Tentative Course Schedule
The table below provides a tentative schedule for the lectures. This schedule is subject to change. R&N = Russel & Norvig.
Fall 2025 Quarter Dates:
- First Day of Instruction: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
- Last Day of Instruction: Friday, December 5, 2025
- Finals Week: December 8-12, 2025
| Date | Events | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Week 0 | ||
| Wed, Sep 24 | LEC 0-1An introduction to the class | R&N Ch. 1 |
| Thu, Sep 25 | No DiscussionNo discussion this week | |
| Fri, Sep 26 | LEC 0-2Project Tips; Prereqs Guide | |
| Week 1 | ||
| Mon, Sep 29 | LEC 1-1Prerequisites | |
| Wed, Oct 1 | LEC 1-2AI Traditions | R&N Ch. 1 |
| Thu, Oct 2 | DiscussionPython programming setup | |
| Fri, Oct 3 | LEC 1-3Introduction to Search Group FormationGroup Formation Due Reading Reflection 1Reading Reflection 1 Due | R&N Ch. 3 |
| Week 2 | ||
| Mon, Oct 6 | LEC 2-1Iterative Search. BFS, DFS | R&N 3.4 |
| Wed, Oct 8 | LEC 2-2Iterative Search. A-Star and extensions | R&N 3.5, 3.6 |
| Thu, Oct 9 | Quiz 1Quiz 1; Uninformed Search | |
| Fri, Oct 10 | LEC 2-3Games & Game Theory Project ProposalProject Proposal Due Reading Reflection 2Reading Reflection 2 Due | R&N 5.1, 5.2 |
| Week 3 | ||
| Mon, Oct 13 | LEC 3-1Adversarial Search; Minimax | R&N 5.2, 5.3 |
| Wed, Oct 15 | LEC 3-2Alpha-Beta Pruning | R&N 5.3 |
| Thu, Oct 16 | Quiz 2Quiz 2; Topics after Quiz 1 thru Lec. 3.2 | |
| Fri, Oct 17 | LEC 3-3Monte Carlo Tree Search Homework 1Homework 1 Due Reading Reflection 3Reading Reflection 3 Due | R&N 5.4 |
| Week 4 | ||
| Mon, Oct 20 | LEC 4-1Logic & Graph Basics | R&N 7.1, 7.2 |
| Wed, Oct 22 | LEC 4-2PageRank and Random Walks on Graphs | |
| Thu, Oct 23 | DiscussionNo Quiz; Supervised Machine Learning Practical Tips | |
| Fri, Oct 24 | LEC 4-3Decision Trees pt. 1: Decision Tree Algorithm Reading Reflection 4Reading Reflection 4 Due | R&N 19.1, 19.2 |
| Week 5 | ||
| Mon, Oct 27 | LEC 5-1Decision Trees pt. 2: Overfitting and Regularization | R&N 19.3 |
| Wed, Oct 29 | LEC 5-2Decision Trees pt. 3: Ensemble Learning, Bagging and Boosting | R&N 19.3 |
| Thu, Oct 30 | Quiz 3Quiz 3; see topic guide below | |
| Fri, Oct 31 | LEC 5-3Unsupervised Learning; Clustering; Bias-Variance Tradeoff Reading Reflection 5Reading Reflection 5 Due | |
| Week 6 | ||
| Mon, Nov 3 | LEC 6-1Neural Networks 1: Perceptron, Activation Functions, Gradient Descent | R&N 21.1, 21.2 |
| Wed, Nov 5 | LEC 6-2Neural Networks 2: Deep Neural Networks, Linear Separability, Backpropagation | |
| Thu, Nov 6 | Quiz 4Quiz 4; Discussion Content TBD | |
| Fri, Nov 7 | LEC 6-3Neural Networks 3: CNNs Reading Reflection 6Reading Reflection 6 Due | R&N 22.3 |
| Week 7 | ||
| Mon, Nov 10 | LEC 7-1Neural Networks 4: Recurrent Neural Networks (Pre-recorded - No in-person class) 📹 See video "ECS-170: 2024-11-10 Prerecorded" in the Media Gallery | R&N 22.4 |
| Tue, Nov 11 | No ClassNo Class - Veterans Day Holiday | |
| Wed, Nov 12 | LEC 7-2Neural Networks 5: Word Embeddings (Pre-recorded - No in-person class) 📹 See video "ECS-170: 2024-11-12 Prerecorded" in the Media Gallery Project Check-InProject Check-In Due Collaboration Survey 1Collaboration Survey 1 Due | R&N 22.4, [NLP For You](https://lena-voita.github.io/nlp_course/word_embeddings.html) |
| Thu, Nov 13 | Quiz 5Quiz 5; Discussion Content TBD | |
| Fri, Nov 14 | LEC 7-3Neural Networks 6: Attention & Transformer (Pre-recorded - No in-person class) 📹 See video "ECS-170: 2024-11-14 Prerecorded" in the Media Gallery Reading Reflection 7Reading Reflection 7 Due | R&N 22.4, 23.2, [Transformer Explainer](https://poloclub.github.io/transformer-explainer/) |
| Week 8 | ||
| Mon, Nov 17 | LEC 8-1Conditional Language Modeling, In-Context Learning | |
| Wed, Nov 19 | LEC 8-2Reinforcement Learning Introduction Homework 2Homework 2 Due | R&N 17.1, 17.2 |
| Thu, Nov 20 | DiscussionNo Quiz; Discussion Content TBD | |
| Fri, Nov 21 | LEC 8-3Solving Markov Decision Processes Reading Reflection 8Reading Reflection 8 Due | R&N 22.5 |
| Week 9 | ||
| Mon, Nov 24 | LEC 9-1Temporal Difference Q-Learning | R&N 22.5 |
| Wed, Nov 26 | No ClassNo Class - Thanksgiving Break | |
| Thu, Nov 27 | No ClassNo Discussion - Thanksgiving Holiday | |
| Fri, Nov 28 | Reading Reflection 9Reading Reflection 9 Due No ClassNo Class - Thanksgiving Holiday | |
| Week 10 | ||
| Mon, Dec 1 | LEC 10-1Selected Topics I | |
| Wed, Dec 3 | LEC 10-2Selected Topics II | |
| Thu, Dec 4 | Quiz 6Quiz 6; Discussion Content TBD | |
| Fri, Dec 5 | LEC 10-3Final Project Presentations (In-Person) Reading Reflection 10Reading Reflection 10 Due Collaboration Survey 2Collaboration Survey 2 Due | |
| Week Finals | ||
| Mon, Dec 8 | InfoFinals Week Begins | |
| Tue, Dec 9 | FinalFinal Project Presentations (Online) | |
| Wed, Dec 10 | Project Report & CodeProject Report & Code Due FinalFinal Session (Project Presentations) | |
| Fri, Dec 12 | InfoFinals Week Ends | |
Quiz Topic Guide​
| Quiz | topics |
|---|---|
| 1 | search: DFS,BFS,UCS,A*,heuristics,framing search problems |
| 2 | adversarial search: Minimax, Alpha-Beta Pruning |
| 3 | supervised machine learning: decision trees, ensemble methods, regularization & overfitting, model complexity |
| 4 | supervised machine learning: neural networks, perceptron, backpropagation, topics after quiz 3 to through the monday preceding the quiz |
| 5 | supervised machine learning: neural networks, RNN, CNN, topics after quiz 4 to through the monday preceding the quiz |
| 6 | reinforcement learning: basic RL problem formulation, Markov Decision Processes, Direct Utility Estimation, Q-Learning, TD Utility Estimation, TD Q-Learning, Deep Q Learning, Policy Gradient methods, RL applications covered in class |