Reviews for MATH013

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Steven Sax MATH013 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/12/2023	Professor Sax is hands-down the best math teacher ever! He is patient and genuinely cares that each student understands the concepts taught in this course. I love the sense of humor in his teaching, which provides insightful ways to connect concepts and build a framework to make math enjoyable. Thanks to him, I am not scared of math and intrigued to learn more about this subject. I never thought I would feel this way about math until now. He has great office hours support to ensure my questions were answered.
Barbara Michelato MATH013 Expecting a D- Anonymous 09/06/2023	The worst, read the rest of the reviews.
Steven Sax MATH013 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/31/2023	I agree with the majority of reviews that he is a great professor, and really wants everyone to do well. He may come across strict at first, but Professor Sax is really understanding and tries to work with everyone. My schedule is complicated and I had to work during a major test, and I think another professor would have just said it's my problem, but Professor Sax was so accommodating and really helped me catch up and do a makeup exam! Also, he'll stick around after class for office hours every day to answer everyone's questions, and he'll stay late a lot of days. I believe he's genuinely a nice person who goes above and beyond. I wouldn't call it an easy class because there's homework every night and at least one test or two quizzes every week, but his sample tests show exactly what kinds of problems are on the real exam and if you study that plus do the the homework then you should get an A. I agree he had some issues with his wifi and especially his tablet, but I think the school should give the professors standard equipment instead of each one having there own setup. I took another online class that had problems too. I wish Maryland had in-person summer school anyway, and I think he said it's the first time he taught this online (though not sure what he did during Covid). I didn't think his background was noisy or distracting though so I don't know what the other review was talking about. The bad review was right at the beginning of the course, but you need to stick with it and you'll see he's good.
Steven Sax MATH013 Expecting a W Anonymous 07/20/2023	This is a class you want to avoid with this professor- he is confusing and all over the place. If you are struggling with math, he will get you even more confused. He rushes through the summer course lecture and then there is the time pressure to submit. It takes five minutes to submit, once you upload and create a file- if all goes well. Any student should have a ten minute time to do the work for this separately. He complained so much about using the white board. He is not very literate in digital processes and it is really a quite sloppy way to teach. You are better off taking it with another teacher. He is all over the place as well as side-tracked in, after 30 minutes, if you are lucky, you may have learned something. You are on your own, you have to be good in math if you want to pay him to teach you ten percent of something. I don't know why students are subjected to pay for teachers that cannot deliver. It is a nightmare. They need to be replaced and also at this time, each teacher who lectures online live should at least have the ability to know how to use digital tools, they are called professor for a reason, but not all of them are doing this. This professor was so ill-prepared at the beginning of the class and had background noises and it was quite distracting. If this is someone's job, they need to make sure, that their work place is quiet, remote or not if they do lectures. This is ridiculous. As the other person said, avoid him at all costs.
Steven Sax MATH013 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2023	He is an awesome professor and really cares about how well the class does. Go to class and do all the homework like he suggests and and A is very easy. The format of 013 was not the best as I am not a fan of standing at the blackboard and doing problems but once you get into 113 it is a lecture format and he is really good at explaining concepts. The exams were exactly like the homework. The one bad review is the farthest thing from correct- he is a great prof and always wanted people to succeed.
Steven Sax MATH013 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/15/2023	Professor Sax is one of the best math teachers I've ever had. His expectations are very clear and he's always willing to do more to help us learn and do well in the class. He sticks completely to his syllabus and gives ample chances to redo homework and even redo quizzes if he feels it will help us learn the subject better. I felt he always had my back and I knew exactly what I had to do for my grade. That doesn't mean the class is easy, but if you put in the time then he will put in overtime. I've emailed him questions late in the evening and he would email me back the solution an hour later! Also his practice exams show exactly what you need to know to ace the real exams and the final turned out to be just like his practice final. Take his class.
Steven Sax MATH013 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/14/2023	Prof. Sax was overall really helpful and kind! The 013 section consisted of daily group work but after the placement test the class was set up just like a regular math lecture. It was definitely not easy getting there every single day, but it was crucial because the course moves at a quick pace. However, if you ever feel behind or need help, Prof. Sax is very receptive to office hours and will always make himself available! Just a few things to be aware of: he cold calls A LOT (so really make sure you are paying attention or following along), there is nightly homework that he will collect at random (try your best to keep up with it), there are weekly quizzes (he drops your lowest 3 scores), he will randomly give extra credit, and there are 3 exams (not including the final). Prof. Sax always provides additional resources like online videos and makes practice exams that are exactly like the real exams. If you show up, put in the effort, and show that you care then he will try his best to make sure you do well in the course.
Barbara Michelato MATH013 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/09/2023	uh okay this one may be a controversial take but this class was not that bad? The workload was about as much as you would expect for an introductory college math course. We had on average 4-7 ALEKS homework assignments a week. Each assignment could range from 5-20 questions and we had a week to do them all. Every question would give you an example of a similar question being solved step by step, and you wouldn't get points off from the original question if you looked at the example. I honestly usually did them all at once and it took me a total of like 2 ish hours. I will say I gave her 4 stars and not 5 because the lectures were confusing a lot of the time-- she made a few mistakes and went pretty quickly, but she would leave her work up on the board for a long time so we could copy it down. But I gave her 4 stars because she really did want you to succeed. She drops your four lowest quiz grades and gives you a lottt of material to work with before tests. I'm also disabled with ADHD and am not a math prodigy to clear things up on that end. She was so accommodating for me, and I never had to be afraid to ask for an extension or anything. I went in once to make up a quiz and she said that I had the option since I was there to make up all of the quizzes I missed since I had migraines and I agreed. I did okay on some and bad on others, but after she finished grading each of them (each was 5 questions) she would come back over and explain to me what I did wrong and made sure that I understood it. She has a bit of an accent, I was able to understand everything she said like 95% of the time, it really wasn't that bad in my opinion. Discussions really depended on your TA. I liked mine but it really does depend on how they do things. The worksheets she gave (I think there was about one worksheet every two weeks) did go in as a zero if you got one wrong, but that was because she literally gave you the answer key. I never really liked the policy but I understood where she was coming from. Basically if you have her, you will have to do some outside work to understand the material fully, but she gives you plenty of outside material to work through and the ALEKS examples had my back every time. She also holds office hours and responds quickly to emails. Also if you're disabled, she's really nice and good about accommodating you. I'm expecting to finish with a B in the class, which I'm pretty happy with. Figured it'd be good to give another perspective. If you are good at self studying and using extra resources you should be fine, but that's just from my own experience.
Steven Sax MATH013 Anonymous 01/03/2023	He explains things well and posts helpful videos and notes. I liked that he was flexible about making up missed quizzes and homework and dropped the lowest quiz. He also gave chances to do extra credit which helped me a lot. Make sure to come everyday to class because it moves very quickly and in two days you're on a completely different topic. His lectures are not dry but he will repeat a concept that he thinks is important many times and I think the time could have been used to go over more examples. I never went to office hours but a couple times asked him questions after class and he was always helpful.
Steven Sax MATH013 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/28/2022	Honestly I wish other professors were like Professor Sax. He's a nice guy who's passionate about teaching math and reminds me of those wacky nerdy professors that you'd expect to be at working at MIT... but we have him at UMD! He was a fair grader, dropped the lowest quiz, and gave you full credit for homework if you try every problem. He tried to make his lectures interesting by adding a little philosophy and humor which I liked, though it was not necessary and probably threw some people off. I'll say this advice: if you show you care about math or even just care about doing well in the class, this man will be your best ally and strive to help you succeed! But if you make the grave mistake of blowing it off or blame him for giving too much work, then he'll take it personally and it'll be hard to ask him questions in class. I think he's used to teaching way more advanced classes or Math majors but he needs to know how to teach Freshmen who are mostly just taking the class to fulfil a requirement. But I also do think he learned how to do that better as the semester continues. All being said, again if you just treat him and the course respectfully he will be on your side. He'll be available anytime to do office hours and will work endlessly to help you understand. For that I think he's great.
Steven Sax MATH013 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/27/2022	I thought he was a decent professor who actually cared about my understanding the subject. I’m not sure why the previous post said all that, I mean I passed the placement test and took 113 with Professor Sax and so maybe I got to see more. The 013 part was a little all over the place but I think that’s more the course than the professor. It’s this very rigid schedule where everyone is doing problems at the blackboard every day. I talked to other people in 013 and maybe one thing that could have been better was they switched around groups everyday but with us I was with the same group and eventually a couple of them merged so I really didn’t get to do much while Professor Sax worked mostly with the “group leaders”. But when I came to office hours he was great. He didn’t mind staying as late as it took and I think it helped me pass the test. The best advice I can give is go to office hours and ask him one on one. Same for 113- he was very helpful and seemed to care a lot, and I did a lot better in the course than I thought I would.
Steven Sax MATH013 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/12/2022	AVOID HIM AT ALL COSTS!!! Because of my performance on the placement exam, I was placed into MATH013, and it was the worst 5 weeks of my life. Professor Sax is an arrogant, rude, and unhelpful professor who caused me to fail my placement again and have to take MATH003. His teaching method is all over the place and makes things incredibly confusing, and then when you don't understand his way of teaching, he'll get sassy with you and basically say you're the problem. DO NOT TAKE HIM UNLESS YOU HAVE TO.
Santuria Orsetti MATH013 Anonymous 05/27/2013	Clear expectations, always willing to help. But don't go in expecting an easy A, there's a lot of work assigned. Go to all classes. Really tries to explain things in a way that makes sense to students. Overall, a good remedial/transition-to-introductory math course.
Santuria Orsetti MATH013 Expecting a B staaaar 12/06/2011	Professor Orsetti is one of the besssssssssstttttttttt math teachers I've ever had. He really knows his stuff. He explains clearly in a way you can understand and if you don't understand he's great at clearing those misunderstandings up! i had him in 013 which turned into MATH113 in five weeks. even though I expect to get a B it's just because of test grades. the tests are rather difficult but absolutely choose Orsetti!!
Debra Franklin MATH013 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/22/2011	Deborah Franklin was perhaps one of the greatest teachers I've had in College. I am writing this review during the summer between my Freshmen and Sophomore year [I took the her class my first semester at UMD] and I still remember her course with fondness. Franklin explained the material very clearly and with a great pace. Also, she always left time in the end of class for practice problems. Practice at the end of 30-40 minutes of lecturing might seem like a chore but you really do learn the material much better this way. I took MATH220 my following semester and it is MUCH more difficult to learn math when you only have the theory under your belt with no practice. I also felt like she prepared me really well for MATH220. I remembered a lot of the algebra that was used in calc that many of the other students didnt and it helped me tremendously! If you need MATH113 for 220 this is your BEST option. I hope they offer her as a MATH113 stand-alone option in the future and not just for 013
Debra Franklin MATH013 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2010	Prof. Franklin is a very good math teacher. MATH013/113 is a pretty high-paced course (since if you pass into 113, you have to study all of it in a much shorter time period than people who start in 113) and she makes the material easy to understand. She explains everything very clearly and is always happy to help after class. Homework is easy points - just do the assignments and make sure your answers are right. She drops some of your lowest quizzes, and the tests are really straightforward.
Santuria Orsetti MATH013 Expecting an A motariq1991 05/16/2010	This guy is the real deal and he knows his math. I was thanking God that for once he gave me a math instructor in my life who knows proper english. Honestly, he covered every single concept of algebra and pre-calculus in just one semester whereas it took my highschool teachers 3 years to do. He simply made me love math! Gives out excellent notes and relates real-life situations to make math more understandable. Definitely recommend him for any incoming freshmen.
Santuria Orsetti MATH013 Anonymous 04/27/2009	He is a really good professor and knows his stuff!! He tries to make class interesting. He is available during posted office hours and also is very willing to arrange alternate times to get additional help.
Santuria Orsetti MATH013 Anonymous 12/07/2008	He's a really good teacher that is good at explaining things. He doesnt have a dry personaility and makes class some what interseting. You have to go to class to do well
Santuria Orsetti MATH013 Expecting an A gkay 09/19/2008	Fantastic Teacher. I never enjoyed math before taking this class with professor Orsetti. Go to class and pay attention and you will ace this class.