including both first and last name) and tell us a fun fact about yourself. (CourseIntros was created by Wellesley faculty alum Susan Buck.)

  • Fill out the CS240 Get To Know You form

  • If you have not taken a course with me (Lyn) before: even if you don’t have any questions, please attend one of my help hour sessions during the first two weeks of the course, just so I have a chance to meet you 1-on-1! Likewise if you have not had a course with Peter before.

3. Join the Zulip CS240 Fall 2026 organization

This semester, rather than using Brightspace or email for asking questions, finding partners, etc., we will use Zulip, which has become a tradition in CS240.

Use this link to join the Zulip CS240 Fall 2026 organization. Sign up using your wellesley email. Also study the Zulip usage guidelines.

4. Fill out the help hours poll

Please fill out this when2meet poll “painting” all hours during a typical week when you would be available to attend instructor or tutor help hours. Please sign in with both your first and last name.

  • We’ll use this information to help design our schedule of regular help hour times. These times might depend on the due day for the current assignment.

  • If regularly scheduled help hour times are inconvenient for you, we would be happy to find another time to meet with you. Just message us on Zulip or email Lyn to find a mutually agreeable meeting time.

5. Fill out the Exam 1 Scheduling Form

During Fall 2026, Exam 1 is a 3-hour exam that will be held outside of class time. You may take it from 4-10pm on Tue Mar 4, Wed Mar 5, or Thu Mar 6. Please fill out this Exam 1 Scheduling form so that Lyn knows when each student will take the exam. The form allows you to explain any issues involving scheduling or exam accommodations. Please be sure to add the exam time to your calendar! (Details about exam rooms will be provided later.)

Note that Exam 2 will be held during your penultimate CS240 lab session of the semester (Tue Dec 1 or Wed Dec 2).

6. Use a terminal to connect to the CS department server (cs.wellesley.edu)

For many CS240 assignments (any ones that involve writing code), you will need to connect to the CS Dept Server (cs.wellesley.edu = dix.wellesley.edu). You may already have such an account depending on when you took CS111, CS230, or other CS courses. If you do not yet have such an account, please fill out this form right away.

Once you have a cs.wellesley.edu account, you should test that you can securely log into this account using the ssh program.

Note: cs.wellesley.edu server was updated to a new served recently, which can cause issues with connecting from a computer with which you previously connected to the old server. If you see the error Could not establish connection to cs.wellesley.edu: Remote host key has changed, port forwarding is disabled., you’ll need to remove the old host key your computer has saved. Open the file ~/.ssh/known_hosts and delete any lines containing cs.wellesley.edu. After that, try to connect again.

The ssh program runs in a terminal window on your computer or as part of your IDE (integrated development environment, a program where you both edit and run code). Below are various ways that you can run it:

  • Regardless of what kind of laptop you have, if you have Visual Studio Code (VSCode) IDE and have installed its Remote Development Extension Pack, you can use that to connect to cs.wellesley.edu remotely via ssh. The benefit of using VSCode’s remote extension is that you can easily open and edit files (or open entire folders) in the IDE, using your cursor and keyboard. VSCode’s remote extension is what many students use to connect to cs.wellesley.edu.

    See more information here. In brief, after you install VSCode and the Remote Extension Pack, you will need to:

    1. Open the Command Palette (command+shift+P on Mac, ctrl+shift+P on Windows), search ssh and select RemoteSSH - Add New SSH Host... then add ssh <YourAccountName>@cs.wellesley.edu where YourAccountName is your cs.wellesley.edu account name. E.g., user (gdome would connect using the command ssh gdome@cs.wellesley.edu).
    2. Type your password for the department server (If you have forgotten it, contact Scott Anderson to reset it.)
    3. Press connect.
    4. The next time you connect, you can open the Command Palette and select RemoteSSH - Connect To Host....
    5. You can also set up SSH keys so that you don’t need to type your password each time you connect. See these instructions (provided by Wellesley’s CS304) here.

  • You can also use a terminal application to ssh into the department server directly. In order to connect, you will be prompted for the password for your CS Dept account. Once you are connected, you can use terminal commands as if you were running them on the department server. To edit files, you’ll need to use a Terminal-based editor, such as Emacs or Vim. This is the approach that Lyn uses to connect to cs.wellesley.edu from his Mac laptop.

    On a Mac, open Terminal and connect to cs.wellesley.edu by executing the following command:

    ssh <YourAccountName>@cs.wellesley.edu

    where YourAccountName is your cs.wellesley.edu account name. E.g., user gdome would connect using the command

    ssh gdome@cs.wellesley.edu

    On Windows, you can use the Microsoft Windows Terminal application. If it is not installed on your computer, you can download and install it from Microsoft. Use ssh command similar to the ones described for the Mac terminal:

    ssh YourAccountName@cs.wellesley.edu

    On Linux, you can use your distribution’s default terminal.

  • Another option is to use the PuTTY Terminal

If you encounter any problems with this part, post on Zulip with details of what you are stuck on and Lyn or Peter will help.