Professionalism

The professionalism aspect of the course is intended to promote respectful and professional behavior. All professional interactions aim to have one or more benefits, and usually the student is the beneficiary. Unprofessional interactions consume time yet have no meaningful benefits. In the workplace, wasting the time of your colleagues or supervisors will only discount you. When you are discounted, you may not be aware, but you just won't be included in new opportunities.

1% of the course grade is to account for demonstrating respect, maturity and professionalism. By default, every student is assumed to be professionally mature and hence this component is awarded to every student at the beginning of the quarter. During the quarter, based on observations by the teaching staff, which includes but is not limited to one on one personal interactions, Piazza Q&A posts, and follow ups with your grader, your professionalism credit may be reduced in steps of 0.5%.

Interactions with meaningful benefits (no deduction from professionalism) include:

• deeper insight into course material, course concepts, computer science and technology
• clarification of course notes
• assistance getting started, developing solutions and resolving programming problems
• improvement in skill building and future opportunities
• learning why full credit wasn’t awarded where grading comments were insufficient
• reporting errors or problems in labs, assignments, your computer account or with the Autograder that don't involve potential point mistakes or potential point corrections.

Interactions that have no meaningful benefits (deduction from professionalism) that should be avoided include:

• questions asked electronically before first performing electronic search
• asking questions when the information will eventually be known, such as will this exam be curved?
• ignoring the directions or requests of the course staff
• falsifying your priority tag in Autograder queue.

Please Note:

• Errors in grading or tabulation are by definition errors made by the course staff
• The course staff does not have a goal of awarding you every point that you earned; rather the course staff does have a goal awarded you the course grade that you earned.

The bottom line:

If an interaction has a benefit to you, then all is well. If the interaction has no benefit to you, you should spend your time in more meaningful ways.