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instructor: me text: stewart's calculus (8th ed) goals: to study integration techniques (chaps 6, 7), sequences and series (chap 11), parametric curves, polar coordinates (chap 10) vectors (sec 12.1-12.4), and additional selected applications as time permits class attendance: while you are encouraged to attend class and discussion section regularly, you will not be graded directly on attendance. however, i may take my impression of attendance/participation into account in your final grade if you are on a borderline. homework: there will be regular written homework, usually posted the course homework page (which also has instructions) at least a week before the due date. typically homework will be due fridays (in class) at the start of the 2:30 lecture each non-exam week. electronic submission is not permitted. you are allowed one late homework (with no penalty and no advanced permission required, not to be used on the final homework set), which can be turned in to your TA in your dicussion section the week following the assigned due date. barring exceptional circumstances multiple late homeworks are not permitted. (you are, however, welcome to turn in homeworks early, in an earlier lecture or discussion, or incomplete homeworks. also, an individual homework is worth less than 2% of your final grade, so missing one won't kill your grade. but missing all of them probably will.) while you may discuss the problems with other students, get help from me, your ta's, the math center, etc, you must write up solutions in your own words. in my mind, doing the homework is where you really learn the material, so i encourage you to first try the homeworks on your own, check your answers/get help as necessary, and then once you know how to do the problmes correctly, make sure you can do the problems on your own (without notes/text/help). (this last point is especially important for being able to solve problems in exams--being able to solve problems independently is very different from being able to follow someone else's solution). you should plan to spend roughly 8 hours/week on work outside of lecture for this class, with most of this time on homework. exams: there will be 3 in-class exams (see tentative dates on exams page or homework page) as well as the (uniform) final exam during the scheduled final exam period. more info about the exams will be posted on the exams page of the course website later in the semester. make-up exams are only given in exceptional circumstances at the instructor's discretion. grades: at the end of the semester, i'm required to give you some grades. these will represent an approximation of my assessment of your understanding of the material in the course and ability to do problems. the grades are weighted as follows:
20% homework after seeing the distribution of numerical grades, i will assign certain numerical ranges to letter grades (a "curve"). i don't know what the curve will be in advance but to give you a rough idea, in my previous calculus classes the A/B cutoff has often been in the high 80's, the B/C cutoff has often been in the mid 70's and the C/D cutoff in the mid or low 60's. (that said, i have not taught the 2924 version with a uniform final exam before, so the approximate cutoff's are only rough guesses.) moreover, in exceptional cases (e.g., a poor start but a strong finish), i may adjust a final letter grade to be higher than what the above procedure dictates. for instance, if you get an A on the final but your numerical score only puts you in the C range, i will most likely give you a B. to get a better sense of how you are doing throughout the class, i will give you estimated (unofficial) letter grades for each of the in-class exams. if you have questions about your performance or grade during the semester, please feel free to see me. elevator policy: if one of the tower elevators is inoperative, class may start 5-10 minutes late. if both of the tower elevators are inoperative, there may be no class. final remark: if you have a question about course policies or expectations, just ask.
oh, also there's some stuff my bosses make me say
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