This Course is Under Development
Substantial Revisions are Expected Through Summer and Fall, 2026
Expect Complete/Updated Content in January 2027

In discussions of computer science curricula, the term, Discrete Structures, is a widely-used term that describes a range of mathematical concepts and skills that are fundamental within the discipline. As illustrated in the table below, a course with the title Discrete Structures in Computer Science, can be described formally (in at least two ways), strategically, informally, and practically.

For years, the underlying motivation for CS 242 has been to provide students with appropriate mathematical skills, concepts, techniques, and understandings that are fundamental in many areas within computer science. In particular, the following learning objectives for this offering of CS 242 are only slightly edited from past offerings (e.g., from Spring 2022):

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

This course incorporates a variety of activities, including class preparation (reading with in-text activities), and weekly written assignments, as well as quizzes, tests, and a final exam. From past experience, the time required for these activities will likely vary substantially from student to student and from one part of the course to another. For example, a student may need to devote considerable time and effort when starting a new or different topic, but the workload may drop noticeably when that material is mastered.

Such variation in student experiences complicates any estimation of the time individual students may need to devote to homework for this course. However, from past experience, students working steadily on the course likely should expect to allocate 10-15 hours per week to homework. Some students may require additional time for some weeks; some students may complete work in less time for some weeks. Conversations with computer science faculty and others suggest this time allocation is consistent with expectations for many courses at Grinnell College and Sonoma State University.

Henry M. Walker

Office: Darwin 116B
E-mail: walkerhe@sonoma.edu and walker@cs.grinnell.edu

Office hours are available most weekdays, unless announced otherwise in class.

During office hours, I will try accommodate all students who want to talk with me, largely following a first-come, first-served strategy.

ZyBooks Discrete Mathematics is the online interactive textbook for this course.

• zyBook code: SONOMACS242WalkerSpring2026
• zyBook ISBN: 979-8-203-13050-1
• URL: https://learn.zybooks.com/zybook/SONOMACS242WalkerSpring2026

To subscribe to this book, follow these instructions:

• Log onto Canvas.
• Click on link for this course (CS 242, Spring 2026).
• Click on "Modules" in the left sidebar.
• Click on any Assignment that begins "zyBook Homework", followed by a letter and number (e.g., "zyBook Homework 1A").
  • If you have not already subscribed to the book, you will be taken to a "subscribe" page.
  • If you are subscribed, you will be taken to the section that relates to the specific homework assignment you specified. (When you click, this material will come up on a separate browser tab.)

Notes:

• A subscription to the book costs $64.00—But check with the SSU Bookstore, if you have purchased the Seawolf Bundle.
• Students may begin subscribing on Jan 06, 2026 and the cutoff to subscribe is May 12, 2026.
• Subscriptions will last until Jun 12, 2026.
• zyBooks provides information for "Students: Getting started" at https://support.zybooks.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008562913-Students-Getting-started
• Note: In using a link to a zyBook, if you get an error message (in light red), try clicking "reload". In my experience, the proper page often appears on the second try (or maybe the third try).

Additional Notes

• Although course work will cover much of this book, some sections will be skipped. In case you want to look at this additional material, these sections are stil included in this online book but listed as "optional". For those wishing hard copy, all sections of the book (both required and optional) can be printed.

As an additional reference, a page on Common Summation Formulae is available on line with the course syllabus and other materials.

• Class Meetings: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:00-11:50 am
• Classroom: Salazar 1034
• Prerequisites: Grade of C- or better in CS 115 and MATH 161, or consent of instructor.

This course is organized to encourage students to actively engage the material, as suggested by the Day-by-Day Class Schedule. In particular, for most topics covered in the course, readings and in-class activities follow a similar progression.

• Before Class:
  • Students should read designated sections within the textbook (typically about 3 sections).
  • Interspersed in most sections, students should complete any "participation activities"—exercises that highlight basic ideas in the reading. Since the reading is online, student should provide answers within the textbook itself.
  • When a student enters an answer, the textbook indicates if the answer is correct and also provides some discusion. If the student answer was incorrect, the student can enter another answer (but note the textbook may have changed the exercise somewhat, so the student needs to rethink what is being asked before giving a revised answer).
  • With unlimited opportunities to answer each question, the student can conclude with correct answers to every exercise.
  • Points are assigned for correct answers (ignoring incorrect answers, if any), and points earned before the start of the class meeting are recorded as part of a grade in Canvas. (Students can go back to a section after class to rework "participation activities", but any points earned after the class starts are ignored.)
• During Class:
  • Questions of the reading or on previous material are welcomed!
  • Discussion in class will highlight ideas, clarify concepts, provide examples, or otherwise amplify material from the reading.
• After Class:
  • Students return to the sections discussed, and complete any "challenge activities"—exercises that may consider a topic in somewhat more depth and/or provide additional practice.
  • As with "participation activities", students may make as many tries as needed, in order to get an answer identified as correct.
  • Points earned on "challenge activities" before the next class will be recorded in Canvas as part of a student's grade (but points earned after the start of the next class are ignored).

In addition to "participation" and "challenge activities" from the textbook, the course includes modest weekly assignments, bi-weekly quizzes (mostly on Tuesdays), two tests, and a final exam. (Each of these components are discussed further below, under Course Work

Course Work will involve a combination of the following activities.

• Participation Activities and Challenge Activities: As noted above in the section on Class Format/Structure, for each section indicated on the Day-by-Day Schedule, you should complete any "participation activities" from the textbook online before class and any "challenge activities" from the textbook after class (and before the following class).

  • Feel free to ask questions about any reading(s) at the start of each class.
  • After initial questions, discussion in class will assume you have a basic understanding of the material in the reading for the day. Thus, you should come to class prepared to engage in discussions or other activities covering that material.

• Weekly Assignments (identified, with links, on the Day-by-Day Class Schedule) are designed to help students gain additional practice on topics, investigate topics more deeply, and/or integrate individual topics into a broader framework. (With all of the exercises already assigned from the textbook, expect a weekly assignment to be limited to 3 or 4 problems.)
  Note: All weekly assignments must be submitted in paper form at the start of the assigned class.

• In-class Quizzes: A 45–50 minute quiz is scheduled on every other week, except when Tests are scheduled. Altogether about 5 quizzes are scheduled during the semester; in grading, the lowest quiz score will be dropped. These quizzes will focus on basic topics covered recently, but prior to the previous class session.

  • One principle in this course is that students should be able to ask questions about a topic before the material appears on a quiz or test. Following that principle, material introduced the class before a quiz or test will not appear on that exercise. However, all material covered before that class could appear.
  • Since material in this course is cumulative, some recent work may require use of earlier material, so that earlier work could be useful during a quiz or test.

• Tests: Two in-class tests are scheduled for Thursday, March 19, and Thursday, April 23. These tests will focus on the previous 4–6 weeks of the semester, although some earlier material may be covered.

• Exam: A final exam will be given during Exam week, on Tuesday, May 19, at 10:30 pm, following the University's Final Examination schedule. This exam will be cumulative—including material from throughout the semester.

Class Attendance: Students are expected to attend class regularly, arriving on time and staying throughout the entire class period. Students missing all or part of a class are reminded that they are responsible for all material and discussion covered during the full class period—class absence is not considered a valid excuse for not knowing what was covered. (Note, however, that adjustments may be possible in the event of emergencies or illness, as noted below.)

Deadlines are shown on the Tentative Class Schedule, and all work is due at the start of each class specified.

• "Participation Activities" and "Challenge Activities" must be completed before the start of the assigned class session and possible points may not be made up.
• Late work will be accepted for assignments that must be submitted in paper form. However, work submitted after the start of class (e.g., even at the end of the class) will be subject to a penalty of 30% per class meeting.

Emergencies and Illness: Although dates for assignments, quizzes, tests, and the final exam are firm, I understand that circumstances arise when you are not able to attend class.

• When circumstances are known ahead of time (e.g., academic activities, athletic events), I expect you to make arrangements with me before the activity occurs. Normally, we will identify an alternative date for the due date, quiz, or test.

• When circumstances cannot be reasonably anticipated (e.g., illness, family emergencies), I expect you to notify me as soon as is reasonably possible. (Email is fine.) In the case of medical problems, I expect a written note from a medical professional or counselor that indicates that your health interfered with the course activity. (I do not need to know any details of the medical problem, but I do need to know that you sought help and that the medical professional believed meeting the deadline would likely interfere with your health.)

Absolute Deadline: All homework must be turned in by Thursday, May 14, at 4:00 pm;
assignments received after that time will not be counted in the grading of the course.

AI-sourced Materials: Use of ChatGPT (or other similar tools or software that generate suggested text) is not permitted in this class for any assignments. This course assumes that work submitted by students–all homework, drafts, brainstorming artifacts, final works—must be generated by the students themselves, perhaps with consultation with non-AI-produced materials. Altogether, use of AI tools in this course will be considered a violation of SSU’s Cheating and Plagiarism policy and could result in failure for the assignment, a lowering of the course grade, and/or failure for the course.

Additional Notes Regarding the Use of the Web:

• The rules of this course prohibit the use of ChatGPT or other AI-tools.
• If you use outside sources (but not AI-based materials),
  • if you cite the sources, then grading will depend upon the correctness of the material in your answers. There is no penalty for using outside sources.
  • If you do not cite the sources, you have opened yourself to a substantial penalty.
    • If you are caught, then you will be subject to an academic honesty violation.
    • In the past in CS at SSU, penalties for a first offense have included a zero recorded for the assignment, computation of the semester grade based on the zero, and a subsequent lowering of the computed course grade by a full letter. Subsequent offenses likely would result in failure in the course.
• Although the article, ChatGPT answers more than half of software engineering questions incorrectly, focuses upon ChatGPT and encourages readers to use Stack Overflow, numerous sources have noted that some answers on Stack Overflow may contain errors as well. Further, about a year ago, I typed several CS 415 and CS 454 homework problems into both ChatGPT and Claude, and the answers returned frequently contained errors (and often multiple errors within a single problem).
  • Combining the above points, if you use ChatGPT or similar on an assignment or other class work,
    • If you are caught, you will be subject to an academic honesty violation, which could lead to failure in the assignment, lowering the course grade, and/or failure in the course.
    • If you are not caught, there is a reasonable likelihood that the result will be wrong and thus the work would be subject to a substantial point penalty.

Written [weekly] assignments: All work is to be done individually. Further, as noted above, any use of AI-generated materials is explicitly prohibited for this class and will be considered a violation of SSU’s Cheating and Plagiarism policy. However, in preparing answers, students may utilize non-AI-sourced, outside sources (including consultation of in-class slides or the course textbook), provided students follow university-wide rules for quotation and citation. Although non-AI-based, outside sources may be used (if properly cited), you are still responsible for the accuracy/correctness of what you submit. This foundational principle leads to several notes:

Quizzes, tests, and the final exam: All in-class quizzes, tests, and the final exam are closed book and closed notes, and collaboration is not allowed. Students may ask questions of the instructor, but communication with any other person is not allowed.

Other Graded Work: Should other work be assigned during this class, rules regarding collaboration and citation will be included as part of the activity.

Procedures: Throughout the course, For example, any hint of academic dishonesty will be investigated and handled following the SSU Policies on Cheating and plagiarism.

Participation and Challenge Activities: Following the Day-by-day Schedule, the activities from the zyBook textbook are coordinated with in-class discussions, and students complete this work within the zyBook itself.

• Since each activity can be taken as many times as desired, and since the textbook provides hints and commentary, each student can achieve a score of 100%, with motivation and patience.
• However, timing is essential, and is enforced by the zyBook itself!
  • Following the schedule most Participation Activities must be completed before the designated in-class session, and most Challenge Activities must be completed the in-class session.
  • Although the zyBook allows students to work on these activities at any time, only work completedbefore the identified in-class session will be counted toward the semester grade.

Weekly Assignments: As 200-level CS course, answers to assignments must demonstrate care in organization and presentation.

• All assignments must be submitted on paper:
• All work must utilize a dark font (e.g., black, dark blue, dark green, dark red) on a light background (e.g., white, cream, light grey, light tan), and the font size must be 12 point or larger.
• Solutions must be organized in problem order, and each solution must indicate the problem number being addressed. However, there is no need to include the text of the questions.
• Solutions to computational problems must include the work involved, presented in a logical order. Scattering computations in multiple sections of the page, or giving only the answer is not adequate and often will lose points.
• When a problem asks for explanations or logical arguments, answers must utilize proper English grammar and follow a logical presentation. For example, statements must be in full English sentences and follow standard rules of English construction. Points may be subtracted for sloppy or poorly constructed English prose or egregious errors in spelling. Typically, occasional mistakes (1-2 per page) may not be penalized, although systematic spelling errors may be subject to a penalty. Beyond occasional difficulties, point penalties will depend on the frequency and severity of the errors. See the instructor, if you have questions about writing—I would be delighted to help you with your technical writing skills.
• Although the course involves relatively few required programs, all programs submitted for credit must follow the SSU CS/C++ Style Guide SSU CS Department copy or Instructor's copy), which will be discussed in class. For example, since every programming task should yield readable and carefully tested code, the grading of all programs for this course will begin with the following algorithm (expressed in C/C++ format):

     if ((no_comments)
          || (missing pre- or post-conditions)
          || (formatting_does_not_show_structure)
          || (long_procedures_not_divided_into_sections_with_clarifying_comments)
          || (no_evidence_of_compilation)
          || (no_test_plan,__no_listing_of_circumstances__OR__no_listing_of_test_cases)
          || (no_test_runs)
          || (no_commentary_on_correctness)
          || (no_certification_regarding_sources_and_help)
          || (use of Bubble Sort or non-approved sorting algorithm)
     return (no_grade);
  

Semester Grades

This instructor's grading philosophy dictates that the final grade should ultimately be based upon each student's demonstration of her or his understanding of the material, not on the performance of the class as a whole nor on a strict percentile basis.

The following scheme is proposed as a base for how the various assignments and tests will be counted in the final grade.

Cell phones, laptops, or other mobile computing devices can and should be used for polling/clicker questions that require student responses during class.

Otherwise, cell phones or other computing equipment may not be used in this class. For example, browsing the Web, text-messaging, and use of social-networking applications are not allowed during this class; use of such equipment for any purpose other than polling/clicker questions is distracting to those nearby and will not be tolerated.

Statements in this section are quoted from language recommended by SSU.

Fires and/or Power Outages

Sonoma County has seen an increase in fire activity and public safety power outages that have had an impact on campus operations intermittently since 2017. In the event that we experience a similar disruption to our course this semester, I will communicate with class via email within 24 hours of the disruption around potential changes to assignments, due dates, or readings. If the disruption continues for more than one week of our regular class meetings, I will subsequently follow up on a weekly basis. Please sign up to receive university emergency alerts by texting SSUALERTS to 67283.

Religious Observance

The observance of religious holidays (activities observed by a religious group of which a student is a member) and cultural practices are an important reflection of diversity. As your instructor, I am committed to providing equivalent educational opportunities to students of all belief systems. At the beginning of the semester, you should review the course requirements to identify foreseeable conflicts with assignments, exams, or other required attendance. If at all possible, please contact me (your course coordinator/s) within the first two weeks of the first class meeting to allow time for us to discuss and make fair and reasonable adjustments to the schedule and/or tasks.

Flexibility versus Accommodations

I have designed the course to provide some flexibility for students who experience hardships related to COVID-19 and other illnesses, mental health challenges and family concerns. These include reasonable extensions on assignments, and opportunities to make-up exams. It is important to note that any flexibility that I provide is something that I would offer any student without compromising the learning outcomes or modalities of the course. For instance, I cannot change the course modality to online for a student, nor can I allow a student to use notes in a traditionally closed notes exam. The most important thing that you can do is communicate with me. I can work with you to determine what options there are for you to succeed.

This flexibility should not be confused with the term "accommodations" which is reserved for students referred to me by Disability Services for Students (DSS).

DSS

If you are a student with a disability and think you may need academic accommodations, please contact Disability Services for Students (DSS) located in Schulz 1014A. Please contact DSS as early as possible in order to avoid a delay in receiving accommodation services. The use of DSS services, including testing accommodations, requires prior authorization by DSS in compliance with university policies and procedures. See SSU's policy on Disability Access for Students. 

• Phone: (707) 664-2677
• Phone TTY/TDD: (707) 664-2958
• DSS Website 

Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS)

If you feel stressed or otherwise worried about your circumstances, you are encouraged to contact SSU's Counseling and Psychological Services. In summary, CAPS offers short-term individual and group counseling, workshops, crisis intervention services, consultation, referral, training, and outreach.

• Phone: (707) 664-2153
• CAPS Website 

created June 24, 2021 revised Summer 2021 revised Fall 2025
For more information, please contact Henry M. Walker at walker@cs.grinnell.edu.