Instructor's office hours: MF 10-11, W 1-2 MS 7919

Teaching Assistant: Alex Thompson. His office hour for this course is: Wednesday 10:30-11:30.

Text: A First Course in Probability, 6th edition, by Sheldon Ross. We will cover most of the material through the middle of Chapter 6 in the Fall. Math 170B covers most of the rest of the book.

Discussion sections: The discussion sections (Thursdays at 9) are conducted by the teaching assistant, and are an integral part of the course. They provide an opportunity to have your questions answered on a more personal basis and at greater length than is possible in the lecture. There will often be aspects of solutions to exercises that you will not have considered. You should take advantage of the chance to ask questions that go beyond the particular problems that were assigned that week.

Homework: It is practically impossible to learn mathematics without doing a lot of problems. Therefore, it is extremely important that you do the assigned problems carefully and promptly. Don't get behind! I will assign homework each Friday (except for the first assignment, which I will make on the first day of class). It will be due in the discussion section the following Thursday. I expect that graded homework will be returned to you a week later. You may discuss homework problems with other students, the TA or me before they are turned in. In fact, the right kind of discussion can be quite valuable. I do expect two things, though: (i) you should try seriously to do the exercise yourself before discussing it with anyone, and (ii) you should write up the solution yourself after understanding it thoroughly, without following someone else's written version. Otherwise, the homework does you no good. Note that there are answers in the back of the book for many of the problems. They are useful in checking your work, of course, but this makes it particularly important that you show your work. Note: No late homework will be accepted.

Examinations: There will be two midterms, on Fridays April 30 and May 28, and a final exam on June 15, 3-6 pm.

Grading: The final grade will be based on the the exams and homework with the following weights: final (40%), midterms (20% each) and homework (20%). I will use the my.ucla grading program to post grades for homework and exams.