Lab Sections

Lab sections provide an opportunity for students to apply the current week’s lecture topics and gain first-exposure to the technical coding required to complete homework and project assignments. Each lab section lasts roughly 2 hours each.

Lab sections are mandatory sections for each student to attend, and a student’s attendance is factored into the final grade. The structure of each lab is explained in more detail below.

Announcements

The first few minutes of each class are taken to announce any upcoming deadlines, as well as important course logistics such as debugging issues or frequently asked questions on midterms.

Mini-Discussion Lecture and Worksheet

Next, the uGSI (Undergraduate Student Instructor) leading the current section leads a discussion recapping the lecture content of that week. This is typically supplemented by a lab worksheet, which are physical sheets meant to act as practice for solving conceptual questions that would typically show up on exams. At Berkeley, these are typically not graded, but it can be at the discretion of the instructor.

Lab worksheets are hidden and NOT accessible publicly. To request access to lab worksheets, please contact our team at ds-help@berkeley.edu

Lab Assignment

Finally, the last hour of the lab is reserved for students to work on that week’s lab assignment. These assignments are graded on completion, which is checked through OkPy, similarly to homeworks and projects. In order to get credit for the lab, students are required to complete the lab and show the graded notebook to either the uGSI of the section, or an Academic Intern.