Logistics

Grading

The course will be assessed pass-fail. This is an entirely new curriculum, so I am still figuring out how much time needs to be devoted to the various elements of the course. At this point I am not able to give a full map of the activities and their due dates. You should expect to have some assigned activity every week, and should budget 3-4 hours to complete it, in addition to the 3-hours per week of class time. If you add some reading/thinking time that will take us up to the state mandated 9 hours per week of work for a 3 credit course. Students taking the course as PHYS 7680 or ASTRO 7690 will have an additional project that they will need to complete. There are no exams.

My current plan is to assess progress in-class. During lab periods I will circulate and ask you to go over your activities with me. I honestly do not know how effective that will be. If it ends up not working, then I will likely ask you to upload your notebooks to Canvas.

Projects

Students taking the calss as PHYS 7680 or ASTRO 7690 will need to do a project. I will talk to you one-on-one to find a project of the right scope. Ideally it should be something that would help you with your (future) research. For example, you might write a DMRG code, analyze CMB data…