Data Structures: An Active Learning Approach

This interactive text used in this course was written with the intention of teaching Computer Science students about various data structures as well as the applications in which each data structure would be appropriate to use. It is currently being taught at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), the University of San Diego (USD), and the University of Puerto Rico (UPR). This coursework utilizes the Active Learning approach to instruction, meaning it has various activities embedded throughout to help stimulate your learning and improve your understanding of the materials we will cover. You will encounter “STOP and Think” questions that will help you reflect on the material, “Exercise Breaks” that will test your knowledge and understanding of the concepts discussed, and “Code Challenges” that will allow you to actually implement some of the algorithms we will cover. Currently, all code challenges are in C++ or Python, but the vast majority of the content is language-agnostic theory of complexity and algorithm analysis. In other words, even without C++ or Python knowledge, the key takeaways can still be obtained.