Attendance and Missing Class: Attendance in ECS 103 is MANDATORY beginning on January 26th, 2026. First, my lecture slides are text-poor, which means that without hearing what I say about each slide, you will NOT be able to reconstruct this information purely from the slide. Second, the review quizzes are not by themselves sufficiently comprehensive to let you do well on exams, despite what you might have heard.
Attendance will be taken by the teaching assistant, ~30 minutes into each class session. You will sit in assigned seats throughout the semester, so be sure to find and sit in that seat, even if you are late to class.
You are allowed to miss TWO lecture periods without excuse. This means that you are expected to attend a minimum of __ class periods. After that, we will take off percentage points for missed days (up to 5%, 5%=perfect attendance, minus the two free bees).
IF you think you must miss lecture due to emergency, family, health, or other valid reasons, you MUST fill out a short-term illness form. An excused absence does not count towards the “free” two absences you can have. Athletes MUST provide a list of dates they will be absent during the semester (as anticipated or develops). Missing class, even excused (but see below), does not entitle you to multimedia or audio lecture recordings of the class. It is your responsibility to get good notes from someone who was there. We are unable to go through entire lectures that you missed during office hours. We can certainly answer specific questions. IF you were excused there MIGHT be the possibility of receiving a recording of a prior lecture (different semester) but this is not guaranteed, nor might these recording be entirely up-to-date. Inquiry with the instructor.
If you are excused for more than three or more consecutive lectures PLEASE contact the instructor to discuss receiving additional help. Duke University has established procedures to deal with long-term absences due to illness, as well as family emergencies. Information can be found HERE.
