Instructor: Ramin Naimi. Fowler 317. Office Hours: by appointment.
Goals: The main goals of this course are to evaluate your mathematical writing for the Junior Writing Requirement (which is a College requirement for graduation), to help you review and prepare for the math Comps Exam (which is also required for graduation and will be given later this semester), and to to learn LaTeX, a typesetting computer language for preparing technical manuscripts. You will also need to choose a topic and source for your comps project (which you will work on next fall but can start now and work on during summer) and write a brief description of it in LaTeX.
Note: Passing this course, passing the junior writing requirement, and passing the comps exam are "separate": you may pass or fail any subset of the three. Without passing all three you cannot graduate. If you fail the comps exam, you will have a chance to take it again next year.
Grading: Your grade will be based 50% on your comps exam score, 10% on your "junior writing score", 30% on your "LaTeX score", and 10% on class participation. To pass the junior writing requirement, you can take up to three in-class writing tests. For your "junior writing score" you can receive at most 7.5 points (out of 10) if you fail the first test, 5 the second test, and 0 the third test. Your "LaTeX score" will be determined by one in-class exam and your comps project description. The score on your first attempt at the comps exam will count as 50% of your Math 300 grade. Subsequent attempts, if any, will not affect your Math 300 grade.
Comps Exam: In past years, the math department has used the following policy: for each section of the comps exam, you must earn at least 60% to pass that section; to be eligible for "Distinction" upon graduation with a math major, you must attain at least 80% on every section on your first attempt. We will probably use this or a similar policy again this year.
Attendance: You are responsible for everything that goes on in every class meeting, such as announcements, handouts, material taught, etc. This means if you miss a class even for a valid reason, it is your responsibility to contact me and find out what you missed.
E-mail: When necessary, I will make announcements via the class mailing list, instead of in the classroom. You are expected to check your email at least once a day. Feel free to use our class email list, math300-L at oxy dot edu, to send messages to everyone in the class.
Academic Honesty: I feel strongly about protecting honest and hard-working students against unfair and dishonest actions sometimes committed by a few. I don't give warnings; I refer all suspicious cases to the Judicial Examiner without hesitation.