Participation via Forum, bcourses, and gradescope is crucial for this course.
If you were registered by August 29, you will be added automatically to all these platforms. If you are not yet registered, please join the forum (with an .edu email) and find a section (starting Aug.28) with sufficient space and give your email and SID to your GSI to add you to bcourses/gradescope. (Sorry, the form was getting filled out by far toooooo many registered folks. The real issue was that bcourses wasn't published. It is now.)
CONTENTS
Topics: Basic linear algebra, matrix arithmetic and determinants, vector spaces, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, linear transformations. Linear second-order differential equations; higher-order homogeneous differential equations; linear systems of ordinary differential equations; Fourier series and partial differential equations.
Textbook: Lay, Nagle, Saff and Snider, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations, second custom edition
PREREQUISITES / REVIEW
This course will build on a lot of the material from Berkeley's Calculus (1A-1B) sequence.
In particular, if you are not comfortable with complex numbers and differential equations (or your calculus course did not cover much of them), then you should learn/review this material (Stewart, Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 7th Edition, Chapters 9 and 17, Appendix H) before the complex eigenvalues / differential equations parts of the course. A quick review of series (Chapter 11) is recommended before we discuss Fourier series.
If you did not take Multivariable Calculus (53), then you should get familiar with partial derivatives (Stewart, Multivariable Calculus for UCB, 7th Edition, Chapter 14) before the PDE part of the course. See the syllabus for concrete dates.
PROFESSIONALITY EXPECTATIONS AND COURSE STRUCTURE
If you take this course you are expected to attend lectures, enroll and participate in one of the discussion sections, enroll, participate, and pay attention to announcements in the online forum, and to be committed to learning the material (by e.g. reading the book and working through the practice problems) as well as to checking/demonstrating your learning in the common assignments (quizzes, midterms, final).
In return you can expect your instructors full commitment to supporting your learning - by structuring the material towards main goals, providing constant opportunites to get questions answered (in sections, forum, office hours), and giving you timely feedback on assignments.
To take maximal advantage of what we can offer, you should in particular attend your section meetings regularly and well prepared to follow and contribute to the discussion, by having done the reading, attended lecture, and attempted some practice problems. Sections will not serve as introductory lectures, but as venues to clarify, deepen, and practice your understanding interactively.
To support you in staying current with the material, there will be no classical homework; instead the course structure is designed to support an active learning rhythm detailed in the forum. It does not mandate active participation in sections but strongly encourages it by daily assignments which directly seed the discussion during sections.
To ensure that this course structure does not conflict with your other commitments, please make sure that you have no obstructions to attending lectures or sections, and check the exam dates on the syllabus before committing to this course.
If you need accomodations for exams, please contact the Disabled Students Program before the start of the semester.
For more details on course policy and structure see the logistics tab.
COMMUNICATION
If you have a logistical question, ask a fellow student,
post in the forum (after checking whether this question was already answered),
or ask in the discussion section.
If you have a mathematical question, ask a fellow student, ask in the discussion section, post on the forum (after checking for posts on that topic), or come to office hours.
If you have a personal question or issue, talk to your section leader (GSI - who may communicate your issue to the head instructor) or the head instructor in person in office hours.
We ask you to refrain from email so we can concentrate our time and energy on helping everyone with mastering the material.
For that purpose we will monitor the online forum regularly - in our waking hours. However, since we're not necessarily awake when you are working, and there are a lot more students than instructors, the most efficient use of the forum is for all of you to rather ask ''silly'' questions or chance a ''wrong'' answer than to sit back and be confused. Between 500 eager minds, usually the truth will prevail; and if it doesn't, that's important feedback for us and a good learning opportunity.
REGISTRATION LOGISTICS
Anything involving registration, wait list, sections, etc: Sorry, most of this is outside of departmental control. See the forum for updates.
Concurrent Enrollment Program: As long as there is physical space, we will be happy to have you, however we need to wait for UCB registration to settle. So please start attending the lectures, find a discussion section with free seats in the classroom, and see one of our undergraduate advisor staff in the first week to pick up the Concurrent Enrollment form. I will make an announcement on the forum if/once I can start signing these.
Math 49 option: This enrollment option is offered only to resolve administrative issues with unit restrictions. You will still have to take all the quizzes and exams required for Math 54. The reason for this policy is that our syllabus builds its treatment of Differential Equations on the advanced Linear Algebra concepts which are usually not taught in other courses.
However, if you can demonstrate to your section leader (GSI) that attending lectures and sections on the linear algebra part will be a waste of your time, then they can allow you to miss all but the quizzes; determining your discussion grade for this part only from the quiz scores.