Math 4610.001: Spring 2015
Meets: MWF 10:00-10:50 in Matthews
Hall, Room 109.
Instructor: Professor John Quintanilla
Main Office: GAB, Room 418-D
Office Phone: x4043
Secondary Office: Wooten
Hall, Room 335
Secondary Office Phone: x4235
E-mail: jquintanilla@unt.edu
Web page: http://www.math.unt.edu/~johnq/Courses/2015spring/4610/
Office Hours:
• Wooten
Hall office: Wednesdays 8:30-9:30 and Fridays 8-9:30
• Main GAB
office: Tuesdays 10-12, Thursdays
10-12, or by appointment. I'm fairly easy to find, and you're welcome to drop
by outside of office hours without an appointment. However, there will be
occasions when I'll be busy, and I may ask you to wait or come back later.
Required
Text: Probability, by J. Pitman.
Strongly Recommended: Lecture notes for the semester are available
for approximately $18. The Eagle Images Print Center is in room 124 of the
University Service Building (USB), which located near the Fouts
Field Parking Lot. This is not a convenient location, but offering them for
sale elsewhere would increased the price of the lecture notes significantly. The Mean Green (stop 7
on the map) and Campus
Cruiser shuttles both stop at USB. You should enter through the
north door (that is, the door that isn’t facing Fouts
Field) to easily get to the Print Center.
Course Description: Combinatorial analysis, probability, conditional probability, independence, random variables, expectation, generating functions and limit theorems.
Prerequisite: Math 2730.
Note: Math 3680 will become a prerequisite for Math 4610 in Fall 2015, but it’s not a prerequisite for this semester. That said, I realize that a large majority of students enrolled in Math 4610 have already taken Math 3680. For this reason, I will not spend much time in class motivating introductory concepts of probability found in Math 3680 and/or the middle-school and high-school TEKS. Instead, I’ll be assuming these introductory concepts as background knowledge which we will review through problem-solving during the first three weeks of the semester.
I have made certain videos from my Math 3680 class available on Blackboard for anyone who’d like a more thorough discussion or review of these concepts. The notes for these videos are part of the lecture notes available at the Eagle Images Print Center.
Actuarial Exams: Math 4610 should provide good preparation from the 1/P actuarial exam. More about the actuarial profession can be found at http://www.beanactuary.org, including extensive preparation for the 1/P exam that can also serve as review material for this course.
Course Topics
The
following chapters and sections of the textbook will be covered according to
the projected schedule below. Dates may change as events warrant.
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Student Responsibilities
- Student behavior that interferes with an instructor's
ability to conduct a class or other students' opportunity to learn is
unacceptable and disruptive and will not be tolerated in any instructional
forum at UNT. Students engaging in unacceptable behavior will be directed
to leave the classroom and the instructor may refer the student to the
Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities to consider whether the
student's conduct violated the Code of Student
Conduct. The university's expectations for student conduct apply to
all instructional forums, including university and electronic classroom,
labs, discussion groups, field trips, etc.
- You should read over this syllabus carefully, as I will
hold you responsible for the information herein.
- Students will be expected to read the chapters
carefully, including the examples in the book.
- Students will be responsible for obtaining any and all
handouts. If you are not in class when handouts are given, it is your
responsibility to obtain copies.
- You should begin working now. Frequent practice is
crucial to the successful completion of a mathematics course. Cramming at
the last minute will certainly lead to failure.
- WARNING: If you are in academic trouble, or are in danger of
losing your financial support, or if your parent or guardian is expecting
a certain grade at the end of the semester... start working today. I will
refuse to listen to any pleas at the end of the semester. You will receive
precisely the grade that you earn.
Grading Policies
The following schedule is tentative and is subject to capricious changes in case of extracurricular events deemed sufficiently important to the upper administration.
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Cooperation is encouraged in doing the homework assignments. However, cheating will not be tolerated on the exams. If you are caught cheating, you will be subject to any penalty the instructor deems appropriate, up to and including an automatic F for the course.
Attendance is not required for this class. However, you will be responsible for everything that I cover in class, even if you are absent. It is my experience that students who skip class frequently make poorer grades than students who attend class regularly. You should consider this if you don't think you'll be able to wake up in time for class consistently.
The grade of "I" is designed for students who are unable to complete work in a course but who are currently passing the course. The guidelines are clearly spelled out in the Student Handbook. Before you ask, you should read these requirements.
Exam Policies
- Since I don’t want students to feel rushed to
complete the exams in only 50 minutes, exams will be held in the Sage Hall Testing Center, which is
in suite C330 on the third floor of Sage Hall. I have reserved a room in
this testing center for 9-12 on exam dates. You can arrive at any time
between 9 and 10, and you will have 1 hour and 50 minutes to complete the
exam. I will be happy to make alternate arrangements for anyone whose
schedule prevents them from taking the exam during this time frame.
- I expect to give exams during the weeks above, but
these dates are subject to change.
- After exams are returned in class, you have 48 hours to
appeal your grade. I will not listen to any appeals after this 48-hour
period.
- I will not drop the lowest exam score; all will count
toward the final grade.
- No make up exams will be given. For those students who
miss an exam due to an Authorized Absence (see the Student
Handbook), the final grade will be computed based only on those exams
taken, together with homework/quiz scores and
the final exam. Such students will be required to provide official
written verification of such an absence.
- Students missing an exam for unauthorized reasons will
receive 0 (zero) points on the exam.
- The Final Examination will be comprehensive in the
sense that problems may come from any of the sections that will be covered
during the semester.
- The grade of A signifies consistent excellence
over the course of the semester. In particular, an A on the final is not
equivalent to an A for the course.
- I reserve the right to test and quiz you on problems
which are generalizations of material covered in the class and/or in the
text. In short, the problems may not look exactly like the ones in the
book.
- Everything that I say in class is fair game for exam
material. You will be responsible for everything unless I advise you to
the contrary.
Homework Policies
- Homework will be assigned every Friday and will be due
the following Friday.
- I expect the assignments that you turn in to be written up carefully and neatly, with
the answers clearly marked. You must show all of your work. Messy
homework will not be accepted.
- Entire homework assignments will not be graded.
Instead, only 3-5 representative problems will be graded per assignment.
As a consequence, it will be possible to not do the entire assignment and
still receive a perfect score on that particular assignment. Deliberately
leaving homework uncompleted is highly unrecommended,
however, as the law of averages will surely catch up with you as the
semester progresses.
- When computing grades, I will drop the two
lowest homework grades before computing the homework average. Therefore,
in principle, you could get a 100% homework score and also not turn in two
assignments during the semester. I have this policy in case you get sick,
a family emergency arises, etc., during the semester. You will still be
responsible for the material in such assignments during the examinations.
- Because of this policy, I will not give
extensions on homework assignments, nor will I accept late assignments.
Final Note
In
compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, I mention the following:
It is the responsibility of students with certified disabilities to provide the
instructor with appropriate documentation from the Dean of Students Office.