EECS 20N, Spring 2008

Welcome to EECS 20N, Spring 2008 Edition!

IMPORTANT ACTION ITEMS

• Stay tuned for the electronic copy of chapters of the textbook and the lab handouts.


• Errata for the text. Please send email to Prof. Edward A. Lee (eal@eecs) with any additional errors you discover in the text.


• Verify Your bSpace Account Setup. Visit http://bspace.berkeley.edu/ ; log in using your CalNet ID and passphrase; and ensure that the EE20N tab appears at the top of your screen. This indicates that you will have access to all the features that bSpace offers ... well, almost all.

  You will receive our announcements by e-mail only if your e-mail address is unmasked. To check this, simply visit the UC Berkeley Directory and lookup your name. If your e-mail address appears in the search result, great! You are all set. If not, then please click on the "Update Listing" icon near the top of the page; select "Student Listing"; authenticate yourself; and follow the menu options to unmask your e-mail address.

  We understand that this may pose a privacy issue for you, so we do not require that you unmask your e-mail address. At some point, bSpace will be set up to automatically access your e-mail address without your having to unmask it. Until then, this is the only workaround we are aware of to this problem.

  Another way for you to see our announcements is to visit our course bSpace site and read the announcements posted there. We do not expect you to check the bSpace site any later than 9PM each evening, but we do expect you to check it every evening until about 9PM.

• Attend the Lectures Steadfastly! This semester, the lectures will be Webcast. The Webcasts are made available on the Web with a delay, which is intended to discourage absenteeism.
  • Spring 2008 Lectures
  • Fall 2007 Lectures
  • Spring 2007 Lectures
  • Fall 2006 Lectures
  • Spring 2006 Lectures
  • Fall 2005 Lectures
  • Fall 2004 Lectures
    
    However, the Webcasts do not relieve you of the responsibility to attend the lectures. Despite the extensive material on the Web, lecture attendance is a required component of this course. We will enforce this, at least in part, by administering unannounced, pop quizzes. This has the side benefit of providing additional incentive to keep up with the material.

Instructor

• Babak Ayazifar


• E-mail: ayazifar@eecs


• Office hours: Thu 5pm-7pm; Location: 521 Cory Hall (Private appointments in 493 Cory, arranged by e-mail).

Who should take this course

You may gain a better understanding of the required background by studying the statistical results from the Spring 2000 offering. The conclusions from that study are:

• Class standing has little significant effect on performance.
• On average, the GPA of students was neither raised nor lowered by this class.
• Students who attend lecture do significantly better than students who do not.
• Taking more than one of Math 53, 54, or 55 helps somewhat, but many students do well without this.
• Taking Math 53 or Math 55 helps by half a grade level.
• Taking Math 54 helps by almost a grade level (e.g. B+ to A-).
• Many students believe Math 54 should be a prerequisite.
• Computing classes have little effect on performance, assuming as was the case with this class, that all students have had some computing classes.
• Students do not believe a computing class prerequisite is needed.

Schedule

• LECTURES: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30-2PM, 277 CORY.


• Problem/Discussion Sessions (This listing supersedes the Registrar's): All discussions are on Wednesdays. Stay tuned for announcements from staff via bSpace.

• LABS: (all in 105 Cory):
  You'll find more lab information here.