EECS20N: Signals and Systems

Announcements

  • [5/9/2011] Office hours this week:
    1. Monday 1-4pm: 105 Cory, Andrew
    2. Tuesday 12-2pm: 105 Cory, Avital
    3. Wednesday 3-5pm: 105 Cory, James
    4. Thursday 1-3pm: 529 Cory, Prof. Lee
  • [5/5/2011] Final rules: The final is closed book. The only thing you will need is a pencil (or a pen, if you are very confident). You are allowed to also bring three 8.5 by 11 inch sheets of paper. You may use both sides of the paper. You are not allowed anything else (paper, calculators, computers, personal assistants, massage therapists, etc.) The material covered by the final is all material covered during the semester. The lecture schedule lists the links to the relevant online course materials. The reading page lists the relevant chapters in the book
  • [3/21/2011] Professor Abbeel will have additional office hours on Monday 3/28 (day before midterm) from noon-1pm in 511 Soda.
  • [3/21/2011] Midterm 2 rules: The midterm is closed book. The only thing you will need is a pencil (or a pen, if you are very confident). You are allowed to also bring two 8.5 by 11 inch sheets of paper. You may use both sides of the paper. You are not allowed anything else (paper, calculators, computers, personal assistants, massage therapists, etc.) The material covered by the midterm is all material covered so far. The lecture schedule lists the links to the relevant online course materials. The reading page lists the relevant chapters in the book, namely A, 1, 2, 3 (you may skip 3.3 and 3.4), 5, B, 7, 8 (except for 8.5.2, which we have not covered just yet). The emphasis will be on materials covered since Midterm 1.
  • [3/1/2011] Professor Abbeel's office hours are canceled this week. See here for Professor Lee and GSI office hours.
  • [2/20/2011] Updated regrade policy has been posted. It is also linked from the logistics page under grading.
  • [2/13/2011] The regrade policy has been posted.
  • [2/13/2011] Midterm rules: (those of you who attend class on time already know this): The midterm is closed book. The only thing you will need is a pencil (or a pen, if you are very confident). You are allowed to also bring one 8.5 by 11 inch sheet of paper. You may use both sides of the paper. You are not allowed anything else (paper, calculators, computers, personal assistants, massage therapists, etc.)
  • [2/6/2011] GSI office hours have been extended to Tuesday and Wednesday 5-6pm, now in 212 Cory.
  • [2/1/2011] Quiz 1 has been graded and uploaded to bSpace. Solutions are pending. The statistics were mean 13.8, standard deviation 1.55.
  • [1/24/2011] A sample quiz covering the first couple weeks' material has been posted.
  • [1/24/2011] The solutions to the self-diagnostic quiz are up.
  • [1/22/2011] Solutions to problem set #1 are posted on bSpace (under Resources), and the problem set for next Friday has been assigned.
  • [1/18/2011] The self-diagnostic is up. Within a few days we will post solutions to the self-diagnostic onto bspace.
  • [1/10/2011] See important action items for the beginning of the semester. This includes textbook info, your bspace account setup and sign-up for piazzza.
  • [1/10/2011] A few guidelines on who should take this course.
  • [1/10/2011] Welcome to EECS 20N, Spring 2011 Edition! Your instructors are Pieter Abbeel and Edward Lee. Please see the logistics page for organizational information.

Beginning of Semester Important Action Items

  • Textbook: Structure and Interpretation of Signals and Systems, by E. A. Lee and P. Varaiya, 2011. The book is available in two forms: Free PDF download and low-cost paperback. PLEASE, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU USE A UNIVERSITY PRINTER TO PRINT THE PDF. If we catch anyone printing the text on a university printer, it will be treated as an abuse of campus resources. If you are considering printing it on your own printer, please keep the following in mind: Tom's hardware estimates the cost per page of inkjet printing ranging from 3 to 30 cents per page. This means that the cost of printing a 720 page book ranges from a low of $22 to a high of $220. This makes a bound paperback at $35 very competitive...

  • Verify Your bSpace Account Setup. Visit http://bspace.berkeley.edu/ ; log in using your CalNet ID and passphrase; and ensure that the EE20N tab appears at the top of your screen. We will use bSpace to communicate with you by email and to post assignments.

    NOTE:: You will receive our announcements by e-mail only if your e-mail address is unmasked. To check this, simply visit the UC Berkeley Directory and lookup your name. If your e-mail address appears in the search result, great! You are all set. If not, then please click on the "Update Listing" icon near the top of the page; select "Student Listing"; authenticate yourself; and follow the menu options to unmask your e-mail address.

    We understand that this may pose a privacy issue for you, so we do not require that you unmask your e-mail address. At some point, bSpace will be set up to automatically access your e-mail address without your having to unmask it. Until then, this is the only workaround we are aware of to this problem.

    Another way for you to see our announcements is to visit our course bSpace site and read the announcements posted there. We do not expect you to check the bSpace site any later than 9PM each evening, but we do expect you to check it every evening until about 9PM.

  • Sign up for Piazzza. The main mode of electronic communication between students and staff, as well as amongst students, will be through www.piazzza.com. It is intended for general questions about the course, clarifications about assignments, student questions to each other, discussions about material, and so on. We strongly encourage students to participate in discussion, ask and answer questions through this site. The course staff will monitor discussions closely. To sign up, go to the Piazzza website and sign up with "UC Berkeley" and "EE20N" for school and class.

    If you need to contact the course staff privately, you can contact us at our individual email addresses (see the "Logistics" section). Response time on individual emails tends to be slower.

Who should take this course

You may gain a better understanding of the required background by studying the statistical results from the Spring 2000 offering. The conclusions from that study are:

  • Class standing has little significant effect on performance.
  • On average, the GPA of students was neither raised nor lowered by this class.
  • Students who attend lecture do significantly better than students who do not.
  • Taking more than one of Math 53, 54, or 55 helps somewhat, but many students do well without this.
  • Taking Math 53 or Math 55 helps by half a grade level.
  • Taking Math 54 helps by almost a grade level (e.g. B+ to A-).
  • Many students believe Math 54 should be a prerequisite.
  • Computing classes have little effect on performance, assuming as was the case with this class, that all students have had some computing classes.
  • Students do not believe a computing class prerequisite is needed.