This page is for graduate students in my Math 384 section this semester (section B1, MWF 9am, 159 Altgeld). It addresses what you need to do in order to earn a full unit of credit for this course. Additional work is required, and there is considerable flexibility for you to choose what to do. I will give some examples below.
I would like to have a one or two page prospectus from each student who wants to register for 1 unit, by the (firm) deadline of Friday, February 22. It would be desirable for you to submit something to me earlier than that, say by February 1, so there is time for discussion and revision.
Once we come to an agreement about your project, the work will be due by the last class of the semester.
(1) One possibility, which I encourage, is that you will find a project based in your main field of study, in which ideas and methods from nonlinear optimization are used. You might find a chapter from a textbook in your field or a couple of journal articles that could form the basis of this. You would hand in a written report on your work (I would expect 5 or 6 pages), or give me a lecture (half hour) or a presentation (if your project involved a computer implementation, for example).
This is the option that I would encourage you to consider; by doing a project of this kind, you can link your study of Math 384 more closely with your main subject than would otherwise be possible. I leave it to you to apply some creativity and come up with an interesting project.
(2) Another possibility is that you would choose some sections of our textbook that are not covered in the syllabus, or from another such textbook, and you would master that material on your own and write up solutions to a number of exercises from the book. (Once we agree on the material to be read by you, I would choose some problems for you to solve and write up.)
Suitable sections of our textbook for such a project would be: 2.2, 2.6; 3.3, 3.4, 3.5; 4.4; 5.5; 6.3; 7.1, 7.2, 7.3. These are all the sections that we will not cover in the main part of the course; you would choose some of these and we would agree on what amounted to enough work to earn the extra credit. As said above, I would choose some problems from the book for you to solve and write up.
Note that if you go from .75 to 1.00 units credit, then your credit has increased by 1/3, a large fraction. The extra project you choose should therefore be a correspondingly substantial one. Note also that 1/4 of your final grade would depend on the substance of your project and the quality of your execution.
I look forward to hearing from those of you who want to earn a full unit of credit; I'll be happy to discuss this with you at any time, and I am sure we will quickly come to an agreement about what you should do.
Prof. Henson