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Grading Policy

Graded coursework will consist of roughly weekly homework sets, one in-class exam and a final project. Final grades will be determined as follows:

There will be extra credit points available in most problem sets. Extra credit can add up to 5% on your grade.

Collaboration Policy

Astrophysical research is a collaborative process. We encourage you to talk with your classmates, TAs and professor about the assigned work. On the other hand, it's very important to do your own thinking, and hand in your own work. Students often feel that these two statements are contradictory, and indeed they do introduce an awkward gray area in expectations. To clarify matters, we'll adopt the following policy: you can talk to whomever you like, but when you get to the point of writing down your work or writing a computer code, you should be working alone, unprompted by any other person. If you are working in a group, you must generate your own individual plots and analysis of the data. We have lots of experience seeing patterns and are very good at spotting repeated work. Depending on the severity of the situation, Drastic Action will be taken including points off or reporting to the Executive Committee. But you'll suffer regardless - if you don't make the effort to think these things through yourself, you'll struggle on exams and ultimately hurt yourself as a researcher.


Home | Syllabus | Class Policies | Computing Resources | Problem Sets