-- This course is not an experiment in social policy. You are free to study with whomever you choose, including nobody.

-- This course is not an English class. While developing strong English skills is very important, it is my strong conviction that a math class should not be tasked with teaching them. Your work will be marked entirely on its mathematical quality, not on the level of your English. (Assuming, of course, that we understand what you are writing!)

-- This course is not just a concatenation of special methods or specific applications. While we are building up to major applications, such as applications of residue calculus to the evaluation of definite integrals, the point of the course is not just these applications.

Now a few things that this course strives towards:

-- Notwithstanding the second point in the previous section, it is the author's strong conviction that learning to use and appreciate language is an important part of a university education. Thus he will not eschew the use of complicated vocabulary and sentence structures where he feels such use is warranted. If you are ever uncertain what a word means, look it up in a dictionary! (Strange words in italics are probably Latin.)

-- Going along with the third point in the previous section, it is also the author's strong conviction that a university education is not just to give one technical competence, but to teach one how to think. This course will strive to help you gain an understanding and appreciation of what an analytic function of a complex variable is, and not just what they are good for.

-- Notwithstanding the foregoing, this is not just a conceptual course, and the working of hard problems is a very important goal. This is one of the reasons behind the choice of textbook.

-- Making JOKES from time to time. (The author managed to get a joke about toasters into his final exam script last summer -- see here! Unfortunately the separate line about not carrying toasters in one's pockets wasn't on the actual exam script as the author was pretty sure it would get cut.) These jokes are never meant to put anyone down or make anyone feel bad, and if the author ever seems to be engaging in sarcasm or irony it is most likely meant to be at his own expense, not others'.

-- Everything else that should be here that I can't remember right now!