CS 3800 — Theory of Computation
4 semester hoursUndergraduateLectureusually offered: fall, springtypical days: FBostonOnlineOnlineTraditional
Introduces the theory behind computers and computing aimed at answering the question, “What are the capabilities and limitations of computers?” Covers automata theory, computability, and complexity. The automata theory portion includes finite automata, regular expressions, nondeterminism, nonregular languages, context-free languages, pushdown automata, and noncontext-free languages. The computability portion includes Turing machines, the Church-Turing thesis, decidable languages, and the Halting theorem. The complexity portion includes big-O and small-o notation, the classes P and NP, the P vs. NP question, and NP-completeness.
Prerequisites
Offering history
| Term | Sections | Enrolled | Capacity | Full | Open seats/section |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Summer B 2023 | 1 | 43 | 49 | 88% | 6.0 |
| Fall 2023 | 2 | 201 | 228 | 88% | 13.5 |
| Spring 2024 | 2 | 241 | 250 | 96% | 4.5 |
| Summer A 2024 | 1 | 86 | 90 | 96% | 4.0 |
| Fall 2024 | 3 | 249 | 367 | 68% | 39.3 |
| Spring 2025 | 3 | 231 | 251 | 92% | 6.7 |
| Summer A 2025 | 1 | 81 | 97 | 84% | 16.0 |
| Fall 2025 | 3 | 219 | 270 | 81% | 17.0 |
| Spring 2026 | 4 | 317 | 347 | 91% | 7.5 |
Snapshots from scheduled scrapes — not live seat availability. "Full" can exceed 100% when sections over-enroll.
Meeting times
Share of recent sections by weekday: M 28% · T 40% · W 15% · Th 21% · F 52%
Common patterns: F (27% of sections), TF (25% of sections), MR (11% of sections), async (10% of sections), MTWR (10% of sections), M (7% of sections) — in patterns, R means Thursday
Professors
Fall
- Daniel Wichs (29% of students) · reviews
- Andrew Van Der Poel (25% of students) · reviews
- Robin Walters (18% of students) · reviews
- Ariel Hamlin (15% of students) · reviews
Spring
- Ariel Hamlin (30% of students) · reviews
- Walter Schnyder (24% of students) · reviews
- Zhengzhong Jin (20% of students) · reviews
- Jesse Stern (16% of students) · reviews
Summer A
- Walter Schnyder (100% of students) · reviews
Summer B
- Emanuele Viola (100% of students) · reviews
Percentages are each professor's average share of the season's enrolled students in recent terms.
Unlocks
CS 4805, CS 4991, CS 4992, CY 4770, CY 4775, MATH 3545
Courses that list CS 3800 in their prerequisites.
Links
Official catalog (CS course descriptions) · Student reviews on RateMyHusky · All CS courses · Plan it at numap.app