Location and Time: This class meets on Monday, Wedensday, and Friday from 8:30 to 9:20 AM in 136 DeBartolo Hall.
Instructor: Jeff Diller. You can reach me at my office 356 CCMB, by phone at 631-7694, or by email at ``jdiller@nd.edu''. Tentatively, I'm scheduling office hours for Monday 5-6 PM, Wedensday 1-2 PM, and Friday 9:30-10:30 AM.
Teaching Assistant: Roxana Smarandache. She can be reached in her office in 334 CCMB, by or by email at ``rsmarand@nd.edu''. Her office hours are from 6-8 PM on Wedensdays.
Textbook: Elementary Differential Equations (6th Edition) by Boyce and DiPrima. During the last several weeks of class we will on Lecture Notes in Linear Algebra by Derwent and Himonas. These notes will be copied and available at The Copy Center in Lafortune Hall.
What This Course Will Cover: We will go through chapters one through five of the book by Boyce and DiPrima. We will then go through all of the notes by Derwent and Himonas. The topics of the course and the time we will alot to each are (roughly) as follows:
Homework: I'll assign problems from every section covered in class, and you will turn these in to me before class every Friday. In order to keep your homework from ending up in the wrong hands, PLEASE include your name, your professor's name (i.e. Diller) and your section number (i.e. 02) on the first page of your work. Homework assigned by Wedensday will be due on the following Friday. An evolving list of homework assignments by due date will be available on my webpage at
Doing homework conscientiously is the best way to learn the material--in my opinion, more important than attending lecture or studying the book (though these certainly help, too). Some homework might require use of the Mathematica software package, but I will be sure to provide some introduction to this software before you need to use it. Please feel free to seek help from Ms. Smarandache or me and to collaborate with each other on the homework.
Quizzes: There will be a short quiz every Thursday during the tutorial (excepting exam weeks and the first week of class).
Exams: There will be two in class exams and a comprehensive final exam. The dates for these are as follows:
| First exam | Monday, September 28 |
| Second exam | Monday, November 9 |
| Final | Thursday, December 17 (1:45-3:45 PM) |
New Info: The final exam will be held in DBRT 136--i.e. our usual classroom.
Late Homeworks/Missed Quizzes and Exams: Turning homework in late and/or missing quizzes and exams is generally unacceptable. I will allow exceptions only with an excuse from the Associate Vice President for Residential Life. Conflicts with exams in other courses should be resolved in the first week of classes.
Grades: Your final grade will be computed as a weighted average of the following:
| homework | 10% |
| quizzes | 20% |
| exams | 20% each |
| final exam | 30% |
Note that I will drop your lowest homework and lowest quiz score for the semester. Rather than average point scores, I intend to assign a letter grade to your work in each of these categories and then average the letters (i.e. A=4, B=3, etc.) to arrive at your final grade.
The End: If you like, you can go up one page, or go to Jeff Diller's Home Page.