Syllabus

Course Overview

WHAT: How can a machine learn from data or experience to improve performance at a given task? How can a machine achieve performance that generalizes well to new situations? These are the fundamental questions of machine learning, a growing field of knowledge that combines techniques from computer science, optimization, linear algebra, and statistics.

This course will introduce you to machine learning and provide you with the conceptual framework and numerical programming skills to approach problems from a machine learning perspective. The course consists of 5 units, each ~2 weeks long:

• Unit 1: Regression with linear and neighbor methods
• Unit 2: Classification with linear and neighbor methods
• Unit 3: Neural networks
• Unit 4: Trees and ensembles
• Unit 5: Unsupervised Learning

The focus of this class is supervised machine learning. Machine learning is a broad field, and we will only be able to provide a brief taste of some parts of ML: Unit 3 introduces deep learning, and Unit 5 introduces unsupervised learning. To explore these topics more deeply, and topics we are unable to cover at all in this course such as reinforcement learning, check out other courses offered by Tufts Computer Science.

HOW: We will explore several aspects of each core idea: intuitive conceptual understanding, mathematical analysis, in-depth software implementation, and practical deployment using existing libraries.

Week-after-week, students will do the following

• Complete assigned readings to gain a first introduction to key concepts
• Attend in-class live sessions that summarize ideas and make connections
• Complete in-class labs which allow you to explore new concepts
• Attend office hours to get questions answered
• Complete homeworks to build both conceptual and practical skills
• Complete open-ended practical projects -- often organized like a contest -- to demonstrate mastery.

WHY: Our goal is to prepare you to effectively apply machine learning methods to problems that might arise in "the real world" -- in industry, medicine, education, and beyond.

Objectives

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Identify relevant real-world problems as instances of canonical machine learning problems (e.g. classification, regression, dimensionality reduction, etc.)
• Design and implement an effective solution to a regression, binary classification, or multi-class classification problem, using available open-source libraries when appropriate and writing from-scatch code when necessary.
• Compare and contrast appropriate evaluation metrics for supervised learning predictive tasks (such as confusion matrices, receiver operating curves, precision-recall curves).
• Design and implement effective strategies for preprocessing data representations, partitioning data into training and heldout sets, and selecting hyperparameters.
• Identify relevant ethical and social considerations when deploying a supervised learning or representation learning method into society, including fairness to different individuals or subgroups.
• Describe basic dimensionality reduction and recommendation system algorithms.

Prerequisites

Programming: Students should be comfortable with writing non-trivial programs from scratch (e.g., CS 15 or equivalent). We will use Python, a popular language for ML applications that is also beginner friendly.

Please consult our Python Setup Instructions page to setup a Python environment for CS 135.

By the completion of the first homework (HW0), students will be expected to do the following without much help:

• Load and transform datasets with numpy
• Perform vector mathematical operations in numpy (computing inner products, multiplying matrices, inverting matrices, etc.)
• Create line plots in matplotlib

Mathematics:: Students should be familiar with reading, writing, and understanding math that involves multivariate calculus and linear algebra. Essential concepts that we'll assume students understand well include

• calculus: derivatives, vector derivatives, and chain rule
• linear algebra: vectors, matrices, matrix multiplication, and matrix inversion

Prior exposure to probability theory will also be useful, but isn't as essential. See our Math Self-Study Resources for more details and helpful pointers to materials to self-study.

With instructor permission, diligent students who are lacking in a few of the useful (but not essential) areas will hopefully be able to catch-up on core concepts via self study and thus still be able to complete the course effectively.

Enrolling

As of the last week of August, there are still openings in the class. If you have completed Tuft's course prerequisites, you can automatically enroll in the class.

If you do not meet Tuft's prerequisites for enrollment but believe you have the background to complete the course (e.g. due to equivalent coursework at another institution) then you must

• Email the instructor by end of day Thu 9/4, explaining your current state within your degree program (e.g. sophomore undergraduate in CS, Ph.D. student in Math) and what (course)work you've completed that gives you background in the coding and math prerequisites above. You will then be added to Gradescope.
• Complete and submit HW0 by end of day Mon 9/8 to verify comfort with programming prerequisites.

It currently seems likely that all students completing the above steps (who find the tasks assigned in homework 0 to be manageable) will be admitted in the class. Students interested in adding will be manually added to the course of 9/9.

Textbooks

We will regularly use several textbooks available for free online (either in browser or via downloadable PDFs):

• Introduction to Statistical Learning, with Applications in Python by Gareth James, Daniela Witten, Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, and Jonathan Taylor. 2023. [PDF]
• Machine Learning - A First Course for Engineers and Scientists by Andreas Lindholm, Niklas Wahlström, Fredrik Lindsten, and Thomas B. Schön, 2022. [PDF]
• Deep Learning by Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville. MIT Press, 2016.
• Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction by Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, and Jerome Friedman. 2nd Edition, Springer, 2009. Corrected 12th printing, 2017. [PDF]

> We are grateful to these textbook authors for making these resources available for free.

Class Format for Fall 2025

Classes are synchronous and in person. Classes will not be recorded.

As of end of first day of class we will expect students to be signed up on Piazza. This is how we will communicate any changes to the course meeting locations with you. If you have not heard otherwise, expect course meetings and office hours to be in person in their usual locations.

Late work Policy

Workload

Each week, you should expect to spend about 10-15 hours on this class.

Here's our recommended break-down of how you'll spend time each week:

• 1.25 hr / wk preparation before Tue class (reading, lecture videos)
• 1.25 hr / wk active participation in Tue class
• 1.25 hr / wk preparation before Thu class (reading, lecture videos)
• 1.25 hr / wk active participation in Thu class
• 6.00 hr / wk on homework / project / exam prep, whichever is due next

This totals to 12.00 hr / wk

Typically, by assignment

• HWs will (usually) be released Thursday morning and are due Monday night 1.5 weeks later. We expect about 8 hours are needed.
• For each Project you are given 4 weeks. We expect about 16 hours are needed from each team member.

Grading

Each component (HW, exam, etc.) will be graded with a numerical score between 0 and 100%.

Final grades will be computed via the following weighted average:

• 28% Homeworks (HW0 weighted 4%, HW1-HW4 weighted 6% each)
• 36% Projects (A and B weighted equally)
• 18% midterm exam
• 18% final exam

When assigning grades, the following numerical scale will be used:

• 0.94-1.00 : A
• 0.90-0.94 : A-
• 0.87-0.90 : B+
• 0.83-0.87 : B
• 0.80-0.83 : B-
• 0.77-0.80 : C+
• 0.73-0.77 : C
• 0.70-0.73 : C-
• 0.67-0.70 : D+
• 0.63-0.67 : D
• 0.60-0.63 : D-
• 0.6 or below : F

This means you must earn at least an 0.83 (not 0.825 or 0.8295 or 0.8299) to earn a B instead of a B-. Any rounding up will be at the instructor's discretion, as will the highest possible grade of "A+".

Collaboration Policy

Our ultimate goal is for each student to fully understand the course material.

For exams, all work must be done individually, with no collaboration with others whatsoever.

For homeworks and projects, we have the following policy for student work.

You must write anything that will be turned in -- all code and all written solutions -- on your own without help from others. You may not share any code or solutions with others, regardless of if they are enrolled in the class or not.

We do encourage high-level interaction with your classmates. After you have spent at least 10 minutes thinking about the problem on your own, you may verbally discuss assignments with others in the class. You may work out solutions together on whiteboards, laptops, or other media, but you are not allowed to take away any written or electronic information from joint work sessions with others. No notes, no diagrams, and no code. Emails, text messages, and other forms of virtual communication also constitute “notes” and should not be used preparing solutions.

When preparing your solutions, you may always consult textbooks, materials on the course website, or existing content on the web for general background knowledge. However, you cannot ask for answers through any question answering websites such as (but not limited to) Quora, StackOverflow, etc. If you see any material having the same problem and providing a solution, you cannot check or copy the solution provided. If general-purpose material was helpful to you, please cite it in your solution.

RE: AI assistive technologies such as ChatGPT:

• For homeworks, you cannot use any AI assistance at all.
• For open-ended projects, you may use such technologies to "automate the boring stuff" in terms of code development, but the high-level plan and vision for the project should be yours. You are expected to fully understand any code you use. You should write every word of your report yourself (no AI-assisted writing). Your report should disclose all steps that involved AI assistance.

For homeworks, which are intended to be done individually, please interpret "others" as as anyone else, whether in the class or not.

For project work intended to be done in small teams, please interpret "others" above as anyone not on your team.

Remember, you are responsible for everything that you (or your team) hands in. You should understand it and be able to answer questions about it, if asked. We will not hesitate to refer cases we suspect violate this policy to the appropriate disciplinary authorities at Tufts.

Academic Integrity Policy

This course will strictly follow the Academic Integrity Policy of Tufts University. Students are expected to finish course work independently when instructed, and to acknowledge all collaborators appropriately when group work is allowed. Submitted work should truthfully represent the time and effort applied.

Please refer to the Academic Integrity Policy at the following URL: https://students.tufts.edu/community-standards/get-help/academic-integrity

Accessibility

Tufts and the instructor of CS 135 strive to create a learning environment that is welcoming students of all backgrounds and abilities. Respect is demanded at all times throughout the course. Participation is not only required, it is expected that everyone in the course is treated with dignity and respect. We realize everyone comes from a different background with different experiences and abilities. Our knowledge will always be used to better everyone in the class.

If you have a disability that requires reasonable accommodations, please contact the Student Accessibility Services office at Accessibility@tufts.edu or 617-627-4539 to make an appointment with an SAS representative to determine appropriate accommodations. Please be aware that accommodations cannot be enacted retroactively, making timeliness a critical aspect for their provision.

Please see the detailed accessibility policy at the following URL: https://students.tufts.edu/health-wellness/health-service/our-services/support-services-and-policies

If you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome for any reason, please talk to your instructor so we can work to make things better. If you feel uncomfortable talking to members of the teaching staff, consider reaching out to your academic advisor, the department chair, or your dean.