Mentor Meetings Guide

Overview

In CS 1230, mentor meetings serve a multitude of purposes. Among other things, they are a chance for you to:

  1. Review an algo submission
  2. Review a code submission
  3. Ask questions about a project
  4. Ask questions about the course
  5. Get a lab checked off

Through meeting with you on a weekly basis, your mentor will develop a strong sense of your progress within the course and be able to provide you with personalized feedback and advice.

This guide will walk you through the process of preparing for and attending your mentor meetings.

Before your meetings

Check your Google Calendar to see when your meeting is scheduled. It should be the same time and location every week, and your mentor will email you if they need to reschedule or relocate.

You should always come to your meeting prepared with

  1. Your computer (charged)
  2. Questions about the course or current project
  3. Any materials you need to get a lab checked off

Algo weeks

If an algo submission was due the week before your meeting (making it an "algo week"), prepare for your meeting by

  1. Having your algo submission open on your computer
  2. Writing down any questions you had about the algo or project in general

Code weeks

If a code submission was due the week before your meeting (making it a "code week"), prepare for your meeting by

  1. Finding the commit id of your code submission
  2. Knowing where on your computer the code submission is located
  3. Writing down any questions you had about the code or project in general

Rescheduling

If you need to reschedule, let your mentor know via email as soon as possible. They will try to accommodate you, but they may not be able to find a time that works for both of you. In that case, you can work with your mentor to find a different mentor to meet with for the week.

During your meetings

In order of priority, your mentor will

  1. Review with you the algo or code submission that you submitted the week before
  2. Answer any questions you have about the course or current project
  3. Check off any labs you need checked off

Note that your mentor will not extend your meeting past the scheduled time. In general, submission review for "algo weeks" should take less time than for "code weeks". If you expect that time will not permit for your mentor to check off a lab, you should plan accordingly - we recommend getting labs checked off during TA hours.

Code weeks

Opening the project

For your mentor to be sure that the code you demonstrate is the code you submitted, you must check out the commit id of your code submission during your meeting.

Remember that you may find your commit id in your Gradescope submission.

  1. Open a terminal and navigate to the project directory.
  2. Run git status to make sure you are on the correct branch and have no uncommitted changes. If you have uncommitted changes, commit them or stash them with git stash. You can unstash them later with git stash pop.
  3. Run git checkout <commit id>. This will put you in a detached head state, which is fine.
  4. Run git status again to make sure you are on the correct commit.
  5. Run qtcreator . to open the project in Qt Creator. If you do not have the qtcreator command installed, you can open the project by opening Qt Creator and selecting File > Open File or Project... and selecting the project directory.

After your meeting, you may want to return to the main branch. To do so, run git checkout main.

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