Course Pledge

Honor Expectations

As a student at the University of Virginia, you are trusted to be honorable and expected to behave in ways that merit that trust. We take advantage of this trust to provide a better learning environment for everyone. In particular, students in this course are expected to follow these rules throughout the course:

I will not lie, cheat or steal. If I am unsure whether something would be considered lying, cheating or stealing, I will ask before doing it.

I will carefully read and follow the collaboration and resource use policy on each assignment. I will not abuse resources in ways that would be clearly detrimental to my own learning or unfair to other students.

Community Expectations

As a member of a learning community of students, faculty, and staff, you are expected to exemplify these behaviors:

I will not behave in ways that harrass, intimidate, diminish, or belittle others. If I observe such behaviors in others (including among my classmates, the course staff, or other University faculty), I will not tolerate them silently, but will either take it upon myself to mitigate them, or will inform one of the course instructors or another University administrator.

I will care for myself and others physically and emotionally. I will ensure that whatever I am doing to succeed in my courses does not take priority over my needs to exercise, stay hydrated, eat, sleep well, and spend time outside. I will look out of the well-being of my classmates.

I will ask for help. I will make a reasonable effort to do things on my own first, but will ask for help before getting overly frustrated. There are many ways to ask for help including from classmates for most assignments (read the assignment-specific collaboration and resource policy), the course staff during office hours, and the class discord.

I will be open minded and curious. I understand that this course may do things in ways differently from what I expect, and may sometimes buck conventions that have been followed in other courses I have taken. I will ask questions when things make me uncomfortable, but also accept that being surprised, facing uncertainty, and being challenged with problems it is unreasonable to expect me to be able to solve, are often beneficial for learning new ways of thinking.

I grant the course staff permission to reproduce excerpts from my submissions for teaching purposes. My work will be attributed when it is shown in a postive way, but may be used anonymously if it is used to illustrate common pitfalls or other issues.

I will provide useful feedback. It is important that I let the course instructors know what they need to improve the course, both for this semester when changes can still be made, and for future students in later offerings. I will provide feedback either anonymously or by contacting a course instructor directly. I will fill out all requested surveys honestly and thoughtfully.