Syllabus

Read it!  Every syllabus for every class.  No cheating!

The syllabus lays out the “rules of the game”. You can’t expect to do well unless you understand the information about the class, how it’s organized, and how you’ll be assessed.

Attached is the syllabus for MTH 124 from Summer 2017.  Even if you’re not enrolled in this course, you can learn a great deal about the class by reading through the syllabus:

• Required materials for course and for exams
• Goals for the course
• Prerequisite course work/qualifying test scores
• Assessment: how you’ll be graded
• Attendance*/make-up exams
• Review Sessions/How to get help
• Details of topics, assignments, and exams by date

*A note about attendance: many classes give you “free days” often by dropping grades. This flexibility is designed to account for those emergencies that arise in the course of life. PLEASE, don’t waste these days to get a long weekend or as an excuse to sleep in!  Every semester, students come in complaining that they became ill or had some unexpected conflict and the instructor wouldn’t give them any concession -- they did!  Be careful not to use them badly!

You should use your course syllabus to guide your time management so that far-off deadlines don’t sneak up on you! 

Check out the Single Syllabus Tool which can help you start organizing the material on your syllabi such as:

• Exams (include time and location if they’re different from regular class times)
• Big deadlines: papers, projects, quizzes
• Final exam day/date/time/location
• Important university dates: holidays, drop dates, mid-term, end of classes