CIS 1905: Rust Programming (Fall 2025)

Course Details

Welcome to cis1905: Rust! This course is an introduction to the ideas underlying Rust, a new(ish) systems programming language that is gaining ever-increasing adoption in fields ranging from embedded hardware and server applications to data science and computer graphics. Beyond just the syntax and tooling, we'll dive deep into the ideas that make Rust unique, such as ownership, memory-safety, and data-race-free parallel programming. Students will come away not just being able to write Rust code, but with an understanding of the ideas underlying Rust that can be applied when programming in other languages. Additionally, we'll leave some free time at the end of the semester to cover extra topics depending on class interest.

🚨Waitlist Info🚨

Registration is by admission from the waitlist only. We anticipate (nearly) everyone who wants to take the course getting off the waitlist. If you're serious about taking the course, or are at least interested, make sure to come to the first lecture on Tuesday the 26th.

Resources

Syllabus

Course Tools

Rust Quick Links:

Lectures

Lecture is held on Tuesdays from 3:30-5:00 PM in AGH 200.

Post-lecture quizzes (PLQs) are due by 11:59 PM on the Wednesday following the corresponding lecture. 3/5 credit is given for completion, and 2/5 credit for correctness.

Date	Section	Topic	Book Ch.	PLQ
8/26	Basics	"Why Rust?" and Rust Basics	3	None
9/2	Basics	Ownership	4	PLQ 2
9/9	Basics	Structs, Enums, Errors	5,6	PLQ 3
9/16	Basics	Generics and Traits	10.1, 10.2	PLQ 4
9/23	Basics	Modules Collections, Iterators	8	PLQ 5
9/30	Advanced	Lifetimes, Closures	10.3, 13	PLQ 6
10/7	Advanced	Smart Pointers, Trait Objects	15	PLQ 7
10/14	Parallel	Shared Memory	16	PLQ 8
10/21	Parallel	Message Passing	16	PLQ 9
10/28	Unsafe	Unsafe	19.1	PLQ 10
11/4	Parallel	Async Rust	None	None
11/11		Flex
11/18	Advanced	Guest Lecture	None
11/25		No Class (Thursday Schedule)
12/2		Final Project Presentations
12/9		Reading Period
12/16		Final Exams

Assignments

Assignments are due 10pm Eastern Time on Fridays. See the syllabus for information about late submissions.

Title	Due Date
Project 0: Warmup	9/5
Project 1: Theseus	9/19
Project 2: Links	10/6
Project 3: Ngram	11/3
Final Project Proposal	11/10
Final Project	12/2

Final Project

The final project is a chance for you to explore a topic of your choosing over a longer time period. Working in groups is encouraged, and every project will be presented to the class during the last lecture. Look out for more information as the semester progresses.