ENGR 1 Syllabus, Fall 2008 Instructor: Frank Vahid (vahid@cs.ucr.edu) Office: EBUII 328 Teaching Assistant: Steve Cole (scole@cs.ucr.edu) Textbook (required): How to Create a Magical College Life, by Morris Taylor, Talisman Training Associates, 1st edition (or newer), ISBN 978-0977921904, see: http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Magical-College-Life/dp/0977921905 or http://magicalcollegelife.com/magicallife.htm Course goals: To help students network with fellow majors, learn good study habits and time management, learn about their major, discover university resources, and connect with faculty and major-related student organizations -- thus getting students off to the best start possible. Online: This course has a significant online component. All students should regularly check the online course page, it's news and discussion forums, and their email. Most assignments will be submitted online. The online course page is located at: ENGR 1G (for Computer Engineers): https://moodle.cs.ucr.edu/moodle/course/view.php?id=7 ENGR 1I or 1M (for Computer Science or Information Systems) https://moodle.cs.ucr.edu/moodle/course/view.php?id=121 Lectures: This course includes a weekly lecture period. However, due to the significant online and outside activity components of the course, that period will not necessarily be used every week. Students should check the online course page regularly to determine whether the lecture period will not be meeting in a given week. Grading: The course consists of numerous activities, each worth points. Points are assigned generously in this introductory course; fully completing an activity usually results in receiving all or most points. There are no exams. Points are added to form total points in the course. Obtaining 85-100% of total points yields an A, 70-85% a B, 60-70% a C, 50-60% a D, and 49% or below an F. + and - grades will be given within each range (top, middle, and bottom third of range). Most students should easily achieve an A merely by behaving responsibly. Your points and the total course points to date are available throughout the quarter at the course's moodle site. Extra credit: Normally, in your courses, you should inform the instructor if you miss a required course assignment/event, but this course is different -- instead, numerous extra credit opportunities are included to help compensate for students missing activities due to schedule conflicts. Thus, you should not contact the instructor if you cannot attend or miss an activity -- just find an extra credit activity to make up for it (extra credit activities have titles starting with "EC"). It's a good idea to do extra credit activities to get some extra points "in the bank" (you can have more points than the total course points). Although we've listed the EC assignments in specific weeks, many can be done at any time (and if there is a due date, can be turned in late for partial credit), so consider all of them. Likewise, if you can only attend part of an in-person activity (regular or extra credit), you'll typically just sign-in when you arrive and sign-out when you leave, for partial points (again, no need to contact the instructor). Students with less than 70% of course points at any time or who have missed several non-extra-credit activities in a few week period (especially in the last weeks) may additionally be required to meet and discuss in person with the instructor and/or the department undergraduate advisor why they are missing such assignments, before receiving a passing grade. Students with course total points in the top 15% (including extra credit) in the ninth week of the quarter and who have completed nearly all required and extra credit assignments may be invited to optionally meet in a small group with the course professor and possibly other professors too, to discuss excellent opportunities at UCR for outstanding hard-working students. Activities will be announced on the course moodle site, and may include: * Weekly online "homework" assignments * The department orientation event * Small team programming/design projects and presentations * Occassional online surveys * Attending engineering student orientation meetings * Attending seminars on study habits, time management, etc. * Exploring the campus and its resources * Meeting with a faculty mentor * Participating in online discussion and chat forums Most of the online assignments can be submitted as many times as you'd like before the due date. Thus, you can (and should) get an early start and submit drafts (we don't grade submissions until the deadline). Furthermore, if you have more time in a particular week, you can look ahead and possibly complete future homeworks or extra credit activities well ahead of schedule. For safety, you should keep your own backup copies of your online assignments -- that way, if an online assignment ever disappears for whatever technical reason, you can just cut-and-paste from your backup copy. While we have provided assignments ahead of time, note that we may modify assignments (typically minor if any) or add additional assignments throughout the quarter -- changes/additions will usually be announced via the news forum. For all homeworks, forum postings, emails, etc. in this course, you should use reasonably correct English grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Perfection is not expected, but avoid, for example, typing in all lower case, using instant messaging lingo (like "omg"), or submitting items with numerous mistakes. The general UCR rule is 3 hours of student work per unit per week. Thus, because this is a 1-unit course, you should expect to spend about 3 hours per week on this course on average.