04 — Grading Breakdown & Homeworks

Grade weights

Projects dominate because the course counts as a software systems elective for both grads and undergrads, so it must be heavily project-based (8:35).
The class is curved, but by how much is decided after grades come in. Course difficulty is roughly constant year to year; exams will be tweaked more than usual this year, yet the curve is expected to land about the same (9:04).
Extra points are available by ranking high on the project leaderboards (9:04).

Six homework assignments across the semester (9:37).
HW1: writing SQL queries for DuckDB and SQLite; every homework after that is pencil-and-paper problem solving (9:37).
Submitted and autograded through Gradescope; solutions released after the deadline (9:37).
All homework is individual — no copying (9:37).