Introduction

Just a few more weeks until Interim--that exciting time of breaking from the normal academic routine to focus on one particular area of study! My name is Whitney Sanders, and I'm a senior at Wofford College with two majors: Computer Science and Mathematics.

I'll be conducting an advanced study of algorithms. An algorithm is basically the computer science term for a problem solving technique. You can think of it as a recipe for solving a certain type of problem.

My interest in algorithms arises from a few classes on campus which have studied them, particularly "Data Structures" and "Advanced Data Structures." My desire to learn more has been fueled by participation on Wofford's Programming Team. I've participated in ten regional programming contests, and find them both challenging and thrilling.

I'll be studying multiple important algorithms, with several goals.

1. Understand the algorithm
2. Write a computer program (code) that implements the algorithm
3. Modify the code to solve several distinct problems that the algorithm addresses
4. Write a rationale for each problem to describe how to identify the best algorithm to solve it
5. Describe the adaptations that were made to the algorithm for each problem's solution

The first step will be selecting a few important algorithms--more on that in January!