Detailed course policies are contained in the syllabus which was presented on the first day of classes.

Contact information

For content (i.e. math) questions, please post to our Piazza page. I will not answer content questions by email so everyone can benefit from everyone's questions. You can still sign up for Piazza even if you lost the email you received.

If you have a personal matter to discuss, the best way to contact me is via email at christelle dot vincent at you-know-where. Please use full grammatical sentences and be nice when asking for something.

Office Hours

My office hours are on

I am also available by appointment; please send me an email to set it up.

All office hours take place in my office, 407 Henry Marcus Lord House.

Textbook and solutions manual

Our textbook is Linear Algebra, by Jim Hefferon and here is the solutions manual. If you do not change the names of these files and put them in the same folder on your computer, you should be able to click on an exercise to be sent to its answer and click on an answer to be sent to the exercise.

You may also want to browse Jim Hefferon's page for the book, but please do make sure to use the version of the book linked to above.

Quizzes

Only your top ten quizzes will count as part of your grade this semester. I anticipate giving somewhere between 20 and 30 in-class quizzes.

If you miss a quiz, you will get a score of zero, but that is okay because it will most likely get dropped. If you must miss so much class that you do not have ten quiz grades, please talk to me as soon as possible. There are never ever any make-up quizzes.

Suggested problems

Every class there will be suggested problems, and the quizzes will ask you about these problems. Seriously working on these problems regularly will be crucial to success in the class.

Homework

There will sometimes be homework (five sets or so during the semester). Problems will accumulate slowly, until a due date is announced at least one week in advance.

Homework is due at 5pm and must be turned in either in class or at my office. If you turn it in somewhere else I will almost certainly not find it or if I do most likely I will lose it. Your lowest homework score will be dropped.

Homework must be stapled and have your full name. If that is not the case you might get a score of zero.

Exams

There will be two in-class exams, tentatively on Wednesday, October 12 and Wednesday, November 16. The final exam is on December 12, from 10:30am to 1:15pm, in Perkins 107.

The exams will not be individually scaled or curved. However, your final grade in this class will be. What this means is that I have an idea of the distribution of As, Bs, Cs, Ds and Fs that is typical in this class. At the end of the semester, I will look at everyone's numerical grade, and assign numerical cut-offs to letter grades so that our grade distribution is what I want it to be.

My exams are hard and my averages are low. I am, however, a generous letter-grade giver.

Academic (dis)honesty

The UVM Code of Academic Integrity is in effect in this class as always. Please familiarize yourself with it if you haven't already.

Specifically, in this class you may work on assigned homework (which you turn in) with peers, but the work you turn in must be your own and reflect your own understanding of the material. All quizzes and exams must strictly and exclusively be your own work, and be completed without access to notes, books or any outside resources.

Suggested problems may be completed however you would like; I recommend working on them with peers but taking the time to look at your solutions on your own when you are done to make sure that you understand them.