LABORATORY RULES AND POLICIES
PHYS 125, 135, 150, and 160 series
LAB SECTIONS
LAB START DATE: All lab sections begin the first week of
the semester. Please bring all required materials to the first session.
LAB SCHEDULES: The lab schedule for your particular class
will be handed out at the first meeting. Students are responsible for keeping
track of the schedule and all announced changes. Additional copies are
available from the bins outside KAP-B17.
ATTENDING DIFFERENT LAB SECTIONS: Students may not attend
any lab section other than the one in which they are officially registered.
FULL LAB SECTIONS: Please see “Registering for Full
Physics Lab Sections” for information on full sections.
LAB GRADES
Students must successfully complete and pass all of the
lab experiments in order to receive a passing grade in the lab. An F (fail) in
the lab results in an F in the entire course.
LAB-GRADE REPORTING: Only numerical grades are assigned
for the lab, no letter grades. Final numerical grades reported to the students
are linearly transformed for convenience so that the overall lab average and
standard deviation are 75 and 10, respectively.
LAB-GRADE CONTRIBUTION: The numerical lab grades are
weighted properly by your lecturer so that they constitute 20% of the
cumulative numerical course grades in a particular lecture section. Note that
your lecturer might rescale your lab grades to ensure that the lab-grading
scheme matches that of the lecture grading. He/she will then assign letter
grades for the entire course.
GRADES AVAILABLE: You will be assigned a three-digit
random number early in the semester. Always make sure that you have your
three-digit random number. You should not share this number with anyone because
it will be used to post your lab grades on-line. Starting around the
third week or so, your TAs should enter the grades every week. Make sure to
check your lab grades weekly to see if you passed all the experiments and there
are no errors. Also monitor your overall lab standing. If your grades are not
posted, see your TA. Contact the lab director if your grades are still
unavailable. All lab grades are due from all TAs to the lab director before the
last day of the stop period. Final lab grades will be posted on-line a few days
later.
DROPPING THE LECTURE AND
KEEPING THE LAB: Petition forms available outside KAP-B19 must be filled and
submitted to the lab director. Students are required to complete all the
lecture work, including all the homeworks and exams through the tenth week of
classes (the fourth week for Summer). Also a minimum grade of one standard
deviation below the average (usually 65) in the lab is required. Lab carryovers
are good for a maximum period of one year (next three semesters including
Summer) if earned. To obtain a better grade, you may wish to retake the lab
even if you earn a carryover.
MAKEUP EXPERIMENTS
Students are allowed to make up one (1) experiment per
semester without question, to be done during the designated lab-makeup week at
their regular lab time.
MISSING MORE THAN ONE EXP: Students who miss more than
one lab experiment per semester must have appropriate and documentable reasons
for having missed each experiment beyond the (1) allowed. Students must submit a
petition with documentation to the lab director within one week after they
missed their lab. Petition forms are available from the bins outside KAP-B19.
Decisions on whether more than one makeup will or will not be allowed are made
on a case-by-case basis.
LAB EXAMS
There will be two practical exams given over the course
of the semester.
MAKEUP EXAMS
Makeup exams are given only in the cases of SCHEDULED
ABSENCES and true EMERGENCIES.
SCHEDULED ABSENCES: If a student is going to miss an exam
for athletic or other similar, scheduled events, they must see the lab director
to have the makeup exam approved before they leave for the event.
EMERGENCIES: In the event of a true emergency that causes
a student to miss an exam, students must present acceptable documentation that
accurately demonstrates the date and nature of the emergency within 24 hours of
returning to classes. If the documentation is accepted, a makeup exam will be
given during the scheduled exam-makeup day.
EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES: The Student Health Center has
recently altered policy such that no written medical excuses will be given.
Students who become ill the day of the exam and actually receive medical
attention should be able to get copies of the fee sheet that will show the date
of the treatment. Students ill prior to the exam should turn in their petition
for a makeup before the date of the exam, with proper documentation. Decisions
on what constitutes extenuating circumstances will be made on a case-by-case
basis.
REGISTERING FOR FULL PHYSICS LAB
SECTIONS*
PHYS 125, 135, 150, and 160 series
Due to space and equipment
considerations, the USC Department of Physics and Astronomy cannot overload the
lab sections.
Students may try to get in to a full lab section in two
ways:
1. Check the USC web site for possible openings in full
lab sections on a regular basis both before and after the session's first
meeting. If a space in a lab opens up, no paperwork is
needed—touch-tone-register for it.
2. Before a section meets for the first time, sign up for
the official waiting list:
Official
waiting lists are available in KAP-B16 starting at 8 AM during the first week
of the semester on the day that the desired lab section meets.
Example:
If you are trying to get into a Wednesday 5 PM 135A lab section, you will be
able to sign onto a waiting list for that section starting Wednesday morning at
8 AM during the first week of the semester.
Official waiting lists apply to the first meeting of a
lab section only. Students must sign onto the official waiting list in KAP-B16
before the lab section in question meets for the first time. After a lab
section begins its first session, all waiting lists for that section are no
longer valid.
No other waiting list (e.g., talking to a TA, any other
list besides the official waiting list in KAP-B16, etc.) is valid.
Signing up for the official waiting list does not
guarantee a space in that section. On average between zero and two students on
the waiting list get in.
Students on the official waiting list must attend the
first session of the lab section in question. Failure to attend this first
meeting results in removal from the list.
If someone who is registered for any full lab section
does not arrive within the first 15 minutes or so of the beginning of the
section's first meeting, then those who are on the official waiting list and
are in attendance at that time will be allowed to take their place (in
official-waiting-list sequential order). It is then the responsibility of the
students who are removed from the class to drop their lab section through the
registration process.
Note that this is a university policy; see the current
Schedule of Classes under “Guaranteeing a Space in a Class.”
All PHYS 125, 135, 150, and 160 series labs will have
their first meeting during the first week of the semester.
*Physics
and Astronomy majors only may be exceptions to these policies. Contact the lab
director if you are a PHYS or ASTR major.