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A-Star offers online computer science courses in self-study format. Online courses are recommended for students who are good self-learners. All courses other than Introduction to Programming courses are available online. For course details, please see A-Star Computer Science curriculum.

Course Format

Currently, courses don’t have live lectures or video recordings.

The format and the pace of a self-study course is also the same as an onsite course. In the course account, new problem sets will be available each week at the same time as the onsite course. Self-study course students will see the same problem sets as the onsite students. Solutions will be available two weeks after the corresponding problem set. Students will receive weekly emails that briefly summarize and/or provide guidelines to the problems solved in class.

If the registration is after the onsite course start date, then the material is accessible as in the onsite course. For instance, if the student is registered on the 5th week of the onsite course, she will see all the material up to 5th week. If the registration is after the onsite course ends, all the material will be available. For example, one can register for a Fall computer science course in Spring semester. In that case, all the course material will be accessible.

Provided Services in Online Self-Study Courses

The following services will be provided to the enrolled students:

• the curriculum and the course materials are the same as the onsite courses
• lecture notes will be provided in print in advance as a booklet in all courses except advanced ones (since advanced courses don’t have lectures but only problem sets and solutions)
• each student will have an AlphaStar e-learning account
• students will solve the exercises / problem sets in their accounts at home
• students will submit their solutions for the weekly problems which will be graded by the automated grader
• almost all the problems are former USACO contest problems
• quizzes / exams will be taken online
• solutions of a problem set will be available after two weeks the problem set is provided
• students can post their questions to the course student discussion forum
• students will have access to their course accounts at least four more months after the course ends as a courtesy of AlphaStar Academy.