Assignments

What the assignments are for, in order of importance

• They are how you learn the material. Class time is not a lecture, and the problems are where the reading turns into something you can use.
• They are what you defend at the board. Four names are drawn at the start of each meeting, one to each of that day’s four problems, so you do not know whether you will be drawn or which problem you would get.
• They reach into material the notes do not cover.
• They earn you credit toward the final grade.

The weekly cycle

In the foundation weeks there are eight problems, four for Tuesday and four for Thursday.

Monday’s deadline is for the written solution; standing at a board and producing it is separate work, and it happens in the days before each class.

In the map weeks there is one subject per session rather than one topic per week, so there are two of everything: maps due Monday noon and Wednesday noon, both final versions due Friday.

The two lines

Every submission opens with one line and closes with another, both written without AI.

Opening. The point in your solutions you were least able to verify.

Closing. Where AI was wrong, incomplete, or confidently vague this week, and how you found out. If it was not, say so; that claim is testable at the board. If you worked some problems without AI, note which.

These two lines are where your judgment rather than your output is visible, and they are the only written record the course keeps of how you work.

The final version

The final version carries its own history: changes marked or shown as a diff, with two or three sentences on what was wrong and why you had not caught it.

That history is the graded part, and the criteria are in §10 of the syllabus.

Problem sets

Three, in weeks 2, 4 and 6, with the due date announced when each is assigned. These are separate from the weekly eight and exist because of a limit in the class format: a board segment is eight minutes, so the weekly set never asks you to sustain a calculation across an afternoon. A problem set does. The criterion is simply that it does not fit on a blackboard.

One problem, not a set of exercises. The workflow is fixed.

1. Before AI, roughly ten minutes, written. The structure of the problem, your expected strategy, the equations you think you need, and what you do not know. Submitted as written, uncorrected.
2. Work with AI. No restrictions.
3. Solution. AI may draft it. You verify and correct it, and you submit it under your name.
4. Interaction reflection, written without AI. What you first thought the strategy was; what you asked AI to do; what it contributed that you had not considered; where it was wrong, incomplete, or confidently vague; what you changed and how you knew to change it.

Step 4 is where this is assessed. Step 3 is not. Step 1 exists so that Step 4 has something to compare against.

How to present solutions

• Solve algebraically as far as you can, and insert numbers only at the end. It shows how the physical effects enter, it reduces arithmetic, and it makes partial credit possible when the answer is wrong.
• Carry units through the calculation. They are a running sanity check, and the final answer needs them.
• Present the solutions to integrals and differential equations you encounter. If you looked one up, reproduce it rather than quoting the result. The exception is an integral solved in class or known to be long and standard.
• Show the steps. Write text explaining the logic, not only equations. A solution that is hard to follow will lose points even when the answer is right.
• Keep at least four significant figures through a numerical calculation and truncate only at the end.

Submission

Through Canvas, as a single self-contained PDF per deadline. Handwritten and scanned is fine, as are tablet exports and typed documents; 200–300 dpi is the useful range for scans. Make sure what you upload is legible.

Code, where a problem calls for it, is submitted alongside as a notebook or a script, together with whatever check you ran on it. A result without its check is not a result.

Advice

• Start early. Some problems need thought or a conversation, by design. Office hours exist for that, and they are useless the day before a deadline.
• Read the notes before attempting the problems. Going in cold is inefficient and defeats the purpose.
• Ask yourself whether each answer makes sense. Asking that catches subtle errors and forces you to read your own solution critically, which is the subject of this course.
• Study the official solutions even when you were right. The TA posts them after the Friday deadline, and they may show you a route you did not consider.