The primary methods for engaging with the course material are through lectures, discussion sections, homework, and the notes. All are important, and exams will test a mix of the material from these sources.
Live lecture will take place 2:00pm - 3:29pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at Dwinelle 155. Students are expected to attend lecture regularly. For your own reference, lectures will be recorded and linked on the website/Ed once lecture is over.
Release Schedule: Discussion worksheets are published throughout the week. The solutions are published after all sections for that material are completed.
Sections are held either Monday through Thursday or Tuesday through Friday. Each section will cover the material of the most recent lecture. This means that Monday sections before lecture will cover the previous Thursday’s lecture material. You may attend any section that you like. We will not have section signups this term.
The discussion sections are designed not to cover new material but to consolidate the material covered in lectures and in the notes. All sections are equivalent: they all cover the same material. Students are expected to attend discussion regularly.
Distinguished Alum Lili says, “When I took the course, I tried my best to attend every discussion and ask questions whenever I was confused!”
There is no textbook for this class. Instead, there is a set of comprehensive lecture notes posted on the front page for each lecture. Make sure you revisit the notes after every lecture. Each note may be covered in one or more lectures.
Distinguished Alum Megan says, “When I took the course, I studied the notes until I was able to comfortably reproduce all of the proofs.”
Office Hours will be in-person. The OH queue will be hosted at oh.eecs70.org. Please see the calendar for details on location and timing. Office hour schedules for staff members are listed on the staff page.
See the Calendar tab for OH time and location. You will submit a ticket online at oh.eecs70.org to join the OH queue. In the ticket please specify the room you are currently in. Once it is your turn a course staff member will call your name to help you with your ticket.
We encourage participation. Participation includes attending lectures live, contributing in discussion, asking and answering questions on Ed, using Party OH, and more. The more you engage with the class, the more fun it is and the better you do. However, no part of your grade will consist of attendance in office hours, lecture, or discussion.
We will use Ed as the “one-stop shop” throughout the semester: for a Q&A forum and official announcements. Enrollment in Ed is mandatory. If you have questions about anything related to the course, please post them on Ed rather than emailing the professors or TAs. Please do not post anything resembling a solution to a homework problem before it’s due. See the Ed Etiquette section for more on using Ed. To join the class on Ed, click the link in the header of the page.
All homework and vitamins will be submitted through Gradescope. All homework, vitamin, and exam grades will be returned through Gradescope. If you have not been enrolled in our Gradescope, email cs70-staff@berkeley.edu.
Please use Ed for all technical questions. If you have a more specific administrative question or any feedback, please send an email to the course administrative account cs70-staff@berkeley.edu. Emails sent to this account are only seen by the instructors and head TAs.
There will be weekly required homeworks designed to consolidate your understanding of the course material. We strongly recommend starting these early since there will be no office hours support on weekends.
Release Schedule: Homework is released by the end of the week of the material it covers. Homework is due on Gradescope the following Friday at 11:59 PM; the solutions for that homework will be released by the following Tuesday.
Your lowest homework score will be dropped. This drop should be reserved for emergencies. If you need additional time to complete a homework, please email cs70-staff@berkeley.edu; we are willing to work with you to make sure that you are able to make a serious and sincere attempt at the homework and submit it.
We may sample homework problems to grade each week.
We recommend that you start the homeworks as early as possible so you get more time to think about the problems and get help if you end up getting stuck. Additionally, distinguished alum Richard Hu also recommends that you carefully review the homework solutions after they are released and understand them to the point of being able to replicate them without needing to reference them. Having a comprehensive understanding of topics on the homework will go a long way in giving you the intuition you need to succeed!
Release Schedule: Vitamins will be released weekly and are due on Gradescope the following Sunday at 11:59 PM; the solutions for that vitamin will be released by the following Wednesday.
The goal of vitamins are to make sure your understanding of the current week’s material is “healthy” enough for you to understand what will happen in the following week. In particular, they’re to give you some practice with the material needed for the next week. The weekly homeworks are unable to provide this practice in time for the next week of material, since the homework deadlines are staggered by a week.
Your lowest vitamin score will be dropped. This drop should be reserved for emergencies. No additional allowances will be made for late or missed vitamins: please do not contact us about missed vitamins or late submissions.
Vitamins are due on Sundays at 11:59 PM. You need to submit your answers directly on Gradescope. If you have questions on how to do this, please make a private post on Ed.
We will have one midterm and a final and both will be conducted in-person.
Unfortunately, due to large enrollment, we are unable to accommodate final exam conflicts with other classes; we strongly discourage enrollment in another class with conflicting lectures and/or final exam.
There will be no alternate exams except as required by campus rules. If you have extended time accommodations for tests from DSP, please make sure that you have enough available hours around the times of the regularly scheduled exams.
You must attend all exams to pass the class. We will consider granting an incomplete given extenuating circumstances that are communicated to course staff.
We are grading according to department guidelines on grades. The grade weights of the different components are as follows (out of 200 total course points):
Each homework has the same weight as every other homework. That is, your homework points will be computed by computing your average percent score on the homeworks and taking that percentage of the 45 points. Similarly, each vitamin has the same weight as every other vitamin, and the vitamins points are computed analogously as the average percent score on the vitamins, taken out of 15.
We will not clobber exam scores, but we will re-weight the final exam to reward improvement: if your score on the final exam is higher than your score on the midterm, then we will count your final as worth 110 points and your midterm as worth 30 points when computing your final grade.
This class is not curved: there is no pre-allocated number or proportion of As, Bs Cs, and Fs. Grades are based on your mastery of the material. However, while the class is binned, we will not be using pre-determined bins, as this can unfairly separate two students who perform nearly identically into different grade bins.
The bins for this class will be based on the bunching in the final distribution of scores. In particular, the bins for the class will be placed where there are gaps in the final scores of the students.
We understand it can be uncomfortable to not know the final grade bins of the class. To allay this, we will provide a course performance summary after the midterm. Before the final exam, we will announce upper bounds on the A/B/C/F grade bins, e.g. “If you get at least x%, then you’ll get at least an A.”
UC Berkeley is committed to creating a learning environment that meets the needs of its diverse student body including students with disabilities. If you anticipate or experience any barriers to learning in this course, please feel welcome to send your concerns to cs70-staff@berkeley.edu.
If you have a disability, or think you may have a disability, you can work with the Disabled Students’ Program (DSP) to request an official accommodation. The Disabled Students’ Program (DSP) is the campus office responsible for authorizing disability-related academic accommodations, in cooperation with the students themselves and their instructors. You can find more information about DSP, including contact information and the application process here: dsp.berkeley.edu.
Students who need academic accommodations or have questions about their accommodations should contact DSP, located at 260 César Chávez Student Center. Students may call 642-0518 (voice), 642-6376 (TTY), or e-mail dsp@berkeley.edu.
We take academic misconduct very seriously. Using any kind of homework or exam solutions (for example, from previous semesters) on a currently active assignment is strictly prohibited and is academic misconduct. Consequences of academic misconduct include negative points for the corresponding assignment, a failing grade in the class, and/or a referral to the Office of Student Conduct.
Your attention is drawn to the Department’s Policy on Academic Dishonesty. In particular, you should be aware that copying or sharing solutions, in whole or in part, from other students in the class (or any other source without acknowledgment) is a violation of our policies. Any student found to be violating policies risks automatically failing the class and being referred to the Office of Student Conduct.
You are welcome to work on homework problems in study groups of two to five people; however, you must always write up the solutions on your own. Similarly, you may use books or online resources to help solve homework problems, but you must always credit all such sources in your writeup and you must never copy material verbatim.
We believe that most students can distinguish between helping other students and violating the policies described above. You may discuss approaches but your solution must be written by you and you only. You should acknowledge everyone whom you have worked with or who has given you any significant ideas about the homework.
We are excited to teach you this semester! For tips and advice on how to do well in this course, please see our survival tips page.
Always feel free to contact us via email or visit us during office hours if you feel unsure about your progress in the course, or would just like to reach out. We are here to support you and help you succeed!