Where We Are Located

in the FYE Computer Lab in Dudley and Lambertus Hall

DUDL 3rd floor, room 3123 (adjacent to the main staircase)

Open Monday-Friday, 8 AM-4 PM.

What We Do

The Undergraduate Coding And Debugging Studio’s purpose is to help engineering learners use code to solve engineering problems by empowering them to improve their coding and computational logic skills.

We Offer

• Coming up with a plan for solving your programming problem by visualizing the problem using pseudocode, flowcharts, drawings, recipes, hand-written algorithms, or any other acceptable attempt at a representation
• Debugging already written code that isn’t working correctly
• Coaching to find reliable resources on the world wide web to help you solve problems
• A place to work on homework, meet with your team, and practice programming concepts
• We’re here to help you understand and practice the programming concepts you’ve learned in class. We also provide additional explanations from a student perspective.

What We Don’t Do

We Do Not

• Solve your homework for you
• Offer help for take-home exams
• Offer assistance with fundamental course concepts outside the direct domain of programming
• All coding coaches are upperclassmen, undergraduate and graduate students who have completed or TA’d First-Year Engineering courses. We cannot change your grade, nor will we be able to answer administrative questions regarding your class. If you have a specific question about your grade, contact the TA or Professor for your class.
• We can help you with your homework and projects but only if you make an honest attempt at understanding and attempting a solution. To get the most out of your visit, attempt the programming challenge on your own first.

Procedures For Receiving Assistance in the Lab

1. Fill out this poll to get help
2. Get all your documents ready for us to help you
3. We’ll be over as soon as possible
4. Before you leave, please fill out this brief two-question survey

Helpful Resources

Reading: How to Break Down A Programming Problem

How to Solve Programming Problems

Breaking Down Problems Is the #1 Software Developer Skill

4 steps to solving any software problem

Breaking down complex problems

Different Ways to Represent a Programming

Problems can be depicted in several ways, such as flowcharts, algorithms, pseudo-code, recipes, drawings, and many more.

Having a representation of a problem before you start writing code is useful because

• It helps you think through the problem and how you might solve it
• It can help you spot potential issues with your algorithm before you start coding
• It offers a systematic, procedural approach to writing code that can lead to less frustration and typographical and logical errors.
• It allows you to clearly communicate your code to someone else, which facilitates others to help you figure out what’s wrong with your code.

Below are Some Example Representations you can use to help you think of one you could use

Practice Problem of the Week

Come visit us and find the problem of the week on our walls!