Syllabus
Technology
Ed
We will use Ed as the ‘one-stop shop’ throughout the semester: for a Q&A forum and for official announcements.
Enrollment in Ed is mandatory. It is your responsibility to regularly check Ed for important announcements. Failure to do so may result in severe consequences for your ability to succeed in this course.
If you have questions about anything related to the course, please post them on Ed rather than emailing the instructor or TAs. Please do not post anything resembling a solution to a homework problem before it’s due. If in doubt, you should make your post private (visible to instructors only). We always welcome any feedback on what we could be doing better.
To join the class Ed: after you have officially enrolled in the course and are added to the bCourses, you will be automatically added to the course Ed. If you are not able to access the Ed, please email the course instructors: ekim555@berkeley.edu and nashish@berkeley.edu.
Gradescope
All homework will be submitted through Gradescope, and all grades will be returned through Gradescope.
To join the class Gradescope: after you have officially enrolled in the course and are added to the bCourses, you will be automatically added to the course Gradescope. If you are not able to access the Gradescope, please email the course instructors: ekim555@berkeley.edu and nashish@berkeley.edu.
bCourses
Lecture videos will be available from the bCourses site, under the “Media Gallery” section. We will not use bCourses for any other content.
Attendance policy
Attendance for lectures/discussions will not be tracked, nor part of your grade. With that said, we encourage you to attend as much of the course in-person as possible, as we believe consistent active engagement leads to positive outcomes in terms of learning and course grades.
Exams
There will be one midterm and a final project. The midterm date will be: Tuesday, October 22th 2024, 6:30 PM - 8 PM.
No alternate exam times will be offered. If you are unable to make the above midterm exam time due to truly extenuating circumstances, please make a private Ed post ASAP and we will discuss options.
Materials
Discussions
Discussion worksheets are released the day before the first discussions of the week. The discussion sections will give you additional practice solving problems. You may attend whichever, as many, and as few discussion sections you like.
Homeworks
There are 4 homeworks for this class, which are released roughly 3 weeks at a time. You will submit your assignments on Gradescope. Grades will be released on Gradescope.
Doing the homeworks and reading the solutions is vital for your learning. You are expected to show your work and justify all of your answers.
Slip Days
You are given a total of 5 slip days for use only on homeworks. These slip days are intended for emergency use, and as such we employ a strict late policy. To utilize a slip day, please fill out this Google Form: “Data C182 Fa24 Homework Slip Day Request”.
There is no additional slack beyond slip days available.
Note: you may request for slip days after the assignment due date, as long as you do so before the new due date (eg with requested slip day applied).
If you request for too many slip days (eg if this request exceeds the global 5 limit), then your request will be partially honored or denied.
Example: if I only have 3 slip days left for the semester, but I request for another 4 days for Homework 03, then we will only grant you 2 slip days for Homework 03.
To request for additional slip days for an assignment you’ve already requested slip days for, you can re-submit this form.
Example: you previously requested for 1 slip day for HW01, but then realized you need another 2 slip days. Then, you would re-submit this form for a “2 slip day” request.
Academic Integrity
Cheating
Ethical behavior is an important part of being an engineer. It is a part of our responsibility to act ethically and honestly, and moreover, ethical behavior is what helps you learn best. Cheating is fundamentally dishonest and antisocial behavior. We have a zero-tolerance policy for cheating. Any unconfessed offense will result in negative points for the category that the offense occurs in, with no bound on how negative it can go, and a referral to the Center for Student Conduct.
You are not permitted to upload any of our problems, solutions, or your own solutions to our problems to any site that is accessible by other people. Use Ed to discuss content. The only limited exceptions to this are online communication mediums between you and the collaborating individuals explicitly listed on your homework assignment. Looking at online solutions from previous semesters or other students is forbidden, as is sharing of your solutions with others. Furthermore, students all have an affirmative duty to report possible cases of cheating or unauthorized communication to the course staff, immediately. Acknowledgement of and failure to report cheating implicates the bystander since this is academic misconduct. Cheating hurts us all and engineering ethics requires us to point out wrongdoing when we are aware of it.
Collaboration
You are encouraged to collaborate on homeworks with others; however, this collaboration must be limited to high-level discussion. All coding must be done on your own, and you should not discuss specific solutions or look at another’s code. Similarly, you may use books or online resources to help solve homework problems, but you must always credit all such sources and you must never copy material verbatim. You must explicitly acknowledge everyone whom you have worked with or who has given you any significant ideas about the homework.
Grading
The grading breakdown is as follows:
- Homework: 60%
- Midterm: 20%
- Final project: 20%
Final course grades will be decided via a “mix” of curved and straight-scale grading style.