Important Course Details

Instructor: Bryan Chin, George Obaido.

Office Hours: Please see Canvas and our google class calendar for most accurate dates/times (Instructors and TAs have office hours)..

TAs: Erika Auyeung, Ayush Agarwal, Soham Satyadharma.

Tutors:There are a number of tutors for the course. Please see canvas/edstem for details.

Class website: canvas.ucsd.edu
All Course materials will be on canvas and/or edstem this quarter. Please be sure you have accounts on both canvas.ucsd.edu and edstem for this class. You are responsible for reading and staying up to date with the class on Canvas. Announcements, assignments, etc. will be posted on this site and on edstem (see edstem site for homework, concept questions). gradescope will be used for homework assignments. Please see edstem for a list of all our class platforms used this quarter. All lectures will be given in an interactive format with questions and opportunities for discussion.

Discussion:

Discussion: In lieu of traditional discussion, you will be expected to sign up for weekly 30min-1 hour meetings with roughly 15 students and 1 TA/Tutor to go over your questions and work through some sample problems. You will be expected to turn on your video during discussions. Please speak to your professor via edstem if you need an exception to this policy. Depending on space availability, tutors/TAs may decide to hold in person discussions (at a coffee shop, library, other public place).

Class open lab: Tutors will be available online to help you throughout the quarter.

Meeting times and places:

Lecture: You may attend any lecture you’d like (capped at 200 per section). All lectures and discussions are available via zoom, and recordings on podcast.ucsd.edu will be available after the scheduled times.

Section A (Chin) : T/TH 9:30-10:50 AM WLH 2005 or Zoom

Section B( Obaido) : T/TH 6:30-7:50 PM Center 115 or Zoom

Assessments and Exams

Assessments : Approximately every other week on Friday

Final exam: All sections 11:30 am - 2:29 pm on March 12 on campus (location will be announced)

Course materials (required):

Harris and Harris, "Digital Design & Computer Architecture Arm Edition" (An online copy can be obtained via the campus library system)

Mathews, Newhall, and Webb, “Dive into Systems” - Available online

Other recommended reading:

Kernighan and Ritchie, "The C Programming Language"

Class Announcements

All announcements, updates on homework assignments, etc. will be posted on canvas and/or edstem. All students are responsible for announcements and information on canvas and edstem.

Lecture Notes

We will lecture writing on slides and will release our slides before and after the class as a pdf. We will also record all lectures.

Course Outline:

1. Number Systems
2. C Programming
3. ARM Programming
4. Digital Logic and CPU Architecture

Grading Information:

The grade for this class (out of 100% total) will be as follows:

• Homework and Programming Assignments: 33%
• Assessments: 32%
• Final: 35%
  • (Optional) Reading Quizzes: You are expected to come to class prepared to learn and that means you should do the assigned reading.  For most reading assignments there will be an assigned quiz on Canvas for you to test your understanding.  In some cases, quizzes will be assigned related to course content, but not necessarily the reading.  Although these activities are optional, we will look at Reading Quiz participation to determine outcomes in boundary cases (e.g., if you are slightly below the threshold for an A-, we may bump you up to an A- for completing all, or nearly all, the reading quizzes).
  • (Optional) Class Participation: You are highly encouraged to attend class and participate in questions and discussion but attendance will not be taken. 
  • Professionalism:  We expect everyone in the class to conduct themselves in a professional manner.  We consider professional behavior to be a program-level academic outcome of UCSD.  Though broadly defined here, it includes (at least), professional conduct with the teaching staff and your fellow classmates.  Some examples of unprofessionalism in prior courses include: excessive arguing with teaching staff over assessment outcomes (grades), belittling/rude/unkind behavior toward other students or teaching staff, and excessive lack of resourcefulness (e.g., e-mailing course staff with questions already answered on edstem or in this syllabus).  Though rare, we reserve the right to deduct up to 2% of a students’ overall grade for repeated unprofessionalism.  Note that particularly severe infractions (e.g., sexism, racism, lying - which are never tolerated in our community) may be subject to campus Academic Conduct Charges and penalties beyond professionalism points. 
  • Written Homework and Programming Assignments allow you to test your understanding of the material and gain feedback on that understanding.  All homeworks and programming assignments are weighted equally (regardless of points allocated) unless stated otherwise.  Emergencies, unfortunately happen to all of us at one time or another. Should you find yourself in a position where an emergency, illness or other event prevents you from doing a homework, we will drop your lowest homework OR programming assignment grade!  Plan on doing all the homework OR programming assignments and reserving the use of the dropped assignments for emergencies.  Even turning in a partial homework is better than receiving no credit.
  • Written Homework MUST be submitted through gradescope (unless otherwise directed). It must be submitted on-time through the platform.  Allow yourself time for unexpected platform hiccups and be sure to follow instructions. 
• Late written homework assignments are not allowed (see policy below for late Programming Assignments). We will make every effort to return assignments to you and post solutions in a timely manner -- limiting your ability to turn things in late is, unfortunately, critical to that goal. 
• Unless otherwise announced, all homework is to be done individually. You may ask questions about the homework on edstem and you may speak with the tutor,TA or Professor in OH. See below regarding acceptable, minimal student collaboration. If you do not understand a concept, it pays to address it as soon as possible.
• You may use gradescope regrades to identify grading errors on written homeworks. ONLY solutions which are incorrectly marked are eligible for regrading (do not use regrades to argue for additional partial credit). Regrades must be submitted within 3 days of the grades being released or per assignment policy.

 

• Programming Assignments MUST be submitted as directed through gradescope.

• Gradescope will automatically grade part of your code and you’ll get feedback on those basic MINIMAL Gradescope will run more advanced tests after the deadline – it is your responsibility to thoroughly test your code before submission. DO NOT RELY SOLELY ON THE PUBLIC TESTS. GRADESCOPE SHOULD NOT BE YOUR TESTING STRATEGY. 
• You can submit Programming Assignments for upto  60% credit  up to the end of the day of the final exam.  This means that if you submit your assignment two days late and receive a 100% on the assignment (after hidden tests are run), your score will be adjusted to 60%.  You should try to avoid submitting late programming assignments, but this is an avenue for you to get some credit if you figure out a bug the day after turning in your assignment.  Be CAREFUL about submitting the assignment late on gradescope.  If you submit it late, the late submission is what will be graded. This means that if you submitted slightly buggy code on-time that would have earned 80% (after the hidden tests are revealed), but fix the bug a day late and get 90% on the late assignment (after the hidden tests are revealed), your grade would actually be lower after the fix because of the one day late penalty (90% * 60%).
• Regrade requests must be submitted within 3 days of the grades being released or per assignment policy.
• You must work individually on each assignment unless otherwise specified..
• Assignments that do not compile or do not run, or are misnamed, will be given 0 points.
  • Exams:
    • Assessments: Similar to HW/PAs, should you find yourself in a position where an emergency, illness or other event prevents you from doing an assessment, we will drop your lowest assessment grade!  Plan on doing all assessments and reserving the use of the dropped assessment for emergencies. You are still responsible for the material on the assessment even if you miss one..
    • You can earn back 25% of your lost points by attending and participating (including with your video on if remote) small tutor led discussions.  The percentage back for the assessment will be scaled by the number of discussion sections in which you attend and participate.  For example, if you receive a 60% for your Assessments, if you attended 5/8 of your assigned small group discussion sections, your grade will be updated to .6+(.25*(5/8)*(1-.6)) = .6625.  Participation in the discussion means that you answer the TA when called on and/or you ask questions during the session. Participation will be determined by response to zoom polls. If you are attending in person, you will be expected to register your attendance by participating in zoom polls or via means determined by your discussion section leader.  You must be on time and present for the whole section to count as “attending”.
    • Final exam: The final will be inclusive of all course material.
    • If you are unable to take the final exam due to illness or emergency, contact the course staff and we will figure out how to work around your issue. DO NOT come to the exam if you are feeling ill.
    • You have the right of appeal for grading on an assessment. Please check your assessment carefully when you receive it and be sure to request a regrade in the case of a grading error.  Also review your assessment to understand where you made errors. If in doubt, come to see us in Office Hours (do not use regrade requests to find out what you did wrong).  Note that frivolous regrade requests may result in additional points deducted.
  • If you are taking the course pass/fail, you must get at least a C- to pass. If you are a graduate student taking it Sat/Unsat you need a B- to pass.
  • We will use a standard scale for assigning letter grades: 90-100 = A; 80-89.9 = B, 70-79.9 = C, 60-69.9 = D, <60 = F. Pluses and minuses will be given at the instructor’s discretion. For example, if you score between 90-100, you are guaranteed some kind of A, but whether it's an A+, A, or A- will depend on several things (including a possible course curve, final exam performance, professionalism, and possibly others). The course may be curved at the instructor’s discretion.
  • The only exceptions to the rules regarding late assignments or exams are extended absences (one week or more) due to verifiable extraordinary circumstances, and absences due to official UCSD activity travel. In the case of absences due to a UCSD activity travel, you must give the instructor a list of your travel dates as soon as it is available. In case of extended illness, contact your college Dean's office and work with them to coordinate with us and your other classes.
  • If you are eligible for accommodations as per UCSD OSD policies, you must contact the instructor by the end of week 2 to get them arranged.