Instructor's office hours: MWF 2-3 in MS 7919

Teaching Assistant: David Pennington. His office hour for this course is:

Text: Elementary Probability, 2nd edition, by David Stirzaker. We will cover sections 1.1-1.5, 2.1-2.2, 3.1-3.3, part of 3.6, 4.1-4.4, 5.1-5.5, 7.1-7.2, 7.4, and 8.1-8.3.

Discussion sections: The discussion sections (Tuesdays at 1) 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. The first discussion section (January 9) will be used to review some topics from infinite series that will be important in this course.

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 Wednesday (except for the first assignment, which I will make on the first day of class). It will be due at the beginning of the discussion section the following Tuesday. 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. The lowest homework score will be dropped before final grades are assigned. Note: No late homework will be accepted.

Examinations: There will be two midterms, on Wednesdays January 31 and February 28, and a final exam on March 19, 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.