Academic Meeting Minutes

Planning courses, labs, revision support, careers resources, and academic talks for the coming year.

Minutes by Odin

Attendance

• Tom S
• Tom F
• Odin
• Bharat
• Joseph
• Lawrence
• Sean
• Ali G

1. Drunk LeetCode

Ali originally proposed a “Drunk LeetCode” event, with joke ideas such as LeetCode boxing already circulating.

The meeting felt that this would be more of a social event than an academic one. It should therefore not require extensive academic involvement, although the Exec would need to provide appropriate health and safety oversight. Maths Soc has previously run a similar “Drunk Calculus” event.

2. Courses, labs, and teaching content

The following courses and teaching projects were discussed:

• Raven would like to work on Git Gud content.
• Kashish would like to run an XSOC Python course.
• A LaTeX course could potentially be restarted in collaboration with Maths Soc, which has run one in previous years.
• A Rust course is on the radar but does not need to be delivered until Term 2.

Linux Labs

Joseph, Bharat, and Odin are available to help with Linux Labs on the Wednesday of Welcome Week, from 08:30 to 12:30, followed by PGT sessions. Sean is unavailable during Welcome Week. Ali has no specific plans but is happy to help.

Bharat expects the Linux Labs content to remain broadly the same as in previous years. Tom S and Tom F agreed that the material should receive a quick review to ensure that it is consistent and suitable for students logging into the system for the first time.

Lawrence asked whether UWCS would be collaborating on IntakeCTF. It is not currently clear whether a collaboration is planned, but Artem is expected to make contact if help is required.

3. Lecturer and company talks

A company talk is planned for 13 October, with further sponsor talks potentially taking place in early November.

The meeting stressed that external-speaker job forms should be started at least three weeks in advance.

Joseph is aiming to organise lecturer talks. Tom F raised a concern that lecturer talks, sponsor talks, and other academic events could create an overly busy timetable. The meeting noted that Comp Café attracts a somewhat different audience and is more casual, so it may be possible to run both. However, the number of events being advertised should be considered carefully, particularly as there may already be events from multiple departments as well as academic and sponsor talks.

Reading groups should be supported by advertising them in the academic channel when requested, rather than adding them to the society’s own timetable.

4. CS140-style course and outreach

Ali is planning a CS140-style course in collaboration with Ligang. The proposal is for three workshops across one week—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—with a competition at the end in collaboration with Cyber Soc.

The course is intended to help students with Coursework 2 while avoiding any overlap with coursework answers. Ali will continue coordinating with Ligang to ensure that the content does not create this issue. The course should be accessible to students outside Computer Science, and the competition could be marked in a similar way to the coursework. It may also be worth contacting Artem about the proposal.

Ali also needs help with:

• adding 'fluff' and red herrings to the security environments;
• preparing presentations and workshops; and
• providing hints that only Exec members would know.

Volunteers will need to be recruited to help with this work.

DCS has also asked UWCS to help with a scavenger hunt, including handing out stickers as prizes. Bharat is writing a course as well and would be happy to run it in Term 2 if Term 1 becomes too busy.

5. Comp Café

Sean asked why Comp Café had stopped running. Tom F explained that people had begun taking food and leaving, but suggested that the model used for FNG could solve this problem.

The first few sessions should be advertised clearly. Comp Café should not clash with DCS’s Café Chill, which is a more social event and could otherwise be confused with it. The two events should be scheduled on different days where possible.

6. Careers Bible and external resources

The previous Careers Bible project was believed to have been led by Santi and Joseph, but is no longer active.

Ed is working on a new Careers Bible. It is currently incomplete, although the sections on writing a CV are the most developed.

The meeting suggested including csnotes.uwcs.uk in the society’s academic research. It should be made clear that this is an external resource and is not technically part of the society.

7. Coursework and revision support (OISF Week)

The weeks before coursework deadlines are often particularly stressful, with students facing multiple missed deadlines. The meeting discussed running a dedicated support week to help students catch up before new coursework or lectures begin.

This could also allow UWCS to create revision material incrementally, which could later be used for revision lectures before exams. This would avoid asking academics to create large amounts of material during their own exam periods.

One suggestion was to run this during Week 6 of each term, before lectures finish, while students can still ask their lecturers for clarification.

Bharat suggested a lab-style format, with people available to answer questions in Comp Café. The boundary around helping with active coursework would need to be made clear, particularly where coursework has not yet been released.

Ali noted that the support should cover content-heavy modules as well as programming-heavy coursework.

Sean suggested modelling the sessions on department-run support sessions. Ali felt that UWCS-style revision sessions might work better, but noted that a previous session had low attendance. Focusing each session on a specific module could make the purpose and expected content clearer.