UT Austin Computer Science

CS 331 — Algorithms and Complexity Spring 2026

Instructional Mode: Face-to-face • Instructor: Fares Fraij • Contact: via Canvas messages
Canvas is the source of truth.
All policies, assignments, and course materials are posted in Canvas.
Go to: Canvas course site

Sections

Unique #53150
Class: Tue/Thu 09:30 AM – 11:00 AM • GDC 1.304
Discussion: Fri 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM • CBA 4.330
Unique #53155
Class: Tue/Thu 09:30 AM – 11:00 AM • GDC 1.304
Discussion: Fri 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM • PAR 1
Unique #53160
Class: Tue/Thu 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM • GDC 1.304
Discussion: Fri 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM • CBA 4.332
Unique #53165
Class: Tue/Thu 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM • GDC 1.304
Discussion: Fri 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM • CBA 4.324
Unique #53170
Class: Tue/Thu 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM • GDC 1.304
Discussion: Fri 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM • ECJ 1.308
Unique #53175
Class: Tue/Thu 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM • GDC 1.304
Discussion: Fri 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM • ECJ 1.314

Schedule

Tentative Course Schedule for CS331, Spring 2026 (subject to change)
Date Lecture Reading Assignment
Jan 13Syllabus, IntroductionBackground readings
on Canvas (Module 0)
Jan 15Stable Marriage1.11 out
Jan 20Complexity, Undirected graph traversal2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2
Jan 22Undirected/Directed graph traversal3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.62 out
Jan 27Greedy Algorithms4.1
Jan 29Greedy Algorithms4.2, 4.43 out
Feb 03Minimum Spanning Trees: Kruskal's, Prim's, Reverse Delete4.5
Feb 05Divide and Conquer5.1
Feb 10Test 1: 6pm - 8pm, room: TBA (covers all material up to Feb 10)

Feb 12Divide and Conquer: Merge Sort, Recurrences5.1, notes1, 5.44 out
Feb 17Dynamic programming6.1, 6.2
Feb 19Dynamic programming: subset sum6.45 out
Feb 24Sequence alignment, Bellman-Ford shortest paths6.6, 6.8
Feb 26Ford-Fulkerson max-flow algorithm, Applications7.16 out
Mar 03Ford-Fulkerson max-flow algorithm, Max-flow min-cut theorem7.1, 7.2
Mar 05Max-flow min-cut theorem, applications7.7
Mar 10Polynomial time reduction8.1
Mar 12Test 2: 6pm - 8pm, room: TBA (covers material Feb 10–Mar 12)

Mar 17Spring Break

Mar 19Spring Break

Mar 24Polynomial time reduction, NP-Completeness8.1–8.4
Mar 26Graph Coloring8.77 out
Mar 31Approximation algorithms11.1
Apr 02Approximation algorithms11.68 out
Apr 07Approximation algorithms, PSPACE/PSPACE-completeness11.3, 9.1, 9.2
Apr 09Turing Machinenotes29 out
Apr 14Undecidability, Halting problemnotes2
Apr 16Halting problem, Randomized algorithms, Randomized Quick Sort13.3, 13.5
Apr 21Randomized Median Finding13.5
Apr 23Test 3: 6pm - 8pm, room: TBA (covers material from Mar 12 onward)

Notes:

  1. Discussion about the Master method is from Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd ed. by Cormen et al., Section 4.5, pp. 93–96.
  2. Discussion about the Turing machine (undecidability and halting problem) is from Sipser, 2nd ed., parts of Ch 3.1 and Ch 4.