uwloo

CO 432Information Theory and Applications

Units
0.50
Faculty
Mathematics
Subject
Combinatorics and Optimization

When it runs

  1. F24
  2. W25
  3. S25
  4. F25
  5. W26
  6. S26
  7. F26
  8. W27
  9. S27

Ran in 3 of the last 7 terms. Winter 2027: not on the schedule. Spring 2027: schedule not out yet.

Basics of information theory; Shannon entropy, KL divergence, and mutual information; basic properties of entropic quantities; chain rule, Pinsker's Inequality, Data Processing Inequality; compression; Channel Coding Theorem; error-correction; applications to combinatorics, optimization, cryptography, and computer science.

Prerequisites

  • Complete all of the following
    • Must have completed at least 1 of the following:
      • CO250 - Introduction to Optimization (0.50)
      • CO255 - Introduction to Optimization (Advanced Level) (0.50)
      • CS231 - Algorithmic Problem Solving (0.50)
      • CS341 - Algorithms (0.50)
    • Must have completed at least 1 of the following:
      • MATH239 - Introduction to Combinatorics (0.50)
      • MATH249 - Introduction to Combinatorics (Advanced Level) (0.50)
    • Must have completed at least 1 of the following:
      • STAT230 - Probability (0.50)
      • STAT240 - Probability (Advanced Level) (0.50)
    • Students must be in level 3A or higher

Antirequisites

None listed.

Leads to

No course lists it as a requisite.

Reviewed on UW Flow

40% liked it25% easy56% useful

From 5 ratings and 4 comments on UW Flow. The most helpful comments, quoted as written, without names. Read them all on UW Flow.

  • hardest co course

    Oct 2024 · didn’t like it · 1 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

  • A difficult course with tough assignments and exams, but nothing was really unfair. You have to do a lot of studying on your own and get help at office hours / with classmates to succeed. Make sure to understand the important proofs shown in class since ideas from proofs show up in exams.

    Sep 2026 · liked itOn UW FlowRemove this

  • Don't take this course with Ashwin Nayak!!!!!! He make extremely hard exams (mt1 has 51.1 avg, I think this is the reason that more than half of the class dropped the course), and he refuse to curve even half of the student who enrolled in the class are failing. My score in this course is the lowest amongest all CO courses that I have taken so far.

    Aug 2026 · didn’t like itOn UW FlowRemove this

  • workload was very manageable (4 assignments x 10%) and the final was a take-home (60%) and the profs and TAs were very helpful. if you have basic proof skills and a solid grasp of the fundamentals, especially from math 137 (limits, inequalities, upper/lower bounds), math 135 (functions, algebra), math 136 (vectors), math 239 (bijections, counting), and stat 230 (bernoulli distribution, expected value), you should be fine. having coding theory knowledge is helpful (co 331) but you'll be fine without it too.

    Aug 2025 · liked itOn UW FlowRemove this

Discussed on r/uwaterloo

2 posts and comments in 2 threads mention CO 432, January 2024 to December 2024. Quoted word for word, newest first; each reply sits under the post and the comment that started its branch. Search r/uwaterloo for newer posts.

Winter 2024

Check it elsewhere for Fall 2026

Calendar versions

Undergraduate Calendar