# SP26 Syllabus

### Course Staff & Office Hours

<table><thead><tr><th>Name</th><th width="155.7734375">Role</th><th width="201.76795580110496">Office Hours</th><th>Location</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Claire Yu</td><td>TA</td><td>Mon 4:30 - 5:30pm</td><td>Hollister 320</td></tr><tr><td>Tran Tran</td><td>TA</td><td>Mon 4:30 - 5:30pm</td><td>Hollister 320</td></tr><tr><td>Sophie Strausberg</td><td>TA</td><td>Mon 4:30 - 5:30pm</td><td>Hollister 320</td></tr><tr><td>Olivia Yu</td><td>TA</td><td>Mon 5:30 - 6:30pm</td><td>Hollister 320</td></tr><tr><td>Ashley Herrera</td><td>TA</td><td>Mon 5:30 - 6:30pm</td><td>Hollister 320</td></tr><tr><td>Joshua Dirga</td><td>TA</td><td>Tue 4:30 - 5:30pm</td><td>Hollister 372</td></tr><tr><td>Lauren Ah-Hot</td><td>TA</td><td>Tue  4:30 - 5:30pm</td><td>Hollister 372</td></tr><tr><td>Fanhao Yu</td><td>Course Instructor</td><td>Tue 5:30 - 6:30pm</td><td>Hollister 372</td></tr><tr><td>Skye Slattery</td><td>TA</td><td>Tue 5:30 - 6:30pm</td><td>Hollister 372</td></tr><tr><td>Andrew Pung</td><td>TA</td><td>Thu 4:30 - 5:30pm</td><td>Hollister 320</td></tr><tr><td>Chris Voon</td><td>TA</td><td>Thu 4:30 - 5:30pm</td><td>Hollister 320</td></tr><tr><td>Chimdi Ejiogu</td><td>Course Instructor</td><td>Thu 4:30 - 5:30pm</td><td>Hollister 320</td></tr><tr><td>Anik Dey</td><td>TA</td><td>Fri 3:00 - 4:00pm</td><td>Hollister 368</td></tr><tr><td>Yitbrek Mata</td><td>TA</td><td>Fri 3:00 - 4:00pm</td><td>Hollister 368</td></tr><tr><td>Wyatt Cox</td><td>TA</td><td>Fri 3:00 - 4:00pm</td><td>Hollister 368</td></tr></tbody></table>

### Schedule

{% hint style="info" %}
This schedule is tentative and subject to changes to Cornell's Spring 2026 academic calendar.
{% endhint %}

Lectures are every **Monday** **and Wednesday** from **7:30 PM to 8:20 PM** in **Gates G01,** and each week's lectures will be split into two parts: a concept-based overview of the week's topic, followed by a live implementation demo of the same topic.

Additionally, there will be a project assignment every week, which will typically be due on the **following** **Monday**. You can find the lecture recordings on our [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUDPjOx1yPRGxsO6AFtBZSg) for you to rewatch as you wish.&#x20;

|                                       |                                                        |                                                |                                     |
| ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------- |
| Lecture Dates                         | Topic                                                  | Project                                        | Project Due Date                    |
| 03/11, 03/16                          | Routes                                                 | Reddit                                         | 03/23                               |
| 03/21                                 | Git Workshop                                           | N/A                                            | -                                   |
| 03/18, 03/23                          | Databases                                              | Venmo (Basic)                                  | 04/06                               |
| 03/25, 04/06                          | Relational Databases                                   | Venmo (Full)                                   | 04/13                               |
| 04/08, 04/13                          | Abstractions                                           | CMS                                            | 04/20                               |
| 04/15, 04/20                          | Containerization                                       | Dockerize CMS                                  | 04/27                               |
| <mark style="color:red;">04/20</mark> | <mark style="color:red;">Hack Challenge Kickoff</mark> | <mark style="color:red;">Hack Challenge</mark> | <mark style="color:red;">N/A</mark> |
| 04/22, 04/27                          | Deployment                                             | Deploy CMS                                     | 05/04                               |
| 04/29                                 | Authentication + Images                                | N/A                                            | N/A                                 |
| 05/04                                 | Developer Panel / Conclusion                           | N/A                                            | N/A                                 |
| <mark style="color:red;">05/04</mark> | <mark style="color:red;">Hack Challenge Finale</mark>  | <mark style="color:red;">N/A</mark>            | <mark style="color:red;">N/A</mark> |

### Enrollment&#x20;

You can enroll yourself into the course like any other on Student Center upon passing the pre-test and submitting the application (see [Apply to Take the Course](https://backend-course.cornellappdev.com/apply-to-take-the-course)). This is a 2-credit S/U course, however, we permit students to enroll for 1-credit for the purpose of avoiding a credit overload petition. All students are expected to do the same work, regardless of the number of enrolled credits.

### Weekly Assignments

Programming assignments and weekly feedback forms are due on **Mondays** at **11:59 pm** and submitted on CMS. **Students will have 6 total slip days throughout the semester to submit assignments without a grading penalty. After all slip days have been used, there will be a -10% penalty per day on the grade of the given unsubmitted assignment. No submissions will be accepted after the late deadline for the assignment.**&#x20;

*Because of the slip day policy, no extensions will be granted.*

Each assignment will have three optional challenges to take your understanding further.&#x20;

* Tier I challenges are designed to be low difficulty, simple extensions of the application (estimated time: <1 hour).
* Tier II challenges are medium difficulty extensions that require more forethought for a successful implementation, but are by no means out of reach (estimated time: <2 hours).&#x20;
* Tier III challenges are high difficulty extensions which will often require outside research and will teach you things that we do not have time to cover in this course.

We highly encourage you to reference demos, attend office hours, and ask questions on Ed discussion. Along with submitting assignment source code, you will be required to submit a text file (README.txt) where you can freely comment on the week’s lecture, assignment, or anything else. You will also fill out a short questionnaire which helps us quantify feedback for improving the course.

### Grading

As mentioned earlier, this is a **2 credit S/U course,** and grading will be calculated as shown in the table below. Below is general information about the submission timeline for each assignment, although submission schedules for a given assignment may occasionally deviate from this timeline.

Submission Deadline: **Monday, 11:59 pm**\
Late Deadline: **Wednesday, 11:59 pm**\
Late Penalty: **-1 point penalty per day. We will not accept homework after the late deadline.**\
Safety Net: **6 total slip days for the semester**, **up to 3 can be used per assignment.**

|                     |         |
| ------------------- | ------- |
| Item                | Weight  |
| PA1 - Reddit        | 10      |
| PA2 - Venmo (Basic) | 10      |
| PA3 - Venmo (Full)  | 10      |
| PA4 - CMS           | 10      |
| PA5 - Dockerize CMS | 10      |
| PA6 - Deploy CMS    | 10      |
| Final Project       | 30      |
| Weekly Surveys      | 5       |
| Attendance          | 5       |
| **Total**           | **100** |
| **Passing Score**   | **70**  |

### Hack Challenge

All AppDev courses finish with bringing members from iOS, backend, Android, and design together to put what you’ve learned to the test and build your very own application. All students are welcome to submit app ideas, and teams of up to four will be formed to bring the idea to life. Leading up to the Hack Challenge, the backend course will focus on deployment so that your mobile apps can connect to a live backend running on Google Cloud servers. It goes without saying that the majority of students find the Hack Challenge the most rewarding and fun part of the course!

### Academic Integrity

As with any other course at Cornell, the code of academic integrity will be enforced in this class. While we encourage you to collaborate with other students, all code that you submit must be written by you (and although a great method for learning, pair programming does not abide by our standards of students submitting their own work). We also encourage using the internet to learn more about backend development, but again, any code you submit must be written by you.