Research Opportunities for Computer Science Students at Carleton University

This information is accurate as of Feb 9th, 2025.

What is research?

The goal of academic research is to add to the body of knowledge within a field. Generally speaking, research either aims to understand (e.g. “Are there biases in the outputs produced by large language models?) or to create (e.g. “Here is a new protocol for sending messages across the internet”). Depending on the specific field, this could involve running experiments or simulations, designing algorithms or processes, interviewing or observing participants in a study, and so on. There is also generally an expectation that the results be communicated in some way. Most commonly, this is done through a written report, a poster, or a presentation.

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Which Math Courses Should I Take in First Year?

A Guide for Computer Science Students at Carleton University

This page was last updated on February 9, 2025.

What is COMP 1805? Is it math or programming?

COMP 1805 involves no programming, though at times reading pseudocode may be involved. It is very explicitly a math course, though it’s probably not the math you are used to doing in high school. Whereas high school math courses teach you techniques for doing different sorts of calculations and algebraic manipulations, there are close to no calculations in COMP 1805. Instead, the course is about learning the language used by computer scientists and mathematicians to describe problems more formally (which in turn, makes it easier to decide whether or not a problem has been “solved”). Topics covered in COMP 1805 include “foundations of math and reasoning” such as propositional logic, basic set theory, functions and relations on sets, and proof techniques, as well as topics intended for computer scientists, such as an introduction to graphs and networks, Big O notation, and asymptotic analysis of algorithms.

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