MATH130 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Joel Cohen MATH130 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/19/2015	This man is SOOOOO nice! I wish he was my grandpa! With that being said he isn't the best lecturer. His lectures are pretty boring and no one shows up but his exams are fair. His final however was exceptionally hard
Casey Cremins MATH130 Expecting an A sandra m 12/30/2013	DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. You dont learn anything in lectures, all he does is narrate the book. The exams are fair, however you get A LOT of points taken off for trivial stuff, even though you still come up with the right answer. I had an A in this class RIGHT UP UNTILL THAT STUPID FINAL which brought me down to a C+. THE FINAL HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT WE LEARNED AND WAS NOTHING LIKE THE EXAMS. HE MUST HAVE BEEN POSSESSED TO GIVE US A FINAL LIKE THAT. TERRIBLE MAN. TERRIBLE PERSONALITY.
Giovanni Forni MATH130 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/05/2013	Professor Forni is a really nice guy, but he can't teach very well. People rarely showed up for lectures. Also, the TAs sucked so much. They were terrible teachers too, and they gave us so little time for our quizzes the first several weeks. Exams are difficult, but if you consistently do the homework, you should be fine. You have to teach yourself math at this school anyways, the teachers usually suck
Melissa Macasieb MATH130 Expecting an A- KevinRich 05/20/2013	Macasieb is very organized but speaks with a monotone. Her exams r easy if you studied. She frequently makes mistakes on the board. Overall the class is not hard if you put in the work
Melissa Macasieb MATH130 Anonymous 05/01/2013	I liked Dr. Macasieb alot. She was very organized with her lectures and made sure everybody was able to see. Her exams were just like the practice ones she gave us and were extremely similar if not exactly the same to the homework problems in the book. If you go to lecture, you will do well
Giovanni Forni MATH130 Expecting an A- terp339 12/24/2012	Professor Forni is a very nice man but is awful at teaching. He goes off on tangents during lectures and it is very difficult to keep up with him. I completely stopped going to lecture and just went to discussion instead. He has very nice and helpful TAs that understand the students. Forni's exams are impossible, I got a 43% on one exam but still managed to get an A- in the class. He curves very generously to compensate for his difficult exams. Overall awful professor but a good curve
Joel Cohen MATH130 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2012	This professor is a very nice man, but one of the WORST teachers I have had in my entire life. His lectures are all over the place and make no sense what so ever. He makes the simplest topic extremely complex and confusing. It doesnt help that he makes numerous mistakes on the board when doing a problem. I honestly can say I have no idea whether he just made a mistake on the board or just being confusing as usual. He LOVES to use the quadratic formula on exams which is kinda annoying
Joel Cohen MATH130 Expecting an A- kenjudge 12/12/2012	Mr. Cohen is an awful math teacher. Overall, I feel as though his class does not help anyone who has not taken calculus before. It is extremely unorganized and will spend the majority of the class on material that you will never need to know. I did well because I have taken Calc before and went to every discussion. When I went to lecture though I found myself in the front row not paying attention or learning a weird way of doing things that I have never learned before and overall just having me leave very confused. Take someone else! I do not have a problem with his personality but TAKE SOMEONE ELSE!
Melissa Macasieb MATH130 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/17/2012	I would definitely recommend Prof. Macasieb. This class is relatively easy if you have taken calculus before. Prof. Macasieb gives a lot of examples in class which is really helpful. Homework is optional which is nice, always go to discussion because that's where most of the points are earned. Tests are moderately hard, but there is a curve on the final grade. Overall good class and good teacher.
Doron Levy MATH130 Anonymous 12/21/2011	His teaching style is just doing a lot of examples on the board. He goes into a lot of unnecessary details explaining something and just confuses me. Also since you can't use calculators for any part of the class, it's a pain crunching numbers in your head, but i guess it's a useful life skill. The only reason why I did ok in his class is because i took an honors level calc course (not AP) in high school.
Doron Levy MATH130 Expecting an A terp121 12/18/2011	Dr. Levy is an amazing professor. He taught the concepts very thoroughly and taught straight out of the textbook, so if you had to miss a lecture, you could teach yourself the chapter. His exams are fair, and he does not like word problems so he strictly tests the concepts and does not try to trick students on the exams. Homework is optional so you only need to do it if you need practice. At the end of the semester, he says that what really matters is what you know at the end, so if you have like a C average in the class but get an A on the final he'll likely give you an A in the class. I highly recommend taking him.
Melissa Macasieb MATH130 Anonymous 12/02/2011	She actually isn't as bad as the other reviews say. She explains everything very clearly, although sometimes she goes too in depth in proving a concept that it becomes a bit confusing. Good for math majors though. Homework is not collected although the quizzes are based off of hw questions. I already took calc in high school so this class was a bit redundant. I never did hw nor did I even open the book, just studied notes. However, if you did not take calc before, you better do the hw and study for this class!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH130 Anonymous 03/31/2011	I am going to compare Cremins vs Justin So I took MATH130 with Cremins first. He is not a bad professor at all, but if I had a choice, I would have definitely waited one semester to take it with Justin. Cremins teaches relatively well, but at a quick pace so taking his lectures would be beneficial to you if you took calculus before in high school or somewhere else. His exams are challenging sometimes. If you have never seen calculus before in your life, then take it with Justin. Unlike Cremins, Justin really takes everything step by step to make sure you know whatever he is teaching means and why he is doing whatever he is doing. Justin also puts out sample tests that are pretty much verbatim, (except for variables and etc.) to the actual exams. The grading system he has is also good because you can either concentrate on your exam grades, or your group work, quizzes, and final and take the higher grade. Meaning if you get an overall C on your midterms and get an overall B on group work, quizzes, and the final, you get a B in the class. This is much more flexible than Cremins, where you get what you get out of the entire total of quizzes, mid terms, etc. Justin sometimes writes useless transitions like "lets think about this" or "think about it!" but that doesn't really bother me too much. His handwriting is also very neat, which sometimes Cremins lacks. So in a nutshell, if you have taken calculus before, are really good at math, Cremins is a good choice. If you are not so great at math and want a slightly easier grading policy, Justin's the way to go.
Casey Cremins MATH130 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/05/2011	This class is impossible if you take it with Cremins. The TA quizzes are hard and Cremin's exams are impossible. Don't take it with Cremins at all.
Casey Cremins MATH130 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/16/2010	The quizzes in class are impossible, thanks to Joe the TA who is bitter because he's never been laid, but the projects are easy. Class is very boring. He knows the material but has the worst tone and accent in the world. He didn't curve this semester, which really sucked, but is understandable because the average was a 78%.
Casey Cremins MATH130 Anonymous 12/16/2010	Casey Cremins is a really nice guy but not a very good professor at all. It takes him half an hour to go over a single example sometimes. He really knows his math but he just comes off a bit...awkward in lecture. I didn't learn very much from him, and if you have Joe Galante as a TA, you're screwed. Joe thinks it's his personal responsibility to create quizzes 10 times as hard as Cremins's tests to "prepare you properly." If you have the option, don't take Cremins for MATH130. There's no required homework and the tests aren't terribly hard, but you won't learn anything and you will fall asleep in his lectures.
Casey Cremins MATH130 jel07 12/16/2010	Dr. Cremins is a very nice person, he's just not an especially good lecturer. His class is deathly boring but not exceptionally hard. He's full of arcane knowledge and loves to go on unnecessary tangents. He explains things well, if you can stay awake. I did like his accent and the fact that he was a good sport about being a bore. Weekly quizzes and worksheets in discussion help your grade. You need to study to do well but don't kill yourself studying, the material is not that difficult. Not bad overall, remember that it's calculus that sucks, not Dr. Cremins. The main problem is the boring material, not the prof, hence the 4 stars.
Casey Cremins MATH130 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2010	I feel bad leaving a lukewarm review for Dr. Cremins because he really is a nice person (though he may not seem very approachable in lecture) and because he does care about the material. The fact is, Dr. Cremins just isn't a very good teacher. He pretty much taught straight out of the book, occasionally using similar problems on an overhead projector. It wasn't always very easy to follow what he was doing, and he always took FOREVER to do things. So class got boring quickly. He also did not seem to communicate very much with the TAs. He'd say one thing about how our Monday quizzes would be, and then they'd turn out to be completely different. Or he'd go through all the steps of solving a problem on the board only for us to do the same exact problem on a worksheet in the Wednesday discussion. He can't teach but his tests are predictable. It is not impossible to get an A.
Christopher Davis MATH130 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/10/2010	Amazing professor! Interesting, personable, and an effective teacher. If you go to lecture and pay attention, you will get an A in the class. Tests and quizzes are not hard because she does many practice problems in lecture. I highly reccomend taking this class!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH130 Expecting a B eeverhar 05/06/2010	Justin is a really great professor! His lectures are really easy to follow, and actually makes the lecture a little more fun. He does everything in a way that is really easy to understand, but even if you still can't grasp the concept, he is always willing to talk to you after lecture, at office hours, or whenever. You still need to study, but most of the time, a lot of the problems are right from the old exams, or from class problems. I would recommend Justin to anyone who needs to take a math course.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH130 Expecting an A amic41 03/02/2010	LOVE HIM!!!!!! If you have a choice definitely choose him as your professor.
Casey Cremins MATH130 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2009	Cremins is an Ok professor. He definitely teaches you the material pretty clearly and goes over it very slowly. He teaches it to you by proving how things work. If you like to just learn the shortcuts and memorize them this will be a drag. If you like knowing how and why things work in Calculus, this is the way to go. The discussions are very helpful. I learned more in the discussions than the actual class. 1 day a week are quizzes where the TAs go over the material and use very similar problems on the quizzes and they are easy 10/10s every week. The other discussion are projects where you get worksheets and can work in partners which are also 10/10s. My TAs were Wei and Paula. Wei was a very good and nice TA who did a good job of going over everything. Paula I wasn't a fan of. She really didn't answer questions about the worksheets very clearly. Overall, if you like learning why things work take this professor. Due to the size of the lectures you can also teach yourself out of the textbook if that works better for you.
Casey Cremins MATH130 made4tv09 12/18/2009	Professor Cremins did not do such a great job teaching this course. He knows what he's talking about but it was very hard for him to explain some concepts and questions when students asked. He also did not give review sessions or make up any review sheets to prepare us for exams and made the problems that we focused on in homework and applications way more complicated than what was taught. I do not recommend him for this course.
Doron Levy MATH130 Expecting a C Anonymous 04/14/2009	He is an amazing teacher and I learned a lot from him. He takes the time to explain every little thing in great detail and he has a style of teaching which takes getting used to but once you get used to it it makes other teachers seem so confusing! Be careful to study for the final because that's how I got screwed over... He is the best.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH130 Expecting a B PossePrincess 04/12/2009	Justin is amazing. I was considering taking 220 for my required calculus course, because it's the easiest. However, everyone raved about Justin, so I decided to take 130. I'm no math person, but he makes this class easy. I am definitely taking him again for 131!
Doron Levy MATH130 Anonymous 12/20/2008	Weird teacher. explains things too much and still unclear. the only reason i got an A is because I had taken calc before.

Joel Cohen
MATH130

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/19/2015

This man is SOOOOO nice! I wish he was my grandpa! With that being said he isn't the best lecturer. His lectures are pretty boring and no one shows up but his exams are fair. His final however was exceptionally hard

Casey Cremins
MATH130

Expecting an A
sandra m
12/30/2013

DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. You dont learn anything in lectures, all he does is narrate the book. The exams are fair, however you get A LOT of points taken off for trivial stuff, even though you still come up with the right answer. I had an A in this class RIGHT UP UNTILL THAT STUPID FINAL which brought me down to a C+. THE FINAL HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT WE LEARNED AND WAS NOTHING LIKE THE EXAMS. HE MUST HAVE BEEN POSSESSED TO GIVE US A FINAL LIKE THAT. TERRIBLE MAN. TERRIBLE PERSONALITY.

Giovanni Forni
MATH130

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/05/2013

Professor Forni is a really nice guy, but he can't teach very well. People rarely showed up for lectures. Also, the TAs sucked so much. They were terrible teachers too, and they gave us so little time for our quizzes the first several weeks. Exams are difficult, but if you consistently do the homework, you should be fine. You have to teach yourself math at this school anyways, the teachers usually suck

Melissa Macasieb
MATH130

Expecting an A-
KevinRich
05/20/2013

Macasieb is very organized but speaks with a monotone. Her exams r easy if you studied. She frequently makes mistakes on the board. Overall the class is not hard if you put in the work

Melissa Macasieb
MATH130

Anonymous
05/01/2013

I liked Dr. Macasieb alot. She was very organized with her lectures and made sure everybody was able to see. Her exams were just like the practice ones she gave us and were extremely similar if not exactly the same to the homework problems in the book. If you go to lecture, you will do well

Giovanni Forni
MATH130

Expecting an A-
terp339
12/24/2012

Professor Forni is a very nice man but is awful at teaching. He goes off on tangents during lectures and it is very difficult to keep up with him. I completely stopped going to lecture and just went to discussion instead. He has very nice and helpful TAs that understand the students. Forni's exams are impossible, I got a 43% on one exam but still managed to get an A- in the class. He curves very generously to compensate for his difficult exams. Overall awful professor but a good curve

Joel Cohen
MATH130

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/19/2012

This professor is a very nice man, but one of the WORST teachers I have had in my entire life. His lectures are all over the place and make no sense what so ever. He makes the simplest topic extremely complex and confusing. It doesnt help that he makes numerous mistakes on the board when doing a problem. I honestly can say I have no idea whether he just made a mistake on the board or just being confusing as usual. He LOVES to use the quadratic formula on exams which is kinda annoying

Joel Cohen
MATH130

Expecting an A-
kenjudge
12/12/2012

Mr. Cohen is an awful math teacher. Overall, I feel as though his class does not help anyone who has not taken calculus before. It is extremely unorganized and will spend the majority of the class on material that you will never need to know. I did well because I have taken Calc before and went to every discussion. When I went to lecture though I found myself in the front row not paying attention or learning a weird way of doing things that I have never learned before and overall just having me leave very confused. Take someone else! I do not have a problem with his personality but TAKE SOMEONE ELSE!

Melissa Macasieb
MATH130

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/17/2012

I would definitely recommend Prof. Macasieb. This class is relatively easy if you have taken calculus before. Prof. Macasieb gives a lot of examples in class which is really helpful. Homework is optional which is nice, always go to discussion because that's where most of the points are earned. Tests are moderately hard, but there is a curve on the final grade. Overall good class and good teacher.

Doron Levy
MATH130

Anonymous
12/21/2011

His teaching style is just doing a lot of examples on the board. He goes into a lot of unnecessary details explaining something and just confuses me. Also since you can't use calculators for any part of the class, it's a pain crunching numbers in your head, but i guess it's a useful life skill. The only reason why I did ok in his class is because i took an honors level calc course (not AP) in high school.

Doron Levy
MATH130

Expecting an A
terp121
12/18/2011

Dr. Levy is an amazing professor. He taught the concepts very thoroughly and taught straight out of the textbook, so if you had to miss a lecture, you could teach yourself the chapter. His exams are fair, and he does not like word problems so he strictly tests the concepts and does not try to trick students on the exams. Homework is optional so you only need to do it if you need practice. At the end of the semester, he says that what really matters is what you know at the end, so if you have like a C average in the class but get an A on the final he'll likely give you an A in the class. I highly recommend taking him.

Melissa Macasieb
MATH130

Anonymous
12/02/2011

She actually isn't as bad as the other reviews say. She explains everything very clearly, although sometimes she goes too in depth in proving a concept that it becomes a bit confusing. Good for math majors though. Homework is not collected although the quizzes are based off of hw questions. I already took calc in high school so this class was a bit redundant. I never did hw nor did I even open the book, just studied notes. However, if you did not take calc before, you better do the hw and study for this class!

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH130

Anonymous
03/31/2011

I am going to compare Cremins vs Justin So I took MATH130 with Cremins first. He is not a bad professor at all, but if I had a choice, I would have definitely waited one semester to take it with Justin. Cremins teaches relatively well, but at a quick pace so taking his lectures would be beneficial to you if you took calculus before in high school or somewhere else. His exams are challenging sometimes. If you have never seen calculus before in your life, then take it with Justin. Unlike Cremins, Justin really takes everything step by step to make sure you know whatever he is teaching means and why he is doing whatever he is doing. Justin also puts out sample tests that are pretty much verbatim, (except for variables and etc.) to the actual exams. The grading system he has is also good because you can either concentrate on your exam grades, or your group work, quizzes, and final and take the higher grade. Meaning if you get an overall C on your midterms and get an overall B on group work, quizzes, and the final, you get a B in the class. This is much more flexible than Cremins, where you get what you get out of the entire total of quizzes, mid terms, etc. Justin sometimes writes useless transitions like "lets think about this" or "think about it!" but that doesn't really bother me too much. His handwriting is also very neat, which sometimes Cremins lacks. So in a nutshell, if you have taken calculus before, are really good at math, Cremins is a good choice. If you are not so great at math and want a slightly easier grading policy, Justin's the way to go.

Casey Cremins
MATH130

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/05/2011

This class is impossible if you take it with Cremins. The TA quizzes are hard and Cremin's exams are impossible. Don't take it with Cremins at all.

Casey Cremins
MATH130

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/16/2010

The quizzes in class are impossible, thanks to Joe the TA who is bitter because he's never been laid, but the projects are easy. Class is very boring. He knows the material but has the worst tone and accent in the world. He didn't curve this semester, which really sucked, but is understandable because the average was a 78%.

Casey Cremins
MATH130

Anonymous
12/16/2010

Casey Cremins is a really nice guy but not a very good professor at all. It takes him half an hour to go over a single example sometimes. He really knows his math but he just comes off a bit...awkward in lecture. I didn't learn very much from him, and if you have Joe Galante as a TA, you're screwed. Joe thinks it's his personal responsibility to create quizzes 10 times as hard as Cremins's tests to "prepare you properly." If you have the option, don't take Cremins for MATH130. There's no required homework and the tests aren't terribly hard, but you won't learn anything and you will fall asleep in his lectures.

Casey Cremins
MATH130

jel07
12/16/2010

Dr. Cremins is a very nice person, he's just not an especially good lecturer. His class is deathly boring but not exceptionally hard. He's full of arcane knowledge and loves to go on unnecessary tangents. He explains things well, if you can stay awake. I did like his accent and the fact that he was a good sport about being a bore. Weekly quizzes and worksheets in discussion help your grade. You need to study to do well but don't kill yourself studying, the material is not that difficult. Not bad overall, remember that it's calculus that sucks, not Dr. Cremins. The main problem is the boring material, not the prof, hence the 4 stars.

Casey Cremins
MATH130

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/15/2010

I feel bad leaving a lukewarm review for Dr. Cremins because he really is a nice person (though he may not seem very approachable in lecture) and because he does care about the material. The fact is, Dr. Cremins just isn't a very good teacher. He pretty much taught straight out of the book, occasionally using similar problems on an overhead projector. It wasn't always very easy to follow what he was doing, and he always took FOREVER to do things. So class got boring quickly. He also did not seem to communicate very much with the TAs. He'd say one thing about how our Monday quizzes would be, and then they'd turn out to be completely different. Or he'd go through all the steps of solving a problem on the board only for us to do the same exact problem on a worksheet in the Wednesday discussion. He can't teach but his tests are predictable. It is not impossible to get an A.

Christopher Davis
MATH130

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/10/2010

Amazing professor! Interesting, personable, and an effective teacher. If you go to lecture and pay attention, you will get an A in the class. Tests and quizzes are not hard because she does many practice problems in lecture. I highly reccomend taking this class!

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH130

Expecting a B
eeverhar
05/06/2010

Justin is a really great professor! His lectures are really easy to follow, and actually makes the lecture a little more fun. He does everything in a way that is really easy to understand, but even if you still can't grasp the concept, he is always willing to talk to you after lecture, at office hours, or whenever. You still need to study, but most of the time, a lot of the problems are right from the old exams, or from class problems. I would recommend Justin to anyone who needs to take a math course.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH130

Expecting an A
amic41
03/02/2010

LOVE HIM!!!!!! If you have a choice definitely choose him as your professor.

Casey Cremins
MATH130

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/19/2009

Cremins is an Ok professor. He definitely teaches you the material pretty clearly and goes over it very slowly. He teaches it to you by proving how things work. If you like to just learn the shortcuts and memorize them this will be a drag. If you like knowing how and why things work in Calculus, this is the way to go. The discussions are very helpful. I learned more in the discussions than the actual class. 1 day a week are quizzes where the TAs go over the material and use very similar problems on the quizzes and they are easy 10/10s every week. The other discussion are projects where you get worksheets and can work in partners which are also 10/10s. My TAs were Wei and Paula. Wei was a very good and nice TA who did a good job of going over everything. Paula I wasn't a fan of. She really didn't answer questions about the worksheets very clearly. Overall, if you like learning why things work take this professor. Due to the size of the lectures you can also teach yourself out of the textbook if that works better for you.

Casey Cremins
MATH130

made4tv09
12/18/2009

Professor Cremins did not do such a great job teaching this course. He knows what he's talking about but it was very hard for him to explain some concepts and questions when students asked. He also did not give review sessions or make up any review sheets to prepare us for exams and made the problems that we focused on in homework and applications way more complicated than what was taught. I do not recommend him for this course.

Doron Levy
MATH130

Expecting a C
Anonymous
04/14/2009

He is an amazing teacher and I learned a lot from him. He takes the time to explain every little thing in great detail and he has a style of teaching which takes getting used to but once you get used to it it makes other teachers seem so confusing! Be careful to study for the final because that's how I got screwed over... He is the best.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH130

Expecting a B
PossePrincess
04/12/2009

Justin is amazing. I was considering taking 220 for my required calculus course, because it's the easiest. However, everyone raved about Justin, so I decided to take 130. I'm no math person, but he makes this class easy. I am definitely taking him again for 131!

Doron Levy
MATH130

Anonymous
12/20/2008

Weird teacher. explains things too much and still unclear. the only reason i got an A is because I had taken calc before.

Reviews for MATH130