Tutorials

Discrete Mathematics

Go to the discrete math tutorials

Discrete mathematics forms the foundation for computer science, and is a required part of any computer science curriculum. Sometimes it will go by the name “Discrete Structures” or “Foundations of Computer Science”, but the content is the same: students are introduced to rigorous reasoning about mathematical properties and procedures, with an emphasis on the kinds of mathematical concepts and structures that are useful for representing data in software. The material is fundamentally formal and rigorous, which can confuse beginning students. It can be helpful to think about discrete mathematics in a computer science curriculum as a “sister course” to data structures – this course focuses on careful thinking and reasoning about mathematical structures, and the data structures course focuses on how to implement and use these structures in code. In our tutorials we break down discrete mathematics material piece by piece, and focus largely on the logical reasoning behind writing proofs.