MTH 314

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This is the webpage for MTH/CMSE 314 for the Spring 2021 semester.

View the Project on GitHub msu-cmse-courses/mth314-s21-student

Link to MTH314 website

MTH314: Week 1 class preparation checklist

Due to COVID-19 pandemic the first week of the Spring 2021 semester will be used for reading, review and semester preparation. To this end, it is recommended that all students complete the following tasks before showing up for the first day of class.

  1. Watch Welcome Video and Review Syllabus
  2. Complete background survey
  3. Get Jupyter Working
  4. Review Python Packages
  5. Complete Pre-class Assignment

1. Watch Welcome Video and Review Syllabus

To start, I suggest that you watch the following video and review the course Syllabus. Note that this video is much longer than most of the videos you will find in the class. You will probably be fine if you speed up the video and you can probably just listen to most of it.


2. Complete background survey

Students in MTH314 come from a variety of backgrounds. To help the instructor adjust the curriculum and provide support to all students in this course please fill out the following on-line survey:


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3. Get Jupyter Working

We will be using Jupyter notebooks for most of our student/instructor communication. Please attend class with the latest version of Anaconda Python installed on your computer (Anaconda includes Jupyter). Instructions for installing and using Anaconda and Jupyter can be found here:

As a backup, all students are also given accounts on the MSU jupyterhub servers http://jupyterhub.egr.msu.edu and http://jupyterhub-legacy.egr.msu.edu. Make sure you follow the directions in the above “getting started guide” and ensure that you can login. It is recommended that students primarily use the jupyterhub server and only switch to jupyterhub-lagacy if there is a problem (please notify your instructors anytime there is a problem).


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4. Review Python Packages

In this class we will be using programming to teach linear algebra and therefore assume that everyone knows how to use python. the instructors provide the following reference as a review for the most common python libraries we expect you to be able to use for class (numpy, scipy, math, sympy, etc). please review this tutorial to make sure you are properly prepared for class:


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5. Complete Pre-class Assignment

You are expected to come to class ready to complete the in-class assignments. To prepare for most classes, students are required to complete pre-class assignments (typically two pre-class assignments per week). These assignments will be in the form of jupyter notebooks and will include reading, videos and programming activities. The required time for each pre-class will vary but the instructors have tried to make them take approximately 30-minutes.

Each pre-class assignment ends with an online survey which students are required to complete in order to earn credit for the assignment. Your first weeks assignments are available on the course git repository or downloadable from the course website. At a minimum, you must complete the first pre-class assignment by 11:59pm on Tuesday January 19th.


Written by Dr. Dirk Colbry, Michigan State University Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.