Grades
This class may be taken only for a letter grade.
Course Grade Componenets
| Percent |
Grade Component |
| 0 |
Homework assignments (6) |
| 25 |
First in-class examination |
25
|
Second in-class examination
|
| 50 |
Final examination |
| 100 |
The grade distribution is determined by the undergraduates. If the
class finishes with at least 25 people, then the average course grade
of the undergraduates will be between 2.9 and 3.1.
Homework
When: Homework is due 1 week after it is assigned, at 2P.M.
Where: Put your homework in the class's homework box, which is
in room 2108 of Engineering I building, on the 2nd floor.
Homework is key to learning the material well enough to demonstrate it
during an examination. Since it is not part of your grade, we can help
you with any aspect of the homework. There are 2 principle aspects:
- the creative application of concepts to solve a problem or prove
a statement
- presenting a solution or proof clearly and precisely.
Both aspects are important. It thus is silly to allow students to work
together on the 1st aspect and insist that they work individually only
on the 2nd aspect. In this course, you can collaborate on all aspects
of
the homework assignments; you can collaborate on no aspect of the
examination problems.
If you submit your homework assignment, it will be graded for the
correctness of the ideas and their presentation (typically as a proof).
If you collaborated on the homework, just hand in the work as a
team: Please don't waste our time.
One aspect of this course concerns correctly interpreting formally
stated questions. Doing the homework materially improves one's ability
to correctly interpret formally stated questions. Doing homework thus
has the additional benefit of preparing you for examinations in this
important respect.
Examinations
Content
You are responsible to understand the material contained in the reading
assignments and the lectures. Each in-class examination is a 75-minute
test. It thus cannot cover all the material that you are responsible to
know. If
you want to guess what material you can safely ignore, that, of course,
is
your option. I would like you to understand all of the material. Thus,
in
the interest of encouraging you to learn all the material, I will not
suggest
that it is safe for you to eliminate any portion of it from your study
plan.
If you think this is unfair, feel free to say "Pete Cappello did not
tell
us which portion of the reading and lecture material we could safely
assume
would not be examined." That is a correct statement. This is a
university,
not a community college. You are computer science majors. I
implore
you: Devote as much time as it takes to understand this material in its
entirety. I am happy to help you learn. Always feel free to ask
questions during the lecture period, and out of class. Minimizing the
effort to get by is no way to approach your career. Being a competent
computer scientist requires a lifetime of intellectual effort. Embrace
it.
Process
- There must be at least 1 empty seat between every 2 students.
- You may not leave the room during the examination, even to go to
the bathroom.
- You may not use any personal devices, such as calculators, PDAs,
or cell phones.
Make-ups, Exceptions, and Incompletes
For me, grading is the distasteful part of the course. Because
grades, for better or worse, are important to success as a student at
UCSB, some students will request that course policies be relaxed for
them.
You cannot request a make-up examination on the day
of, or after, the examination.
The course grade policy will not be modified for anyone.
Don't ask. It is my job to protect the rest of the class from
people who
petition for exceptional treatment. Regarding grade policy, no
student
is treated differently from any other, no matter how compelling
they
feel their personal circumstances are.
If you have unforeseeable, extreme personal problems, I may sign
your petition to drop the course. I will not modify the course
grade policy for you.
Consider the course drop option carefully. Once the drop
deadline has passed, you are here for the whole ride, except in
circumstances as mentioned above.
Incompletes are given only to students who drop out of
school for the quarter: They receive incompletes for all their
courses, with the approval
of the Dean's office.
Grading Personnel
Your homeworks and examinations are graded by the TA and Reader.
Ideally, we will post on our web pages who grades what, so that you can
direct questions to the person who established the grade. If you do not
have that information, please contact Peter Cappello: cappello@cs.ucsb.edu.
Questioning a grade
You have at most 2 weeks from the time the graded item was handed back
to question a grade. You do this by seeing the person who graded
the item during their office hours. After that period, the grade
you received is final.
Maintaining the Grade Data Base
Please keep your graded assignments and examinations. If there is a
discrepancy between what was recorded and what grade appears on your
paper,
then your paper is necessary and sufficient evidence of the recording
error:
Bring your paper to me or the TA. We will correct the
database.