Welcome to DSC 10 in Summer 2021! This page should answer most of the questions you might have about how the course is run; check out the frequently asked questions for answers to some common ones.
Here is what the syllabus will cover:
jeldridge@ucsd.eduTo get started in DSC 10, you'll need to set up accounts on a couple of websites.
We'll be using Campuswire as our course message board. Campuswire is like Piazza, but unlike Piazza, Campuswire does not sell student data to third parties. You should have received an invitation via email, but if not you should get in touch with a course staff member as soon as possible, as we'll be making all course announcements via Campuswire.
If you have a question about anything to do with the course — if you're stuck on a homework problem, want clarification on the logistics, or just have a general question about data science — you can make a post on Campuswire. We only ask that if your question includes some or all of an answer, please make your post private so that others cannot see it. You can also post anonymously if you would prefer.
Course staff will regularly check Campuswire and try to answer any questions that you have. You're also encouraged to answer a question asked by another student if you feel that you know the answer.
We'll be using Gradescope for homework submission and grading. Most of the assignments will be a mixture of math and coding, and the coding parts are usually autograded via Gradescope., You should have received an email invitation for Gradescope, but if not please let us know as soon as possible (preferably via Campuswire).
Some aspects of the course, like office hours and the remote discussion, will be held using Zoom. You should already have an account through UCSD; see the Zoom guide for more help. Note that you will not be expected to have a webcam!
We'll use Canvas for the course gradebook and for the exams.
We'll be using DSC 10's own textbook, Dive into Data Science. This textbook is a work-in-progress, so please let us know if you spot any errors or have any suggestions.
You will not need a webcam for DSC 10.
DSC 10 is entirely online this quarter due to the . As such, lectures will be pre-recorded and posted on YouTube. Since the summer session is a condensed version of a normal quarter, there will be four lectures per week, each 1.5 hours long. The lectures, along with all other materials for the week, will be posted on the course website at the start of the week.
Although the lectures will be pre-recorded, we will be hosting a large number of office hours via Zoom. Feel free to drop by one of these hours to ask questions about the lecture.
Discussions will be held live on Zoom at 01:00 pm PST on Thursday. It will be recorded for those who are unable to attend. The Zoom meeting link for the discussion will be available on the front page of the course website, and a discussion notebook will be posted beforehand. Virtual attendance in discussion section is recommended, but not required. We'll record the discussion and post the link on the front page of the course site.
Course staff, including tutors, TAs, and instructors, will hold office hours regularly throughout the week. This quarter, all office hours will be via Zoom. Please see the office hours page for the schedule and for instructions.
There are three types of assignments in this class: labs, homeworks, and projects. All assignments are completed in Jupyter notebooks on DataHub.
Labs are coding assignments designed to help you build the skills needed to complete the homeworks.
Because this is a condensed summer session, there will be two labs due each week. The first lab will cover content from the first two lectures of the week, and the second lab will cover content from the second two lectures.
While completing the lab, you will be able to run a sequence of "tests" which check to make sure that your answers are correct. If all of the tests pass, you will get full credit!
Each person must submit each lab on their own, but you are welcome to collaborate with any number of other students. This means that you can be discuss the labs with others, you cannot copy or share answers with other students. Labs are submitted to Gradescope.
Homeworks are similar in format to the labs, but more challenging. One key difference between homeworks and labs is that the tests in homeworks only check to make sure that your answer is reasonable; they do not make sure that it is correct. Homeworks will generally be assigned weekly, with some exceptions.
You may work on homework assignments and projects either alone or with a partner, by pair programming. This means that you should work on the assignment together, discussing each problem together, and writing each answer together. If working with a partner, you should submit the assignment as a team on Gradescope (ask a classmate or a tutor if you are unsure how to do this).
Projects are similar in format to homeworks, but more challenging. They are somewhat longer than a typical homework, and they require you to pull together ideas from the previous weeks, rather than just the last week. There are two projects: a midterm project, and a final project. You may work together with a partner on the projects. If working with a partner, you should submit one assignment as a team (ask a classmate or a tutor if you are unsure how to do this).
Homework assignments and projects must be submitted by the 11:59pm deadline to be considered on time. You may turn them in as many times as you like before the deadline, and only the most recent submission will be graded, so it's a good habit to submit early and often.
You have five six slip days to use throughout throughout
the quarter. A slip day extends the deadline of any one homework, project, or
lab by 24 hours. Slip days cannot be "stacked" or "combined" to extend the
deadline further — the latest any one homework can be submitted is 24
hours after the deadline. Slip days are applied automatically at the end of the
quarter, but it's your responsibility to keep track of how many you have left.
Slip days are designed to be a transparent and predictable source of leniency in deadlines. They're also meant to simplify the process of granting extensions -- keeping track of exceptions in a class of 100+ gets hectic fast! You can use a slip day if you are too busy to complete an assignment on its original due date (or if you forgot about it). But slips days are also meant for things like a minor illness (a cold that lasts a day) or the internet crashing at 11:58 PM just as you go to submit your homework. Slip days are to be used in exceptional circumstances, so you probably shouldn't get close to using all of them — if you feel that you will need that many, send me a message and we'll figure something out.
Slip days aren't meant for emergencies, such as serious illnesses. In such cases that something outside of your control causes you to miss deadlines, send me an email and we can plan on how to make up the work.
There will be one midterms and one final exam, held on the following dates:
The exams will be online and delivered via Canvas quiz or similar. There will be a window of 24 hours during which you can start your exam, but once your exam is started you will have a limited amount of time to finish it: 1.5 hours for the midterm and 3 hours for the final exam.
We'll be using the following grading scheme:
You must score at least 55% on the final exam to pass the course. If you score lower than 55% on the final, you will receive an F in the course, regardless of your overall average.
The class isn't typically curved. At the end of the quarter, I will run an algorithm to automatically find the best cutoffs for each letter grade, but these cutoffs can only be lowered. For instance, a 93% will always be an A. The grade of "A+" is assigned to people who otherwise receive an "A" and who distinguish themselves -- for example, by answering questions asked by others on Campuswire, or by receiving exceptionally high averages across assignments.
Unfortunately, even though the class is remote, we have a limited number of seats; While we are no longer constrained by the classroom size, we are constrained by the size of the course staff and its capacity for grading and office hours. I understandably receive a few emails every quarter asking about the chances of making it off of the waitlist, but unfortunately I do not have a good way of predicting this as I do not have control over the waitlist.
"Dropping the lowest" refers to removing the assignment that will result in the largest boost to your overall score at the end of the quarter. If all assignments are worth the same amount of points, then the "lowest" is simply the one with the lowest score. However, if the assignments are worth differing amounts of points, "dropping the lowest" is not so straightforward. For example, suppose there are three assignments worth 5 points, 100 points, and 15 points, respectively. You score 1/5, 50/100, and 15/15. If we were to drop the assignment with the lowest score (1/5), your overall grade would be 65/115, which is approximately 56%. On the other hand, if we drop the 50/100 assignment, your overall score is 16/20, or 80%. This class adopts the last strategy.
The class isn't typically curved. The standard grading scale (where an A is 93+, A- is 90+, B+ is 87+, etc.) will be used as a starting point, but once all scores are in, we will run a clustering algorithm to automatically find the best cutoffs for each letter grade. These cutoffs can only be lowered. For instance, the threshold for an "A" will never be higher than 93%.