Syllabus Math 204, Fall Semester 1999

Syllabus Mathematics 204, Fall Semester 1999

Lecture: Tuesday and Thursday (excluding Nov 25) in CSF-113 from 9:30 to 10:45 in the morning. Also, see the calendar for a complete list of the happenings in this class.
Office Hours: After each lecture in ROLLA-115 from 11 to 12. Also by appointment. Appointments may be scheduled in person, by phone (341-6208), or via e-mail.
Text: "Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems" by Boyce and DiPrima (6th edition).
Contents: Chapters 1-7 of the textbook, i.e., first order differential equations and linear differential equations of higher order, systems of linear differential equations, Laplace Transform and selected physical applications.
Homework Assignments: There will be 11 weekly homework assignments. They are available in class (and as PDF Files on the lecture's web page). Homeworks will not be collected, but each Homework Session (i.e., each of Sep 2, 9, 16, 23, Oct 7, 14, 21, Nov 4, 11, 18, Dec 9) will start with a short quiz (about 15 minutes) on one particular problem of the homework assignment (all of the problems on the homework assignment will be covered, i.e., different students may get different quizzes, randomly distributed, with different problems, but all of them part of the previous homework assignment). The quizzes are closed book. The remainder of the Homework Sessions will be devoted to the discussion of the previous homework assignment (and, if needed, to the continuation of the lecture).
Hour Exams: There will be 3 one hour exams during class on Sep 28, Oct 26, and Nov 23.
Final Exam: The final exam is comprehensive and will be on Tuesday, Dec 14 from 1:30 to 3:30 in the afternoon. The final exam is open book.
Grading Policy: Each of the eleven homework assignments is worth 50 points, each of the three hour exams 80 points, and the final exam 210 points. Hence the emphasis on the final amount of points is weighted as follows:

Homework Hour Exams Final
55 % 24 % 21 %
Altogether 1000 points are available. A personal password may be used to obtain the personal scores from the web page. Note that these scores as well as the estimated final grades are updated weekly. The final grade will be determined according to the following table:

F D C B A

- 599 600 - 699 700 - 799 800 - 899 900 -

Homework	Hour Exams	Final
55 %	24 %	21 %

F	D	C	B	A
- 599	600 - 699	700 - 799	800 - 899	900 -