Course Expectations

This course carries three hours credit. One undergrad credit hour requires the commitment of a total of about three hours of work per week, in class and out of class. This means you are expected to spend nine hours per week on this class, including five hours of class meetings.

The goal of the course is for you to learn, not just for you to complete some set objectives. Even if you are making excellent progress towards your set objectives, you are expected to take full advantage of the time you have committed to the class to enhance your learning, as well as to improve your project.

This class requires team participation. You are expected to attend all class meetings, so that you can work with your team. For the same reason you are expected to get to class on time, and not leave early, except by arrangement with your team. If you do make such an arrangement you should expect to compensate for time not spent in class with time spent outside class.

If you are unavoidably absent (eg for illness) you should let your team know (by email) as soon as you can, so that they can plan around your absence. If you are too ill to send an email you should be in the infirmary, and the staff there can send an email for you. You must also arrange to make up any work you have missed, as well as possible, including your contributions to your team project, as well as any individual reports.

One of your learning goals for the course is effective team work. This means you have a responsibility to try to make your team as a whole more effective, whatever your individual contributions are. You may have to spend time helping your team mates improve their skills, for example. This is a perfectly fair expectation, along with your other contributions, up to the limit of the total time you are expected to commit to the class each week.

Some Comments

It may seem strange to you to be expected to commit a certain amount of effort, rather than checking off certain goals. If you are like some students, you try to spend as little time as possible satisfying whatever is required in your classes. The expectations in this class do not allow you to do that.

The fact is that the "effort minimization principle", to call it that, is NOT a good approach to your education, nor to any other worthwhile activities. It really only makes sense for things that AREN'T worthwhile, things on which your time is basically wasted, so that it pays to spend as little time on them as you can.

A related fact is that how worthwhile things are depends largely on your attitude towards them. If you treat something as worthy of an investment of your time, it will be worthy, because you will be actively involved in deciding what to do to maximize the benefits of your efforts.