Data Structures and Algorithms

It is during the Data Structures and Algorithms Week that you will start to learn about data structures and algorithms, which are the core building blocks of all code.

Expectations

You are not expected to be experts on these topics by the end of the week. This material is usually covered in 1-2 semesters of a Computer Science undergraduate degree. Almost all technical interviews require knowledge of data structures and algorithms so having knowledge of these concepts will help you. We are starting this in advance so you are introduced to these concepts and can continue to practice in the coming weeeks.

Teamwork

This sprint will also help you practice study skills, summarizing, teamwork, and presenting. You will be split into groups and assigned different topics to study and introduce in a presentation.

Topics

All groups should review:

• Intro to Data Structures
• Intro to Algorithms

Group A - Stacks, Queues, and Linked Lists

• Stacks
• Queues
• Linked Lists

For the most important items to teach and learn, see Objectives 11.

Group B - Trees 🌲

• Trees
  • Depth-First and Breadth-First Searches
  • Tries
• Heap - A special type of tree that let’s you keep an ordered set of items and quickly access the max (or min) (aka Max-heap, Min-heap)

For the most important items to teach and learn, see Objectives 11

Group C - Hash Tables (aka Map, HashMap, Dict, etc)

• Hash Tables
• JS Map - Lookup values in O(1)
• JS Set - basically a Map with only keys (no values), items are present or not

For the most important items to teach and learn, see Objectives 11

Group D - Array Sorting/Searching

• Array Sorting
• Linear & Binear Searching

For the most important items to teach and learn, see Objectives 11

Schedule

Day 1

In the morning, the SEAM will assign you to one of the above groups. The group members should study individually and then come together to compare notes about topics, start creating introductory slides, and decide who will present what. Groups will plan out demos, select beginner exercises and resources, polish slides, and practice presenting their introductory topic overviews (remember that reading is discouraged and eye contact and a loud, confident voice are encouraged).

Homework: read about your assigned data structures topics, highlight or outline the most important parts, and review runtime complexity (topic outline, slides, video).

Day 2

Group should research their topic and decide how to divide tasks for the presentation.

Researching Tips

• Many, many data structures examples will be in Java - it will be harder to find JS resources
• It would be helpful to review our earlier lesson, Giving Presentations

Day 3

Work on presentations as a group.

Day 4

Presentation Requirements

All the groups will practice and then present their topics, starting in the afternoon. SEAM will send invites. Each presentation should be about 30 minutes long and include:

Slides TL;DR

• ~30min worth of slides (including solution walkthrough)
• 5 code challenges
  • 1 you walkthrough the solution of
  • 1 you give the others time to start after your slides and are available for help
  • 3 additional for others to practice - your group solves in advance and send solutions to SEAM

Details

• Basics of each part of the topic
  • What makes the concept useful?
  • What are the unique properties of it? (Big O Notation, etc)
  • Example of a use case
• How to use the concept
• At least 10 visuals (can be original or found on the internet)
• A short code exercise walkthrough
  • Show a code challenge and present your group’s solution
  • Explain each line of code and how came up with the solution
  • This can be done in VSCode (Google Slides does not highlight code well)
• Additional resources slide at the end
  • Include any videos, code challenges, blogs that your group found helpful
• One post-slides code challenge
  • After the presentation portion ends, give everyone 30 min to work on the first code challenge
  • In terms of difficulty, it should be solvable in <30min
  • Be available to answer questions on Zoom Q&A call
  • Have hints prepared for the challenge to give, if needed

• An additional 3 code challenges for everyone to practice (at end of presentation and later)

  • Send solutions to all 3 from your group to the SEAM prior to your presentation
  • In terms of difficulty, they should take between 30-60min to solve
  • All other participants will have to choose of yours to be homework over the weekend, to be turned into the SEAM

Day 5

Presentations conclude.

• Work on the code challenges given by each group
• Ask the group for help/hints if you can’t solve them
• Turn in all required code challenge code in your assignment repos as a PR before retro starts