If you believe a homework problem was misgraded, please return it to the TA, with a note, within one week of when the problem set is returned. If you think that a quiz or the midterm was misgraded, please return it to the instructor, with a note, within one week of when the exam was returned.
Homeworks are due on Thursdays at 10:10 am. Turn in your homework at the appropriately-labeled box in 2131 Kemper. Late homeworks will not be accepted.
Much of what one learns in this course comes from trying to solve the homework problems, so please work hard on them. I intend for you to find some of the problems challenging. If you’re keeping up with the course and are reasonably creative, you should be able to solve most or all of the problems within a few hours. But a few of the problems you might not be able to get. Don’t let this discourage you. Doing a conscientious job on the homeworks is the best preparation for the exams, and it is essential for mastery of the material.
In preparing homework solutions, you absolutely may not consult old problem-set solutions, either the instructor’s or another student’s, either of this course or someone else’s course.
Oddly, many students are more willing to spend long hours hacking in front of a machine than to spend them peacefully thinking beneath an old oak tree.
Your writeups should be clear, terse, and neat. Aim for elegance. Obsess. I encourage you to typeset your solutions. I encourage top students, including anyone bound for graduate school, to use LaTeX, a typesetting program especially good for mathematical material. The elegance you should strive for includes pretty typesetting. As with an English paper, please do not turn in a first draft: you need to refine your writeup a time or two, making it shorter, simpler, and cleaner.
For additional information, see my note on grading.
All that said, I do not prohibit collaboration on homeworks, and some students sincerely believe that they learn better with it. If you do collaborate on homwork problems, the manner in which you collaborate will have a big impact on how much you get out of the homeworks (which, in turn, will likely have a big impact on how you do on exams). First, think about the problems and try to solve them on your own. If, after giving a problem some real though, you just can’t get it, then you might discuss it with other students, with me, or with your TA.
Some homework questions will have been used in prior years, either by me or by other professors. You absolutely may not consult old problem-set solutions for this class, nor those of any related classes. Not “official” solutions dug up from the web, and not those from another student in a prior term. Anyone who produces a writeup that appears to have been influenced by an old problem-set solution will be referred to Judicial Affairs.
If you are having personal or academic problems which are motivating you towards academic misconduct, please come and talk to me, instead. I’m not an ogre. (Then again, most ogres say that.)
First, I really want you to think. Don’t try to solve the problems by doing some sort of “pattern matching.” It might sound like the quickest way to get there, but it just doesn’t work. This course is about learning a certain sort of problem-solving skill more than it is about learning any specific material. Keeping this in mind may help put things into better perspective.
Even more than with other courses, you must not get behind. The class keeps building on what has come before. Don’t lose the thread. If you get seriously behind you will probably find it impossible to get back on track.
Be selective in note-taking. Actually, I would suggest that you take no notes at all: the book is good, and I think it works best to sit back, listen, think, and follow. If you feel you must have notes, you might team up with others and take turns.
If you get involved in a study group, don’t let it degenerate into an attempt to get as many homework problems nailed as possible. The homework points aren’t that much, but if you don’t learn the material in the homeworks, you won’t be able to do the exams. You’ll probably learn more struggling on your own.