Your 2026 Roadmap Through 7 Homeworks (With a 4-Year Comparison)

TL;DRCS181 2026 is A3 with hw0–6 as the weekly clock (no public recording links listed for the corresponding lectures); 2025 adds a practical, 2024 has two midterms, 2023 was taught by Weiwei Pan. Start with HW0, then follow hw1→hw6.

#harvard #cs181 #machine-learning #learning-path #homework #practical #textbook

Series: Reading Harvard CS1810 Machine Learning (0 / 16)

Do These 4 Problems First — They Tell You What to Patch | Harvard CS181 Assignment 0

🌏 中文版

Video status: Checked: no corresponding recording link listed on the public official page. Source details

⚠️ Edition: 2026 is primary from the CS181 2026 site and s26 homeworks; 2025/2024/2023 are compared via cs181-web-2025/2024/2023 and cs181-s25/s24/s23-homeworks. The Google Sheet schedule embedded on the 2026 site can be exported anonymously (checked 2026-09-29). This series uses homework numbers as weeks and the schedule's lecture order within each homework.

TL;DR

Can I self-study? CS181 2026 is A3 (hw0-6 + notes + sections + textbook, all learning will be in-person with no public recording links listed for the corresponding lectures; Gradescope/Ed require enrollment), as rated in the Harvard AI/ML Course Map.
How to follow: Do the HW0 readiness check first (due 2026-02-02, 4%), patch the weakest of the four problems, then follow hw1→hw6. The series has 16 posts (order 0–15), including midterm and final checkpoints; see "Posts in this series" below.
Four-year delta: 2025 adds practical 6%, 2024 has two midterms and no final, 2023 was solo-taught by Weiwei Pan.

Four-year comparison (one table)

Year	Site	Instructors	Grading	Homework dir (verified via `api.github.com`)	Note
2026	cs181-web	Alvarez-Melis / Du + Head TFs Russell Li / Elvin Lo	syllabus: `hw0 4% + hw1-6 11% each + midterm 15% + final 15%`	s26 homeworks: `hw0-6` 7 dirs	`hw6` = Sequential/MDP/RL + Autoregressive
2025	cs181-web-2025	Doshi-Velez / Alvarez-Melis + Preceptor Papon	`hw0 4% + hw1-6 10% each + practical 6% + midterm/final 15% each`	s25 homeworks: `hw0-6 + practical` 8 dirs	hw3–5 reshuffle before
2024	cs181-web-2024	Doshi-Velez / Alvarez-Melis + Head TFs Badrinath/Cai	`hw0 4% + hw1-6 11% each + two midterms 15% each` (no final)	s24 homeworks: `hw0-6` 7 dirs	Two-midterm year, `hw0 due Jan26,2024`
2023	cs181-web-2023	Weiwei Pan solo `TTh 2:15 SEC 1.321`	see `cs181-s23` practical grading	s23 homeworks: `hw0-5 + practical1`	Only 6 hws, `T*_TestCases.py` naming

Prerequisites and the HW0 gate

Four years share the same prereqs (syllabus): beyond CS50 Python + STAT 110 + calculus + linear algebra (AM 22a / Math 21b), STAT 111 / CS 51 not required. HW0 warns During the term, the staff will be prioritizing support for new material... it might be prudent to postpone. Use the HW0 guide: linear y=Xw (x1≠x2 ↔ X invertible), calculus, probability, and OLS code — the slowest problem is your week-1 patch (MML Book, STAT 110).

How the homework chain runs (2026 main)

Based on the \duedate and problem titles in each s26 homeworks .tex file (all checked 2026-09-29):

HW0 Modeling Linear Trends (due 2026-02-02) — four-in-one review
HW1 Regression (due 2026-02-13) — four problems: kNN & Kernels / Geometric Least Squares / Basis Regression / Probabilistic View & Regularization, earth_temperature_sampled_train/test.csv (800k-year ice core)
HW2 Classification and Bias-Variance (due 2026-02-27) — Bias-Variance & Uncertainty / MLE in classification / Classifying Loan Applicants / GD & Regularization
HW3 (due 2026-03-23) — Kernels & Feature Maps / Neural Networks / Neural Scaling Laws
HW4 (due 2026-04-03) — Understanding the Transformer / Autoencoders / Decision Trees, Random Forests & Mixture of Experts
HW5 (due 2026-04-19; the schedule originally said Apr 17) — Contrastive Learning / GANs / K-Means & HAC / PCA
HW6 Sequential Models and Decision Making (due 2026-05-01) — HMM / Policy & Value Iteration / Reinforcement Learning / Autoregressive Models / Embedded Ethics
Exams: the schedule lists the Midterm on Mar 10 (in class) and the Final Exam on May 9, 2pm

2025's hw3 Bayesian / hw4 SVM / hw5 EM are useful for comparison; the missing practical (Kaggle-style) lives in cs181-s25-homeworks/practical and cs181-s19-practicals.

Materials and the weekly clock

Textbook: cs181-textbook (senior thesis, 370 stars, 13 chapters, Textbook.pdf 3.59 MB)
Sections: syllabus says flipped classroom, section cycle restarts each Tuesday, solutions will be posted. The old cs181-section repo only has s17-19, but the 2026 site hosts S0–S10 handouts and solution PDFs under static/sec00–sec10, and the posts cite them directly.
Schedule and slides: the Google Sheet schedule embedded on the 2026 site exports anonymously as CSV (Week 0–14 lectures, sections, homework release and due dates). Its lecture cells link to 2026 slide PDFs on Google Drive; those links are dropped from the CSV and only show up in the xlsx export. This series uses homework numbers as weeks, not calendar weeks.
Submission: two Gradescope entries per homework (writeup PDF with assigned pages + LaTeX/code), per homework page.

Posts in this series

order	Post	Covers
0	This overview	four-year comparison, access level
1	HW0: readiness check	hw0
2	HW1: regression	hw1
3	HW2: classification and bias-variance	hw2
4	HW3: kernels, neural networks, scaling laws	hw3
5	Midterm checkpoint: auditing HW0–HW3	midterm
6	HW4 (Part 1): Transformers	hw4 P1
7	HW4 (Part 2): autoencoders and VAEs	hw4 P2
8	HW4 (Part 3): trees, random forests, MoE	hw4 P3
9	HW5 (Part 1): K-means, HAC, PCA	hw5 P3–4
10	HW5 (Part 2): SimCLR and GANs	hw5 P1–2
11	HW6 (Part 1): autoregressive decoding, KV cache, speculative decoding	hw6 P4
12	HW6 (Part 2): HMMs and the Kalman filter	hw6 P1
13	HW6 (Part 3): policy and value iteration	hw6 P2
14	HW6 (Part 4): Q-learning and Embedded EthiCS	hw6 P3, P5
15	Final checkpoint and series wrap-up	final

Suggested path: read this overview to decide whether to follow the 2026 main line → do HW0 and patch prerequisites → follow the posts in order; each maps to one hw*_release.tex/pdf/ipynb + data plus that week's section. HW4–HW6 are split into several posts following the schedule's lecture order. For CS182 see the CS182 historical disclaimer (2026/2025 are A0, only F22 22-lecture is writable).

Current limits and unreleased parts

Public video status: the syllabus specifies in-person learning, which does not establish that recordings do not exist. The main lecture entries do not list public videos; W13 Embedded EthiCS explicitly says "see recording", but the public schedule HTML checked here provides no openable recording link.
No homework solutions; Gradescope/Ed require enrollment. Sections do have solution PDFs.
The scribe notes are from 2024; the midterm/final review and midterm practice headers say 2025.
The site's homework page is stale (lists only HW0); use the s26 repo and the schedule for the 2026 homework list.
CS1810 is a spring course and is not offered in Fall 2026; a comparison will follow once Spring 2027 materials are up.

Course video sources

Checked the official CS1810 Spring 2026 schedule and syllabus. This guide uses homework, section, or exam materials; the corresponding entries do not list a public lecture video. Slides and section materials are provided. No public listing does not mean that a recording never existed.

Official sources:

Checked on 2026-10-10.

References

Update log

2026-10-10: Added explicit video status and checked recording sources and access notes.
2026-10-10: Rechecked video status. Re-read the official schedule and syllabus; they still list no public lecture video for this topic.
2026-09-29: Expanded the series to orders 0–15, added "Posts in this series" and a limits list; filled in HW1–HW6 due dates, problems, and exam dates from the 2026 schedule and each .tex; corrected the old claims that the Google Sheet schedule was deleted and that 2026 sections were not public.

Your 2026 Roadmap Through 7 Homeworks (With a 4-Year Comparison) | Harvard CS181 Course Overview