CSE370 Structure, Policies and Guidelines
Your course grade will be computed as follows:
Homework assignment is
due at the beginning of the class (10:30am) in class. 10% penalty is applied 24 hours late,
and 20% penalty is applied 48 hours late.
After 10:30am 2 days after the due date, the solution will be posted and
assignment will no longer be accepted.
The lab grades are
based on completion checked by the TAs. Don’t fall behind because each lab
is worth more than 2% of your grades!
We will not curve this class --- so the student next
to you doing well does not affect your grades (and we want all of you to do
well).
Unless specifically stated otherwise, we encourage
collaboration on assignments, provided (1) you spend at least 15 minutes on
each and every problem alone, before discussing its general concepts with
others, (2) you only discuss general concepts or related examples - not the
specifics of a problem on the assignment, and (3) you write up each and every
problem in your own writing, using your own words, and understand the solution
fully. Copying someone else's work is cheating (see below), as is copying the
homework from another source (e.g., prior year's notes, etc.). Please write down the name of
classmates you collaborated with at the top of your assignment.
Cheating is a very serious offense. If you are
caught cheating, you can expect a failing grade and initiation of a cheating
case in the University system. Basically, cheating is an insult to the
instructor, to the department and major program, and most importantly, to you
and your fellow students. If you feel that you are having a problem with the
material, or don't have time to finish an assignment, or have any number of
other reasons to cheat, then talk with the instructor.
Just don't cheat.
To avoid creating situations where copying can
arise, never e-mail or post your solution files in public directories. You can
post general questions about interpretation and tool use but limit your
comments to these categories. If in doubt about what might constitute cheating,
send the instructor e-mail
describing the situation.
We will try to ensure that the workload is typical
for a four-credit course, namely, nine to twelve hours per week outside of the
lectures. If we do not succeed, please let us know in whichever way you feel
the most comfortable (person-to-person, e-mail, feedback
form) and explain which parts of the course are causing you to spend too
much time non-productively.
We have structured the course so that spending an hour or
two per day will maximize your efficiency. You will work this way
in the real world—you cannot cram a three-month design assignment into
the last night—so you may as well work this way now. Plus, you will
understand the material better. If you leave the homework for the day before it
is due, then you will not have time to study for the exams, and you will not
have time to ask questions when (not
if)
the software misbehaves.
The
homework assignments are generally due on Wednesdays at the beginning of class
(except when there is an exam or a holiday). The homework assignment will be
distributed approximately one week before the due date.
Your
assignments must be neat and legible. We will not spend time trying to decipher
messy work. We urge you to use the graphical and word processing tools that are
readily available to you in all the labs in the department. Please make good
use of the schematic diagram editor in the tools you'll be using to make neat
circuit diagrams to include in your assignments.
Assignment
problems will sometimes be graded on a random basis. To get full credit for an
assignment, you must, of course, turn-in solutions for each assigned problem.
Only a subset of the problems will actually be graded in detail. You will not
know in advance which problems this will be - so make sure to do all of them.
Please
review the assignment solutions carefully before questioning a grade with
either the instructor or the teaching assistants.
We have three mini-exams rather than one big final
one. I heard smaller quizzes were
not taken seriously in the past and students still ended up cramming for the
final exam (which is not a good way to retain information). We welcome feedback. There will be no make-up exams so
schedule your term accordingly.
Software
tools frequently consume more time then they should.
We have designed the assignments to get you up to speed gradually (over the
period of a few weeks), but undoubtedly there will be some start-up cost (as
with any new tool). Essentially, you are learning a new language, a compiler,
and getting familiar with a process. Every tool imposes a certain model. Your
frustration can be high until you assimilate that model and learn to use it
effectively. Be sure to use the tutorials, and do not spend countless hours
making no progress. Ask for help. Remember that these tools are written by
engineers for engineers and will not necessarily conform to expectations you
may have of consumer-oriented tools such as Word.