Assignments Overview
How Assignments Work in PHY 321
Assignments in this course are designed to deepen your understanding of the concepts in lectures and notes. They combine pencil-and-paper problem-solving with numerical computation. You’ll work on them individually or in groups (up to 3), and you’ll submit them on Gradescope as a single PDF.
We have three types of assignments:
- Weekly Homeworks (8 total) - Short problem sets due most weeks
- Midterm Projects (2) - Larger investigations of specific topics
- Final Project - Culminating project with presentations and written essay
📝 Assignment Structure
Weekly Homeworks
Each homework typically includes:
- Individual Exercise (10 pts) - Submit on D2L only; worked alone
- Pencil and Paper Exercises (60 pts) - Work alone or in groups of up to 3
- Numerical Exercise (40 pts) - Jupyter notebook work, converted to PDF
Key guidelines:
- Individual exercises must be your own work
- Pencil/paper and numerical exercises can be done in groups (up to 3 people)
- Beyond your group, you may discuss concepts and approaches with others, but write your own answers
- All submissions go to Gradescope as a single PDF (see instructions below)
- Come prepared: Homeworks are available ~10 days before the deadline
📤 How to Submit
For Pencil & Paper + Numerical Exercises:
Submission Instructions
- Scan handwritten solutions into a single PDF file
- Convert your Jupyter notebook to PDF:
- File → Download As HTML
- Open HTML in your browser
- File → Print → Save as PDF
- Combine files:
- Open scanned PDF in your PDF reader
- View → Thumbnails
- Go to last page of handwritten solutions
- Edit → Insert → Page from File
- Select the notebook PDF
- Upload to Gradescope with your name(s)
For Individual Exercises:
Submit only on D2L through the assignment titled “HW# Exercise 0”
📚 Recommended Workflow
For each homework:
- Read the lecture notes and work through examples
- Attend the workshop day (Fridays usually)—solve problems together
- Start early (homeworks available ~10 days before due date)
- Form your group if working in groups (no more than 3)
- Work through pencil & paper first, then numerical
- Scan and combine your PDF files
- Submit to Gradescope before the deadline
❓ Questions About Assignments?
- Content questions: Ask in class, office hours, or discussions
- Grading questions: Contact Danny directly or submit a regrade request on Gradescope
- Technical questions about submission: Ask Mihir or Danny during office hours