EECS16B, Designing Information Devices and Systems II

Fall 2021

Policies

Course Info

The EECS 16AB series (Designing Information Devices and Systems) is a pair of introductory-level courses introducing students to EECS. The courses have a particular emphasis on how to build and understand systems interacting with the world from an informational point of view. Mathematical modeling is an important theme throughout these courses, and students will learn many conceptual tools along the way. These concepts are rooted in specific application domains. Students should understand why they are learning something.

An important part of being a successful engineer is being able to identify the important and relevant structure in a complex problem while ignoring minor issues. EECS 16A focuses on modeling as abstraction: how can we see the relevant underlying structure in a problem? It introduces the basics of linear modeling, largely from a "static" and deterministic point of view. EECS 16B deepens the understanding of linear modeling and introduces dynamics and control, along with additional applications. Finally, EECS 70, (which can be thought of as the third course in this sequence --- except without any labs), introduces additional discrete structures for modeling problems, and brings in the language of probability to complement the linear-algebraic language developed in EECS 16AB.

Both courses utilize the modeling and design-driven approach to train students in being able to tackle complex design problems with systematic and modular/hierarchical approach - from basic circuit components to full sensor + processing systems implementing sophisticated processing and control algorithms. Learning from data is an important part of both courses.

Grade Breakdown

Our objective is to help you become the best engineer you can be, and grades are not everything. The various components of the class -- homework, labs and exams -- are designed explicitly with this in mind. Every challenge is a growth opportunity. You will have the opportunity to gain points in the course through completing your homework and attending labs as well as through the exams.

This course is not graded on a curve. We have set absolute thresholds for performance that will map to grade boundaries. We encourage you to discuss the course material with each other and teach each other new ideas and concepts that you learn. Teaching the material is one of the best ways to learn, so discussing course material with colleagues in the class is a win-win situation for everyone. Grades are not everything, far from it, but that said, here is the breakdown for grading for this class.

Notice that you can get many points by being regular with your homework and the labs. Our goal is to help you learn the material as best as possible!

Grading Scale

The course will use the following grading scale (in percentages):

		A	[93+)	A-	[88+)
B+	[84+)	B	[75+)	B-	[68+)
C+	[65+)	C	[62+)	C-	[58+)
D+	[57+)	D	[55+)	D-	[53+)
F	[0-, 53)

Note that if you choose a P/NP grading option you must get a C- or above to be able to Pass the class.

In the rare event that the instructors deem that a change needs to be made for a given exam, then you will be told where the grade boundaries are for that exam and how to adjust your score on the exam to get your points on the above scale. You will always know how you are doing in the course grade-wise.

Good Citizenship and Professionalism

The classroom is a professional environment, and we expect that students treat each other and staff with respect. Any rude, dishonest, unhelpful, or otherwise unprofessional behavior within the fora of the course – be it in-person or online; be it discussion, lecture, Piazza, Discord, homework party, or office hours – will result in negative points in the Participation/Professionalism grade. Otherwise, to get full credit for the Participation/Professionalism grade, you just need to attend at least 15 discussions, mentioned again later. (Due to snafus on the staff end, we have decreased the mandatory 16 discussions to 15, and will not be counting Discussion 0B for participation purposes.)

Being professional in professional settings is vital to an engineer. Being professional is not opposed to being human. Rather, it is fundamentally about allowing diverse human beings to work together towards shared goals even in the face of disagreements. For engineers in particular, this requires bringing the same discipline that we apply to our technical work to our interpersonal interactions as well. This applies whenever and wherever people have to communicate with each other. Professional engineering communication and interaction moves the ball forward in a way that helps others achieve our shared objectives, and does so in a way that respects professional ethics.

Does professionalism mean always agreeing? Of course not. One of the values for teams of having people with diverse points of view is that people will disagree, and through the course of expressing those disagreements in a thought through and professional manner, everyone comes to a better understanding and perhaps, a better solution is reached. Communicating in a professional manner creates safe spaces where others can also share their perspectives. Unprofessional communication hurts teams by depriving it of diverse voices. But professionalism also requires an acknowledgement of the chain of responsibilities. Sometimes, it's just not your call to make, and being professional involves living with the calls that others make. You file a good bug report, and then the owner decides how/whether to fix it. Being a professional involves appreciating the value of reporting things through proper channels so that information and perspectives can be combined, and decisions can be made that reflect the appropriate balance of tradeoffs. A key part of professionalism is understanding that your own point of view is necessarily going to be limited, behaving accordingly, and communicating in measured ways. Not only is this pragmatic, it creates space for others.

Especially in the present context where we have all just been through a year and a half of the pandemic, we do not need any obstacles to people feeling welcome when we finally can come together. Instead, we accept as a group that we are people who are willing to work hard together to learn. It is fine if you don’t know whether something is professional or not --- err on the side of caution and ask about it. In general, there is a rule of thumb that can sometimes be helpful ---- if you would have any misgivings about a transcript or recording of your communication being made available to a potential employer five years from now, then it is probably unprofessional.

Exam "Second Chance" Policy

This course spans a fairly broad set of ideas and concepts within a short period of time, and hence sustained and consistent effort and investment are critical to your success in this class. Similarly, by far the most common operating mode we have observed in previous students who struggled and/or failed this class was attempting to do the bare minimum in general and then catch up/cram right before the exams.

In order to formally encourage all of you to maintain the sustained effort that we have observed to be critical to success, we will be adopting a new policy regarding exam clobbering, participation, and effort. Specifically, for students who (1) complete an optional midterm redo and submit it before the deadline, and (2) perform significantly better on the final than on the midterm, we will provide the opportunity to substantially replace that midterm grade with the final grade.

If you qualify for the second chance policy (i.e. (1) and (2)), you may replace your midterm score with your scaled score on the final exam according to the formula below.

Effective Grade on Midterm = max(% on midterm, % on final - 12%)

This essentially allows you to replace your midterm grade by a higher grade if you show significant improvement on the final --- we want to reward improved performance. Note that you MUST take the midterm to qualify for this policy, skipping the midterm entirely is not permitted.

Student Support

Homework (HW) parties are your chance to meet and interact with other students, while also having the chance to get help from (u)GSIs, tutors and faculty. This is your chance to have a social experience as part of the class. As mentioned earlier, we expect students to treat each other with respect during homework parties as well as during all other parts of the class, including interactions on Piazza, discussion, and office hours. Remember that each of you is coming into the class with different experiences and backgrounds – use this as an opportunity to learn from one another. Students are expected to help each other out during HW party, and if desired, form ad-hoc "pickup" homework groups in the style of a pickup basketball game. Collaboration is an essential, symbiotic skill for any engineer; to these ends, in a homework party we will only answer homework-related questions coming from a group.

This semester, HW Party will be held on Wednesday and Thursday from 2PM-5PM PT in the Wozniak Lounge. Attending HW Party is highly encouraged and is a great way to find a study group, although we will be facilitating study group formations through a separate process for those interested.

To provide accommodations for our remote students, we will run HW Party in parallel on Discord at the same times, although we strongly encourage our students to attend HW Parties in person (if they are comfortable and able to) where they can get the most out of the collaborative experience.

More information about HW Party can be found on Piazza, where we will make a post detailing best practices and instructions.

Study Strategy Office Hours are your opportunity to strengthen your learning habits and techniques necessary in tackling not only EECS 16B, but also any future course, project, or internship. We openly provide resources on the website, like notes, lectures, and discussions, to solve any course content question unrelated to homework. In these office hours, you will work with course staff on learning how to properly interpret and study such given resources to build the independence to resolve any of your non-homework content questions. You will effectively be learning how to learn.

We plan for these office hours to occur in a hybrid setting: for any offering, there will be an in-person and remote medium (via the Office Hours Queue tool which you can access through oh.eecs16b.org).

More information about Study Strategy Office Hours can be found on Piazza.

Solutions Office Hours will run through homework solutions (for the homework in the prior week) every Tuesday afternoon recorded over Zoom. Especially because self-grades and resubmissions will be due Tuesday evening, we encourage you to come with your questions about the homework/solutions or grading thought-out.

Piazza is the place to ask any other course-related question (administrative, content clarifications) in its respective thread or privately, although we will not be supporting any lab-related questions on Piazza. We elaborate further in the Course Communication section.

Study Group Formation and Expectations

Course staff will be facilitating the formation of study groups this semester - we will make a Piazza post with the complete information. Our goal is to make sure that everyone who wants a study group can have one where they are treated professionally and expected to behave as such.

Homework Submission

Homeworks are due on Friday night at 11:59 PM Pacific Time (PT). We understand that other commitments can pop up during the week, which is why we will also provide a 24 hour grace period for homework submission. You need to turn in a .pdf file consisting of your written-up solutions that also includes an attached pdf "printout" of your .ipynb code on Gradescope. In addition, Gradescope has an option to associate pages of your work to each homework problem. You must select the relevant pages for every problem – any problems without pages selected will receive zero credit. Any homework submissions that are turned in without the code “printout” (or screenshot) attached will receive a zero on the coded ipython notebook portions of the homework. If you have any questions about the format of a homework submission, please go to HW party or ask on Piazza.

Additionally, we will provide HW accommodations for students who have letters of accommodations from DSP services - these accommodations will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

You will have the opportunity to resubmit your homework after homework solutions are released to get makeup credit. See below for details.

Homework Grading and Self-Grading

The point of homework in this class is for you to learn the material. To help you in doing this, you will both grade your own homework and have a subset graded by 16B readers.

The dates and deadlines associated with homework assignments are summarized here:

After the HW deadline, official solutions will be posted online. You will then be expected to read them carefully and enter your own scores and comments for every part of every problem in the homework on the following coarse scale:

Note: You must justify self-grades of 2, 5 or 8 with a comment. Grades of 0 and 10 do not need to be justified (a simple comment like 'all correct' or 'wrong' will suffice for the form to not complain). If you are really confused about how to grade a particular problem, you should post on Piazza. This is not supposed to be a stressful process.

Your self-grades will be due on the Tuesday following the homework deadline at 11:59 PM sharp. Discussion checkoffs will be due 11:59 PM of the day of the respective discussion. Again, we understand that other commitments can pop up during the week, which is why we will provide a 24 hour grace period following these due dates. We will further accept late self-grades up to a week after the self-grade deadline for 75% credit on the associated homework assignment. If you don't enter a proper grade by this deadline, you are giving yourself a zero on that assignment. Merely doing the homework is not enough, you must do the homework; turn it in on time; read the solutions; do the self-grade; and turn it in on time. Unless all of these steps are done, you will get a zero for that assignment.

We will automatically drop the lowest homework score from your final grade calculation. This drop is meant for emergencies. If you use this drop half-way into the semester, and request another, we cannot help you. EECS47E students will not have their lowest homework score dropped.

Just like we encourage you to use a study group for doing your homework, we strongly encourage you to have others help you in grading your assignments while you help grade theirs.

Course readers are going to be grading and sending you occasional comments. Because we have reader grades, we will catch any attempts at trying to inflate your own scores. This will be considered cheating and is definitely not worth the risk. Your own scores will be used in computing your final grade for the course, adjusted by taking into account reader scores so that everyone is fairly graded effectively on the same scale. For example, if we notice that you tend to give yourself 5s on questions where readers looking at your homeworks tend to give you 8s, we will apply an upward correction to adjust.

Reader grades will be released on Gradescope about one week after the homework deadline. Homework regrade requests are typically due on Gradescope within 72 hours of reader grades being released. If a regrade request is submitted for a part of a question on the homework, the grader reserves the right to regrade the entire homework and could potentially take points off.

If you have any questions, please ask on Piazza.

If you are curious as to how your homework scores are calculated, please look at the formula below.

*Note that we treat the “infinite” ratios (Raw Self-Grade for Selected Problem = 0) as 1.

Self-Grade Walkthrough

Homework Resubmission

Again, the point of homework in this class is to help you learn. We understand that sometimes work from other classes, midterms or your personal life can come in the way of making a homework deadline. For this reason we will allow you to resubmit your homework for 70% credit.

Homework resubmissions must be HANDWRITTEN. Homework resubmissions will be due along with the self-grades, so they will be due by 11:59pm Tuesday night. We understand that other commitments can pop up during the week, which is why we will provide a 24 hour grace period for homework resubmissions. If you choose to resubmit your homework, you must submit two sets of self-grades, one for the first submission and one for the second submission. For the second submission, just grade yourself for the whole homework as you would have normally. We will apply the 70% correction; you do not need to apply it.

What does 70% credit mean? Let us say you only were able to get halfway through a problem during the first submission. You submitted your homework on Friday, and while going through the solutions you figured out how to do the whole problem. Your self-grade for your first submission would be a 5/10. However, you can resubmit the homework problem with a fully correct solution and receive 70% of the remaining points as extra points, i.e. (10-5) * 70/100 = 3.5 extra points, and so your score for the problem would go from 5 points to 8.5 points.

Homework Effort Policy

Because the point of homework in this class is to help you learn, not to punish you for making small mistakes, if your final score (after resubmission and any other corrections are applied) on any homework is at or above 8/10, your grade will automatically be bumped up to 100% (10/10). If your final score is less than 8/10, it will be scaled linearly, so a 6/10 will result in 75% (7.5/10).

Discussion Section Policies

Discussion is a key component to learning the material in this class, and to keep you motivated and on track you can earn points towards your grade by attending discussion.Participation is worth a maximum of 10 points. This is measured by discussion attendance. If you attend a discussion section live, your TA will give you a password to input into a Google Form associated with their section. If you attend or watch the online section, you will upload your handwritten notes or completed discussion worksheet to receive credit. If you do not get full credit, your grade will be prorated by the number of discussion checkoffs you complete; e.g., if you attend (watch) 14 discussions or complete 14 checkoffs, you will have 14/15 * 10 = 9.3 points in this category.

This semester, discussion will be offered primarily in-person; there will be one recorded online offering.

Ways to check discussion attendance will be posted on Piazza on a later date.

Lab Policies

For more information on lab policies, please visit the linked lab syllabus.

Hands On Lab: Labs for this class are not open section; if you are signed up for a hands-on lab section, you must go to your assigned section. The way to sign up for a hands-on lab section will be posted to Piazza. Labs will occur in-person and students are expected to be present in lab from the beginning of their slot.

Credit for each lab is based on completion and checkoff with a lab TA during your assigned lab section. In a checkoff, you will demonstrate your work from portions of the lab and answer conceptual questions related to the lab. You should aim to get checked off by the end of your lab section. If (and only if) you attend your lab section for the whole duration but do not finish in time, you may get checked off at the beginning of your next lab section before starting the following lab. Lab questions will not be answered through Piazza-- for help, you must attend your lab section.

If you miss 4 or more lab checkoffs, you will automatically fail the class.

Lab Sim: Lab Sim is a simulation lab format that exercises similar mathematical and circuit concepts to the hands-on lab, but without the hardware portion or real-life components of hands-on lab. There will be office-hour style sections that are hosted both in-person and virtually, which we highly encourage students to attend for support from lab staff. Checkoffs for Lab Sim will be conducted through Gradescope, and submissions will be auto-graded on a point scale after the deadline. Lab questions will not be answered through Piazza -- for help with Lab Sim, please attend the scheduled Lab Sim sections.

If you miss 3 or more lab submissions, you will automatically fail the class.

Exam Policies

We will have one midterm and one final. The midterm will be held on Monday, October 18 from 7-9 pm Pacific Time. The final will be held on Friday, December 17, from 8-11 am Pacific Time. Makeup exams will not be scheduled. No alternate exams will be offered due to class conflicts, particularly for the final. In general, alternate exam times will NOT be provided. Alternate exams will not be provided for students who have scheduled classes with time-conflicts. Please contact us privately if you have any concerns.

Please plan for exams at these times. In case of an emergency on exam day, please email eecs16b-fa21@berkeley.edu as soon as possible and provide details of the issue as well as a contact phone number. Emergency exam conflicts will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Exam conflicts originating from a lecture conflict will not be accommodated.

Exam regrade requests on Gradescope are typically soon after exam scores are released on Gradescope. Late regrade requests will not be considered. If a regrade request is submitted for a part of a question on the exam, the grader reserves the right to regrade the entire exam and could potentially take points off.

Proctoring During Exams

The exams are planned to be in-person on the Berkeley campus at those times. These will be closed-book exams with a specified number of pages of handwritten “cheat sheets” permitted.

If you are a student who is not physically near Berkeley or who has University-approved reasons (like an exception to the vaccine mandate) for not being able to come onto campus,you can request a remote proctoring alternative with strict heavy video and audio proctoring that will occur at the same exact time as the in-person exam. (Question 7 from Homework 2 also asks you to fill out a Google Form if you are a student with such circumstances.) Furthermore, adjustments will be made at our discretion for students who are medically quarantining or ill in order to maintain safety for in-person exam takers. If a student is ill, under no circumstances will they be forced or asked to take the exam in-person.

Exceptions and DSP Accommodations

Any requests for homework-related exceptions should go through the Homework Exceptions Google Form. Any requests for lab-related exceptions should go through the Lab Exceptions Google Form. Other exception requests should be emailed to eecs16b-fa21@berkeley.edu. Email the exception request as soon as possible. Exceptions will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Since there is one homework drop, missing homework is rarely excused. Examples of situations that merit an exception are medical emergencies and family emergencies. It will be easier for us to grant an exception if you have a doctor’s note or other documentation.

If you encounter what you believe will become an ongoing emergency over the course of the semester, please contact eecs16b-fa21@berkeley.edu or the DSP office to discuss accommodations extending beyond individual assignments. Note that these exceptions are less common and typically require more documentation than exceptions for individual assignments.

Accommodations will be provided to students who have letters of accommodations from DSP services and students facing hardships. Student hardships include family/medical emergencies (please provide documentation for your records). However, given the campus commitment to in-person residency in Berkeley as the norm, residing in a time zone that is significantly different from Berkeley’s time zone does not constitute a recognized hardship.

Course Communication

The instructors and TAs will post announcements, clarifications, hints, etc. on Piazza. So, you must check the EECS 16B Piazza page frequently throughout the term. (You should already have access to the EECS 16B Spring 2021 Piazza . If you do not, please let us know.)

If you have a question, your best option is to post a message on Piazza. The staff (instructors and TAs) will check the forum regularly, and if you use the forum, other students will be able to help you too. When using the forum, please avoid off-topic discussions, and please do not post answers to homework questions before the homework is due. We reserve the right to make private any post that we deem detracts from the learning environment. Always look for the respective thread to post your question to (for example, each homework, discussion, lecture, and note will have its own designated thread, so please post there). Chances are that if there is not a thread to which your question belongs, it may not be relevant to the classroom and should probably be asked privately. If your question is personal or not of interest to other students, you may mark your question as private on Piazza, so only the instructors will see it. If you wish to talk with one of us individually, please reach out via email.

For any exceptions that are of a personal nature, please contact eecs16b-fa21@berkeley.edu; Any requests for homework-related exceptions should go through the Homework Exceptions Google Form. Any requests for lab-related exceptions should go through the Lab Exceptions Google Form. Technical and homework questions are best resolved in homework party and during office hours.

It can be challenging for the instructors to gauge how smoothly the class is going. We always welcome any feedback on what we could be doing better. If you would like to send anonymous comments or constructive criticism, please fill out the anonymous feedback form. Non-anonymous feedback can be provided through private Piazza posts. Public posts are not an appropriate way to give feedback or make bug reports.

Collaboration

We encourage you to work on homework problems in study groups of two to four people; however, you must always write up the solutions on your own. Similarly, you may use books or online resources (although we generally discourage this since students can be misled as often as helped) to help solve homework problems, but you must always credit all such sources in your write up, and you must never copy material verbatim. Using previous EECS 16B homework, exam, and lab solutions is strictly prohibited --- even if these are posted elsewhere --- and will be considered academic dishonesty. Such dishonesty can result in negative points, as well as possible referral to the Office of Student Conduct. This is not how you want to start your career as an engineer. Besides, there’s no point in doing so since you can always look at the solutions for HW once those solutions come out for the resubmission phase.

We expect that all of our students can distinguish between helping other students and cheating. Explaining the meaning of a question, discussing a way of approaching a solution, or collaboratively exploring how to solve a problem within your group is an interaction that we strongly encourage. However, you should write your homework solution strictly by yourself so that your hands and eyes can help you internalize the subject matter. You should acknowledge everyone whom you have worked with or who has given you any significant ideas about the homework. This is good scholarly conduct. Not citing help or resources used can result in negative points.

Collaboration during exams or other designated assessments is strictly forbidden, subject to the Berkeley Honor Code, Code of Conduct, and the parameters of the specific assessment. Improper collaboration can result in negative points to the Participation/Professionalism grade, as well as possible referral to the Office of Student Conduct.

Don't Be Afraid to Ask for Help

Are you struggling? Please come talk with us! The earlier we learn about your struggles, the more likely it is that we can help you. Waiting until right before an exam or the last few weeks of the semester to let us know about your problems is not an effective strategy - the later it is, the less we will be able to help you.

Even if you are convinced that you are the only person in the class who is struggling, please overcome any feelings of embarrassment or guilt, and come ask for help as soon as you need it -- we can almost guarantee you're not the only person who feels this way. Don't hesitate to ask us for help -- we really do care that you thrive! You can email eecs16b-fa21@berkeley.edu, or email / talk to any TA at any time -- we’re happy to help.

Inclusion

We are committed to creating a learning environment welcoming of all students that supports a diversity of thoughts, perspectives and experiences, and respects your identities and backgrounds (including professional goals, race/ethnicity, nationality, gender identity, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, language, religion, ability, etc.) To help accomplish this:

• If you feel like your performance in the class is being impacted by your experiences outside of class (e.g., family matters, current events), please don’t hesitate to come and talk with us. We want to be resources for you.
• We (like many people) are still in the process of learning about diverse perspectives and identities. If something was said in class (by anyone) that made you feel uncomfortable, please talk to us about it.
• As a participant in this class, recognize that you can be proactive about making other students feel included and respected.

Berkeley Honor Code

Everyone in this class is expected to adhere to this code: “As a member of the UC Berkeley community, I act with honesty, integrity, and respect for others.”

Accomodation Policy: We honor and respect the different learning needs of our students, and are committed to ensuring you have the resources you need to succeed in our class, subject to the limits on our resources. If you need religious or disability-related accommodations, if you have emergency medical information you wish to share with us, please share this information as needed. You may write to the course email address at eecs16b-fa21@berkeley.edu; for any homework- or lab-related exceptions, please fill out the Exceptions Google Form Please also see DSP and CPS under “Campus Resources”.

Policy on Course Content

You are free and encouraged to study from course materials to further your personal or professional goals (in collaborations with other students, in your research, etc.). You may NOT post HW/Exams/Solutions anywhere on the web because this could encourage cheating down the road. You are expressly prohibited from uploading course materials to websites such as coursehero.com or chegg.com, which distribute and monetize content without compensation to the University. Course material, including all video, is copyrighted and reposting to third party sites or any other form of redistribution is prohibited.

Campus Resources

Center for Access to Engineering Excellence (CAEE) The Center for Access to Engineering Excellence (227 Bechtel Engineering Center) is an inclusive center that offers study spaces, nutritious snacks, and tutoring in >50 courses for Berkeley engineers and other majors across campus. The Center also offers a wide range of professional development, leadership, and wellness programs, and loans iclickers, laptops, and professional attire for interviews.

Disabled Students' Program (DSP):" The Disabled Student’s Program (260 César Chávez Student Center #4250; 510-642-0518) serves students with disabilities of all kinds. Services are individually designed and based on the specific needs of each student as identified by DSP's Specialists.

Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS): The main University Health Services Counseling and Psychological Services staff is located at the Tang Center (2222 Bancroft Way; 642-9494) and provides confidential assistance to students managing problems that can emerge from illness such as financial, academic, legal, family concerns, and more. To improve access for engineering students, a licensed psychologist from the Tang Center also holds walk-in appointments for confidential counseling in 241 Bechtel Engineering Center (check here for schedule).

The Care Line (PATH to Care Center): The Care Line (510-643-2005) is a 24/7, confidential, free, campus-based resource for urgent support around sexual assault, sexual harassment, interpersonal violence, stalking, and invasion of sexual privacy. The Care Line will connect you with a confidential advocate for trauma-informed crisis support including time-sensitive information, securing urgent safety resources, and accompaniment to medical care or reporting.

Ombudsperson for Students: The Ombudsperson for Students (102 Sproul Hall; 642-5754) provides a confidential service for students involved in a University-related problem (academic or administrative), acting as a neutral complaint resolver and not as an advocate for any of the parties involved in a dispute. The Ombudsman can provide information on policies and procedures affecting students, facilitate students' contact with services able to assist in resolving the problem, and assist students in complaints concerning improper application of University policies or procedures. All matters referred to this office are held in strict confidence. The only exceptions, at the sole discretion of the Ombudsman, are cases where there appears to be imminent threat of serious harm.

UC Berkeley Food Pantry: The UC Berkeley Food Pantry (#68 Martin Luther King Student Union) aims to reduce food insecurity among students and staff at UC Berkeley, especially the lack of nutritious food. Students and staff can visit the pantry as many times as they need and take as much as they need while being mindful that it is a shared resource. The pantry operates on a self-assessed need basis; there are no eligibility requirements. The pantry is not for students and staff who need supplemental snacking food, but rather, core food support.

Technology Needs (STEP): Student Technology Equity Program (STEP). STEP provides laptops and other technologies for free and is for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. It requires just a simple online application form. The laptops provided are brand-new, come with four years of premier support, and meet basic requirements for students in all fields of study. There also will be opportunities for students to apply for and pick up equipment in person - curbside and contactless - at the Student Union over the next few weeks. If students live outside the Berkeley area, STEP will ship the equipment directly to them, free. STEP will continue to distribute hardware throughout the academic year, while supplies last.

Advice

The following tips are offered based on our experience.

Do the homeworks! The homeworks are explicitly designed to help you to learn the material as you go along. There is usually a strong correlation between homework scores and final grades in the class.

Keep up with lectures! Discussion sections, labs and homeworks all touch on portions of what we discuss in lecture. Students do much better if they stay on track with the course. That will also help you keep the pace with your homework and study group.

Take part in discussion sections! Discussion sections are not auxiliary lectures. They are an opportunity for interactive learning. The success of a discussion section depends largely on the willingness of students to participate actively in it. As with office hours, the better prepared you are for the discussion, the more you are likely to benefit from it.

Please come to office hours! We love to talk to you and do a deep dive to help you understand the material better.

Form study groups! As stated above, you are encouraged to form small groups (two to four people) to work together on homeworks and on understanding the class material on a regular basis. In addition to being fun, this can save you a lot of time by generating ideas quickly and preventing you from getting hung up on some point or other. Of course, it is your responsibility to ensure that you contribute actively to the group; passive listening will likely not help you much. And recall the caveat above that you must write up your solutions on your own. We strongly advise you to spend some time on your own thinking about each problem before you meet with your study partners; this way, you will be in a position to compare ideas with your partners, and it will get you in practice for the exams. Make sure you work through all problems yourself, and that your final write-up is your own. Some groups try to split up the problems ("you do Problem 1, I'll do Problem 2, then we'll swap notes"); not only is this a punishable violation of our collaboration policies, it also ensures you will learn a lot less from this course.