640:292:H1-2 Honors Calculus IV




Class meets: MW6 (5:00--6:20pm), on Canvas.
Text: Lecture Notes by Eric Carlen; Differential Equations, available through our course Canvas site, and Elementary Differential Equations, 10th or 11th edition by Boyce and DiPrima.
Instructor: Dr. Zheng-Chao Han
Office Hours:   TBA via Canvas.
Email: zchan AT math.rutgers.edu (I try to process my emails timely, and encourage students to ask questions during Zoom office hours).
TA: Blair Seidler
Office Hours: TBA via Canvas.
Email: blair.seidler AT rutgers.edu


Course Policy

Homework, Quizzes, and Challenge Problem Sets: Homework problems will be assigned through our Canvas course site. You are responsible for completing all assigned problems in a timely fashion. Only a portion of the assigned homework problems will be graded; there will also be periodic pre-lecture reading quizzes and short assessment quizzes based on the homework problems. The pre-lecture reading quizzes will be given in the hours prior to the start of lectures and the assessment quizzes will be given during the recitation/workshop periods.

A considerable part of the Challenge Problem Sets is to train the students to present their mathematical solutions in a coherent and easy-to-understand way. These problems will be graded both on mathematical content and on presentation. Here are some general guidelines on the write up of these problem sets.

General Advice: This course moves at a considerably faster pace than a typical college freshmen honors math course, and deals with a fair amount of conceptual thinking in the course material. It emphasizes on reasonings that lead to mathematical solutions, less on memorization, and use linear algebra as an essential tool. Geometric visualization is very helpful in understanding the behavior of solutions to differential equations. For this reason, this course will use a symbolic computing and graphics package to explore certain aspects of the material. The relevant assignments will be given out in Maple or Mathematica, but students have the freedom to complete the assignments using an alternative computing package such as Matlab, or Mathematica, or Wolfram|Alpha Pro.

Expect to be a lot more independent in studying from the textbook and other sources, and in managing you schedule and tasks: there will be much less hand-holding or deconstructing the course material into small units suitable for "daily consumption"--- instructors often do not have time to cover all topics on the syllabus in detail, and expect students to study those that are not covered in detail in the lectures; instructors do take the time to answer questions from students, and encourage student participation, both in the classroom and during office hours. Students should take the initiative to do pre-reading before the lectures, fully participate in class-time discussions, and take advantage of the office hours to engage in person-to-person interactions with the instructor and TA.

Attendance and Make-up Policy: Class attendance is strongly encouraged---it will count toward part of the participation scores. There will be no make-ups for quizzes, unless arrangements have been made with the instructor in advance. A make-up midterm will be given only if you have a serious illness or a family emergency, and obtain written approval from the instructor in advance.


Grading Policy

Your grade will be determined on the following:



For comments regarding this page, please send email to zchan@math.rutgers.edu.