MATH240 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Shin Song MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2024	Great professor. I definitely learned so much paying attention to lectures. To be fair, the lectures are a little boring, but if you pay attention and spend time reviewing the textbook after class, you will be fine. There are weekly discussion quizzes, but they are very easy, the lowest 2 of them are also dropped. The exams are definitely a lot harder than the quizzes, but still manageable if you are willing to put time to study hard outside of class. She also is very understanding, and gives a lot more practice and review for exams than other professors. Would highly recommend Song for Math240 as long as you are committed to putting in a good amount of effort studying after class.
Shin Song MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/20/2024	The class itself is not that difficult and she is super nice, but I've had to teach myself almost everything past the first couple of weeks because her lectures are just her reading from the textbook and copying down formulas. Some topics she won't even do examples on. But, discussion quizzes are free, my TA would basically work out the problems on the quizzes right before we take them. Exams are also pretty easy if you do the practice exams she gives. I think you'd be better off taking another professor if you can, but it's not the end of the world if you have to take Song
Shin Song MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/26/2024	Very nice person, but lectures are useless as she gets content straight from textbook(no need to go if you do assigned textbook probs and look at posted online notes). Discussions are actually really useful (but still don't rlly need to go), weekly quizzes are free as TA shows similar problems right before quiz. Has decent practice problems for exams. Exams are stupid long and always has one question that we had little practice with but aren't too bad. Take if you're fine with only coming exam days and can learn from textbook.
Shin Song MATH240 Anonymous 10/24/2024	she’s a nice enough person but not a good professor. her lectures don’t really make sense and i’ve had to teach myself everything. the discussion sections are basically just a second lecture that still doesn’t make sense. there is no homework, only suggested problems that she uploads days after the lecture, which she doesn’t give the solutions to. for the second exam she didn’t upload the practice exam until 10pm 2 days before, leaving us with one day to do it. she also didn’t put any practice problems on a certain subject on said practice exam but there were questions on it on the actual exam. she also doesn’t drop any exams…hoping for a big curve at the end of the semester. TDLR; you’ll basically have to teach yourself this course. study hard for exams because you never know what she’ll put on them.
Shin Song MATH240 Anonymous 10/22/2024	She's a nice person, but her lecture style is really not great. The lecture consists of her writing down theorems word by word directly from the text book at a incredible speed without much explanation. This is really not good since linear algebra involves a lot of abstract ideas and her lecture style does not help breaking down the concepts. I ended up needing to self teach myself everything through textbook and youtube videos because the lecture is so hard to follow.
Shin Song MATH240 Anonymous 10/15/2024	She's nice and writes decent notes, but she relies completely on the textbook. There's barely been a single lesson she's done so far that wasn't doing the exact same thing the textbook was doing (same variables and examples), which isn't great due to the textbook itself being unclear too. She occasionally makes mistakes in the material being taught, making the lectures even more unreliable. The only real plus to lectures is the review day before the exam, but you're most likely studying by yourself at that point. For many professors, the textbook is more so used as an additional tool to help students review and study, but for Shin, the textbook is almost required. Quizzes in the class are lenient and graded fairly as long as you show that you know what you're doing. Even if you screw up on a few of them, you'd be fine grade-wise. Exams though are another beast. The questions range from rather easy (such as simple determinants or row reduction) to hard and obscure questions that are either relegated to the textbook or have only been done a month prior (looking at you, E1 Q3). The true and false questions are also particularly bad due to the fact that they're meant to trip you up at the end of the test. The worst part of it is how so many points are allocated to justifying your answers in English, which is especially bad due to how she wants you to explain them in a SPECIFIC way by question. You can be right in your explanation, but if it's not a specific explanation she was grading on, you're docked a few points. Speaking of, for the practice problems, you're only given the answers in the Tuesday discussion (where if you miss them on the board because the TA erased them as soon as possible, tough luck), adding unnecessary difficulty to the course. For practice exams, they only help for easier exam questions so if you think you're gonna get practice on the harder questions, you're SOL if you don't search the entire textbook. I will say that she's good at explaining questions and material when asked, most likely due to her being a highly-rated TA prior to becoming a professor (as seen in an older review and on other platforms). However, she still acts like a TA as a professor, meaning her lecturing style depends on other material, leading to the rampant use of the textbook. Overall, she's good if you want a decent grade without putting in too much effort on anything besides exams, but if you actually want to know the material (which may be necessary for Math or CS), it's better to take Yashinski or Wong over Shin. Tldr: She's good for your grades, bad for your education, but better than Rosca. You could probably do just fine in the course if you used the textbook instead of coming to class. Make sure to study like hell for the exams.
Shin Song MATH240 Anonymous 09/22/2024	Her notes and resources are alright, but the way she explains things aren't the best. Just make sure to follow along with the testbook and you would be good.
Haoran Li MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/20/2024	Took him for MATH240 over the summer. As someone who came into the class not knowing anything about linear Algebra I felt pretty confident by the end in my abilities. He was patient with his students and very understanding. Linear Algebra can be a hard class but taking it with Haoran made it seem doable.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Anonymous 08/13/2024	She may have an understandable accent, but she is incredibly unorganized and does not prepare students for exams very well. My recommendation is Khurana as she seems to care more about her students.
Shin Song MATH240 Anonymous 07/29/2024	Shin was my TA for MATH240 and she was the absolute best. She always went above and beyond, is a great discussion teacher, and cares genuinely about the material and her students! She also had a website where she updated and created supplementaty documents regularly. 100% recommend.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/17/2024	Honestly, I love his lecture style and personality. His notes were clear and helpful, and he always posted them online. I did well on all three exams, and was expecting an A, but got a C on the final, which was a lot harder than the other exams and also weighted very heavily. I don't think I can blame him for that though, just be sure to ask questions as soon as you're confused. It's obvious that he loves the topic, as he likes to make nerdy math jokes. My TA, Alzubair, was also super helpful. It's a little hard to understand him sometimes, but he always tried his best to explain topics. He also gave us tips on how to do problems in a much easier way than we learned in lecture.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/12/2024	I personally really enjoyed the class and thought her accent was completely understandable. Very down to earth and willing to sit down with you during office hours to help walk you through the material. Class does require investing time on your own to make sure you actually understand what’s going on, but it’s a math class after all. I would say if you need or want to take this class be prepared to actually commit to learning the material, go to her office hours, and understand its a four credit class for a reason (even if the homework isn’t as bad).
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/10/2024	TL;DR : If you can self study well, take this class. Pros: - Her homeworks, quizzes, and exams are fairly easy and close to what gets covered in lecture and in the textbook. If you can do the practice problems in the textbook and do the practice exams she gives you, you'll be set for the exams. - Most of the TA's are really kind and will help you with whatever questions you have - She's genuinely a kinda person and likes to joke around in class, she's a pretty chill person too. - Her MATLAB projects are reasonable, and you can work with a partner for all of the projects. Cons: - Her handwriting isn't the best, and her lectures can feel scattered a lot of the time, so you're better off going to another MATH240 lecture or just reading the textbook. - She does have a slight accent, so if you're used to listening to accents, then you'll be fine. ----------------------------- Pro tip: 3Blue1Brown's youtube playlist on Linear Algebra helped SO MUCH. I can't put into words how much those videos helped visualize things for me. Definitely watch his videos while your taking this course
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/30/2024	The course if made up of 10 quizzes (15% total, lowest 2 dropped), 4 matlab assignments (10% total), 3 exams (15% each), and the final (worth 30%). Overall the difficulty of the quizzes might depend a little bit on your TA, but most TA's go over a question identical to the Quiz right before the Quiz which make it very easy, my TA was also extremely nice with partial credit, on one quiz I made a mistake on the very first problem which affected all of my other answers, but i only got one point off (out of 20 points). The matlabs are sometimes annoying, and its never really talked about in class, but they are not particularly difficult, and you're allowed to work in a group. The exams are fair, but contain a lot of multiple choice. Overall, the lectures are very interesting but I was usually always exhausted by the end of them, because there is a lot of information to absorb.
Archana Khurana MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2024	If she's teaching a math class that you need - take her. She makes everything simple to understand. She explains concepts for the first part of the class, and then walks you through problems on her iPad for the second part. Regarding exams, she lets the class know during the review class what types of problems to be familiar with for the exam. The class averages were very high for the first two exams. The third exam was tough because it covered a lot of material. All of the exams were friendly in terms of difficulty - including the final. It seemed to me that she wanted everyone to succeed.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2024	She was a solid teacher and a very nice person. At times, she went very fast and would just show us her prewritten notes, but she only did this for a few lectures. Tests are annoying because you only have 50 mins to do them, but she was nice to help us review for them. My TA, Shin Song, did a great job preparing us for exams with practice. However, professor needs to maintain better communication with her TAs because my TA was often unaware about changes made by the professor. All in all, I was worried coming in to this class because of her reviews but she's actually a pretty good professor.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2024	Sweet and funny person, and her accent isn’t an issue, but her lectures are very disorganized. After the first lecture, I literally decided to self-study for the rest of the semester on top of going to lecture because I knew that was the only way I could learn. Not much of a workload, but my self-studying made up for it. There are weekly quizzes that are online and you have two attempts. They were pretty fair. There were 3 exams and 4 MATLABS. The exams were definitely harder than examples we did in class and the quizzes but they made me feel prepared for the final. The MATLABS were easy, though I would appreciate having more than one week to do them.
Archana Khurana MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2024	A very organized professor who cares about her students. This year she started posting notes before a class start so that during class you can follow along more easily. Her midterms are very fair since she gives a lot of practice exams/materials. And she took time outside of class to host review sessions for the final so the students would feel less stressed. Imo, she's just one of the nicest professor out there:)
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a C- Anonymous 05/18/2024	First off the workload wasn’t too bad. There is weekly homework and canvas quizzes, and three big tests. The grading is fair, not as generous with partial credit as I would have liked but nothing insane. One annoying thing is that homework is due on paper in discussion, so discussion attendance is basically mandatory. As far as the professor goes, she is really nice and most of the reviews here are wayyyy too low. Dr. Sahinoglu is a pretty good teacher and definitely cares about her students. For example she will hold extra office hours before tests and is always happy to answer questions. Her lectures are a bit boring but are understandable if you pay attention. The best part is that the curve is VERY generous. You only need around a 50% to pass with a C- which saved me. As long as you don’t get behind and keep up with homework/quizzes you’ll be fine. Dr. Sahinoglu is really nice, don’t be scared off by these reviews.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/17/2024	Look, she isn't perfect. I do agree that she can have a hard time explaining topics. I actually think that the way she explains things is great, but it feels like she only knows that one way of explaining any given topic, which is a problem if you do not understand the first time. But she is very, very nice. I do not understand the comments about the accent, maybe it was worse in the past, but she is perfectly capable of being understood. The curve was very generous.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2024	I would definitely recommend Professor Wong for anyone taking difficult math courses. He makes taking notes for exams easy and is always very clear about challenging concepts. Specific details mentioned on exams are clearly mentioned during lectures. Quizzes are extremely easy, as we are told beforehand what each question on the quiz (about 1-2 questions each) would be about ahead of time. While I initially struggled to understand the more conceptual aspects of this class, these difficulties were less about the teaching and more about the challenging nature of MATH240 overall. Wong is also very helpful during office hours with a slight sense of humor.
Archana Khurana MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2024	She cares about her students.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Anonymous 05/17/2024	She's a really kind person who knows their stuff, but I don't recommend unless you plan on self learning everything. Lectures are directly outlined from the book no deviations, extra workload is light, exams were difficult conceptually dense.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/16/2024	A lot of people slammed her for being really bad and having terrible English but at least for MATH240 she was actually pretty good. She's nice, has a good sense of humor, and her grading is very generous. MATLABs were extremely easy, they held you hand through the whole thing so don't worry if you "don't know how to code". Weekly quizzes (but they're online at home) and weekly homework, but neither are super terrible as long as you took notes/get help from TAs. Lecture material is somewhat similar to what will be on your exams, and discussion is pretty helpful too, but I'd say try not to get caught up in the weird vocabulary, just learn as much of the theory as you can because half the exam is True/False or short justification based on the theory. The actual computation is so much easier than any calc class you will/have already taken. She also curves like 20% or something. I got super lazy and stopped trying and ended with a 65% and still got a B- for my final grade. Basically, if you don't get super lazy and try to put in a little effort outside of lecture, you're chillin.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/16/2024	The lectures are ok, but only if you read the textbook beforehand. Her accent is very easy to understand, so I don't understand the people complaining about it. I enjoyed the class, but if you don't learn well from a textbook, you may want to pick a different professor.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 05/15/2024	great person, tragic teaching
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/14/2024	Wiseley is an incredible professor. He has an even-paced lecturing style that stays consistent throughout the semester. He never front loads anything so you always feel like you understand the course content. What makes the class even better is his incredible arsenal of PhD TAs. Their discussion sections are incredibly helpful—anything that you were unfamiliar about from lecture gets cleared up instantly. Grading for this class is also very fair and stress free. There are 4 very simple matlab assignments that help with general understanding of course concepts, 10 quizzes (very straightforward and your two lowest get dropped), and 3 midterms. The exams are never curveballs and if you complete his review sheets before each one you should be fine. Overall, great guy, great class, you're guaranteed to do well if you go to class.
Archana Khurana MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/14/2024	Cannot get better than this. Best professor I've had during my 4 yrs at UMD.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/12/2024	Completely incompetent. Her lectures are just her tracing the textbook and even then she makes mistakes in copying it and gets mad when people call her out. Needs an ego trim and/or to read the textbook herself and do some practice problems to brush up on the information she's supposed to know.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/12/2024	Hatice is a very kind lecturer and really cares about her students. She also gives a very generous curve and distribution when it comes to exams and finals. However, I feel that she explains material at a very high level and for most of the semester I was teaching myself and not getting much from the lectures. Hatice makes herself very available for office hours. I recommend attending as much as you can and get a very solid understanding on theorems and definitions, as she will expect that you know them when explaining things to you. Her exams can be pretty rough as well but most if not all the questions are from the textbook and the curve makes up for it. She also gave us all croissants and held lawn office hours which was very kind of her.
Archana Khurana MATH240 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/11/2024	Archana was a really good professor that really cares about her students. Holds really useful review sessions and her exams are basically a culmination of the review she does in class and has it posted to elms. Easy exams if you really study the material, gives EC problems on exams as well
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/10/2024	Professor Hatice is a great teacher. She gives very little work per week, which is nice because you can work at your own pace. Her lectures are easy to follow, and I'm honestly not sure what all the bad reviews are for. She holds late-night office hours before exams and when the weather is nice, she holds outdoor office hours on the mall with croissants. She is very kind and is open to all questions. She wants you to succeed, and is constantly asking for feedback. The exams sometimes were tricky, but overall they weren't too bad if you attended class and discussion.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a C- Anonymous 05/10/2024	Very good instructor, all of these low reviews are just people who are butthurt they didn't do well in a hard class. She is a little boring, but a really nice person who really cares about her students. Very willing to help and tends to be fair. Would recommend.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/09/2024	Did a very poor job holding attention during lectures. Exams were difficult but reasonable.
Abba Gumel MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/08/2024	It's been a year since I took this class (Sp23). Looking back, I realize that I learned nothing in this class and this has severely under-prepared me for my upper level CS classes. I just had to ask my friend what a dot product and cross product are. (I could also just be stupid but I'd like to think that my 3.9 GPA says otherwise)
Archana Khurana MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/08/2024	Archana gave us 3 mid terms, with the first having an avg 90%+. However, this was only because she virtually gave away the questions and they were just different numbers. However, exam 2 and 3 could not be any different, as the grades were significantly lower. There was one question on exam 3 that we had seen one time from a one off extra review section. Archana's voice is extremely high pitched, and on top of this all she repeats herself up to four times, to a 200 person lecture hall. This almost became a game between my friends and I, as we would take small bets as to how many times she would repeat herself on a given problem. She would also post her notes, which were helpful, as she would also post her filled out notes.
Qi'an Chen MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/02/2024	He is a great TA, very genuine, and cares about students. He goes through questions quickly but does a good job of breaking down the content and defining everything to the tea. He takes precise notes on the board and posts answers to review for us to study.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/24/2024	Dr. Wong is a great professor. His lectures don't make sense during lectures but once you go home and do the option practice it clears everything up. The quizzes are really easy the TA goes over them before you take them (at least mine did). His exams are fair. As long as you do all the practice he gives you, you will be fine. Just remember to work in groups for MATLAB which will save you a lot of time.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/23/2024	she is the sweetest soul, her exams are hard but you have to study and attend office hours for help! i would definitely take her course again, also her tas were very helpful. while i do agree that its hard to pass her class, she curves generously so dont worry.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/01/2024	i hate to say this because she is literally so so nice and sweet but her lectures are just so incomprehensive and hard to follow. She is pretty unclear about content on exams and is kinda all over the place sometimes, her accent isn't the problem. The workload is super easy I just don't feel like I'm ever properly prepared for exams because I'm basically teaching everything to myself.
Abba Gumel MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 03/14/2024	Awesome.
Javier Reyes MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/27/2024	the GOAT really helpful and accommodating during office hours
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Anonymous 02/22/2024	I had Wong during the fall 2023 semester and all I have to say is take him if you can. Although he goes fast, his explanations are very concise, but my TA (SHE IS A QUEEN) still CARRIED me during discussion. The quizzes are predictable as there are no tricks and no surprises (there are quizzes every week but he TELLS you what the quiz will be on during lecture, so it is very important to attend lecture if possible. His style of teaching is honestly fairly typical and traditional for a math course, he goes over examples and tries his best to answer questions. He emphasizes INTUITION (MAKE SURE TO STUDY A LOT OF THEORY FOR THIS CLASS! The true/false questions in the textbook prepare you) and mentions calculus 3/multivariable/MATH241 occasionally during class because most of what we've learned are also in that class. There are no webassigns and no homework, but he does give you suggested textbook problems that are for the most part pretty helpful, AND DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE GRADED MATLAB WORK. Most of the textbook problems are harder than what you'll be learning, BUT IT'S OKAY, you can always go to office hours and ask or ask your friends. No homework but it is HIGHLY encouraged to go to office hours, ask questions, and practice! I've always found the conceptual and computational stuff easy to grasp, and most of the units use previous units (like row reducing in the very first chapter), so it is very important to make sure you have the fundamentals down. When it comes to the theoretical stuff, all I can say is practice and ask questions. With exams, they are fair but he allows for regrade requests. If you attend lecture and study, you will be fine. Overall, amazing teacher. He is the GOAT! He explains concepts very well, quizzes are easy, exams are fair, and this might be more subjective but this class was honestly much easier than Calculus 2.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/21/2024	His lectures were not hard to follow, and any confusion on class material was cleared up in discussion pretty well. There are weekly quizzes in discussion, but he tells you what the question(s) will be asking in lecture beforehand, so as long as you study what he tells you to it's not hard at all. Exams were pretty fair as well. I'd recommend taking him if you can.
Foivos Chnaras MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 02/01/2024	lowkey the goat man.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a C soymilk 02/01/2024	goated teacher. i honestly shouldve tried harder so i don't really have the right to say this... but i half ahhed most of the hw and studied the night before for exam and somehow passed bc he taught well. the class isnt hard if you take notes
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/22/2024	She’s awfully nice and also her accent was completely understandable? So don’t really know why people are complaining… If you go to lecture you should get an A… I skipped like 10 of them tho LOL. Her curve is so effing generous and she gives Baklava at the end of class! 🤗 she is so pookie
James Conway MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/20/2024	Conway's first time teaching MATH240 was a mixed bag. The good -- very nice guy. Will crack a joke here & there and makes himself approachable. Hires excellent TAs, seriously, they made discussion so worthwhile. All lectures are recorded, all notes are posted to Canvas. MATLABs are straightforward, as are the weekly quizzes. His notes, while hindered by bad handwriting, are VERY thorough. This is where Conway distinguishes himself: you will understand linear algebra in greater depth from him than anyone else. His lecturing is excellent, and his answers to questions are very clear. Critiques -- He's harder than the other professors. His teaching style focused more on abstract and theoretical understanding, not practical examples or more straightforward explanations. It's a perfect example of "doing too much." This means that he will test you on that one bullet point he scribbled down while talking about that one proof. Our exam averages were consistently lower than the other teachers, and this is why. Additionally, his notes feel overstuffed sometimes. He will write down mathematical proofs that fall outside the scope of the course. I also feel like he moved too fast sometimes; he would often finish a section early and then just go off on a tangent and write more to fill the time. I think cutting out the filler & writing slower/more legibly to correct the pace would be sensible, as I don't like feeling like I have carpal tunnel 30 minutes into lecture... I like Conway as a person and I can appreciate how he encouraged a truly comprehensive understanding of the subject matter. But he is not for everyone and demands more from you than I initially expected. He is very receptive to student concerns, and I think he'll improve in future semesters teaching this class.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting a C Anonymous 01/19/2024	not bad but not great. my grade was going to be a b+ but i tanked the final which is why it's a c. my ta wasn't very good but he did grade the weekly quizzes pretty leniently. if you're confused def talk to him bc he can be easier to understand than the TAs. lectures are NOT RECORDED and i had a 9am lec so i ended up oversleeping a lot of the time
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 01/14/2024	She's not as bad a teacher as everyone says. She's quite understandable, her handwriting is legible, and she even waits for you to copy down notes. The only thing is the tests did not have enough questions, so you lost points quickly. Also, they sometimes contained questions which we barely went over in class.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/03/2024	lectures are great and so are discussions. I ended with a B since I didn't attend any lectures or discussions after the first 2 weeks. I only went if there was a quiz or exam. Review his practice exams and you'll be fine. he also tells you what the quiz questions will be in lecture, so if you don't go, ask someone what he said will be on the quiz. I ended with a B mainly because I didn't attend any lectures or discussions, so I was self studying the whole class. If you go to class, it should be an easy A.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/28/2023	He is really boring and honestly idk why so many people say he is great. His exams or ok but the final was awful.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/28/2023	He follows the textbook pretty directly, but he works through the problems pretty well so that you can understand all of the concepts. The quizzes are pretty easy, and he curves the exams that most people did really badly if they did not reflect the general knowledge of the class. He is very kind and understanding if you have any problems. Although he is somewhat of a boring lecturer, I still found them helpful to go to.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/20/2023	Wong is fast paced, but that's the nature of the course. And its not like he ignores questions, either. His quizzes are relatively easy, even more so if you do a handful of his optional textbook HW problems every so often. In fact, most of his questions are just HW problems, in my honest opinion, even for midterms and the final. There are some conceptual TF questions that he asks, but those are relatively easy if you either understand the concepts well enough or if you do some practice. Overall, the class was relatively easy, though it required a bit of effort. Try not to cram and just be consistent in terms of practice.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/20/2023	I had him for both MATH241 and MATH240. His exams are fair, his lectures are engaging, and his notes are very easy to follow. There was no curve for either class and no recorded lectures but they aren’t needed. He makes learning difficult concepts feel easy.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2023	I really like Wong's class. 240 is a pretty fast-paced course, and while I wasn't always absorbing everything he was saying in real-time, his notes on the board are extremely helpful (particularly his little yellow side notes-- write them down!!). He doesn't necessarily try too hard to be liked, but he's so good at handling and validating student questions that you just naturally have to love him. Wong is communicative and reachable outside of class, does an excellent job of explaining abstract concepts, and overall made me love the course. Prioritize having him for 240!
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2023	TLDR: Class had a low workload, with some improvements to be made in her explanations, but pretty good for her first time teaching math 240. She also gave us baklava on the last day of lecture. The class was very by the book, but in that respect she still did well. I had no problems understanding her even with her accent. She sometimes had to clarify her handwriting or had to reexplain variables because she used no vector notation, but it was pretty minor. She acknowledged that people had complained of her going too fast so she really slowed it down when doing examples. She could improve on her explanations; Some topics were taught better than others, although my TA covered many blindspots (shout out to Ryan Chen). Although in fairness, the ones she didn't do as well on were less important in the exams. Maybe prepare to go to discussion or ready the textbook to supplement the lecture if you're not confident in the class, but it was not bad. Homework was very low, and the weekly quizzes were not bad and you had 2 tries.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Anonymous 12/19/2023	Not a good 240 teacher at all. Hard to follow and doesn’t curve at all.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting a D Anonymous 12/19/2023	Didn't curve a single assignment the whole semester. If you do badly on one assignment, you're basically screwed the whole way through.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/19/2023	Not the best lecturer, mic wouldn't always work so back of lecture room could not hear, not easy to do well
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/18/2023	The vast majority of what is taught you will not understand. Linear Algebra is much more difficult than advertised which I did not expect. The class goes heavy into theorems, definitions, and abstract concepts. Linear Algebra is a hard transition from Calculus because it is much less computational. Wong himself is severely overrated. Not sure what is up with the high reviews. While he is a great guy that is approachable and will answer all questions asked during class well, much of what he is actually teaching will not taught well. Exams 1 and 3 were reasonable, but exam 2 was very difficult with a low average. The practice exams were just ok. Wong as a teacher is just ok, you could definitely get worse but really not anything to get excited about when taking his class. Lectures are boring and not very important because so much of what he says wont make sense. Quizzes are easy and he will let you know what's on them a few days before. The final was brutal but not impossible. It's important to understand that this class will not be easy especially taken with other hard classes int he same semester. Overall, I would not recommend Wong for 240 even though his reviews seem to be so high.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2023	stefan seems like a good professor but i didn’t really like his teaching style since it was literally all just kind of reading straight from the textbook. linear is a relatively theoretical and i felt like i learned better just reading the textbook. also, my ta would just tell us to do our homework during discussions which made discussions a little useless. class is very test/quiz heavy, with the only non-quiz material being the 4 matlab projects (very easy). the tests are pretty fair though, and as long as you do the homework + some of the practice exams, you should be good.
James Conway MATH240 Expecting an A bermudarhombus 12/16/2023	Conway is incredible, he's an engaging lecturer, a fair grader, and is genuinely understanding if you forget to give an assignment .
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/16/2023	don't miss a lecture or its gg
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/15/2023	Great dude, very very fair exams. I skipped most of the lectures because it was in the morning, but I could mostly stay up to date because he never strayed from the textbook. The only problem is that 85 percent of the class is quizzes and exams, which is rather heavy, so you have to do well on those because there is no other significant way to bring your grade up.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2023	I love Stefan. His personality and teaching style led to really straightforward and engaging lectures. He was always open to answering questions in class and gave really quick, thorough, comprehensive answers; he knows his stuff. Especially for him not usually teaching linear, I was thoroughly impressed. He never made us do hard applications of linear algebra and kept applications of subjects pretty simple throughout the semester. Exams were fair, sometimes a little difficult and sometimes a bit of a time crunch, but not bad. 3 midterms and a cumulative final. He doesn't have required homework but has practice problems posted if you want or need. Quizzes in discussion once each week, usually pretty easy. Four pretty easy MATLAB projects throughout the semester. Would absolutely take him again because his lectures are crystal clear and he doesn't expect too much of you.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Anonymous 12/14/2023	Prof Stefan is a great professor. I have had him now for both MATH241 and 240 and his teaching style was exactly the same: to-the-point lectures, optional homework, one quiz a week, and 3 exams with a final. My only gripe is that is if you do bad on one exam, it will have a huge impact on your grade so stay locked in for the exams.
James Conway MATH240 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/14/2023	I had a really bad experience in this class. I thought the content was taught in an incredibly unintuitive manner (generally a theorem given with no intuitive context or explanation). There wasn't so much of an effort to give a real grasp or feel for the concepts and everything felt like it was supposed to be retained in isolation which made it hard because linear algebra is a very connected topic. Also the exams were out of 50 so every small mistake you made was amplified tremendously and then review materials were quite different from what the test looked like and asked for. Additionally, the distribution of concepts on the test did not match the way things were emphasized in lectures or quizzes so it felt very nitpicky. A bad time for sure. Would not recommend.
James Conway MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/14/2023	Conway is a very thorough teacher! I enjoyed his lectures and the consistent posting of notes/recordings of lectures was especially useful if you aren't able to make it to lecture. His office hours are also very useful - he takes the time to whiteboard out any problems you might have questions on and explain it to you patiently, step by step. He does have a tendency to value conceptual questions on assessments, which did make the course a bit more difficult, but overall, he's an excellent teacher!
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/13/2023	His class is extremely well structured. If you do the suggested homeworks, you will do well on the quizzes and exams. The quizzes are graded very generously. The exams are written fairly. His lectures never went over time. He is very active on piazza.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2023	Not the best, but also not the worst. I agree with the other reviews here saying that it's difficult to understand much if you aren't in the front few rows, but she gives people time to copy her notes down (she projects a piece of paper onto the board, occasionally using the chalkboard to add important notes/annotate). That being said, I honestly found the textbook more helpful than lectures for MATH240: oftentimes it felt like she couldn't explain stuff people were having trouble understanding in different ways. That being said, in terms of grading I have few complaints. Weekly quizzes which are pretty easy, weekly homework assignments that pertain to 3-5 textbook problems, and tests which, as others have mentioned, are easier than the practices provided on ELMS. I did not find this class very difficult.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/12/2023	Wong is the GOAT. His notes and lectures simplify the material so well and makes it understandable for most students. Ignore reviews that say his class is difficult (the grade distribution says that about 35% of students get an A). He's such an understanding and down-to-earth guy and one of the few 5-star reviews I give on here. I promise you won't regret it!
James Conway MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/12/2023	His quizzes are very easy. The TAs will teach you everything you need to learn right before the exam. But he focuses too much time explaining the behind-the-scenes logic and does not do enough example problems in class. He also goes over everything too quickly. The textbook is amazing though, which is why I was able to self-teach myself. The exams are also fair.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/11/2023	Has decent lectures and simplifies the content to make it understandable. She wants her students to succeed and gives easy exams.
James Conway MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/11/2023	I'm currently taking Conway and I think that overall he is a good professor. The exams are fair and the quizzes are really easy. The only gripe I have with him is I feel that his notes and lectures aren't the best. It might just be me, but I have found that when I watch some of my friend's professors I understand the material a bit better. Overall, I'd recommend taking him his class is not hard enough that you'd have to worry about failing, but I think if you are looking to get an A in this class be prepared to do a lot of studying outside of the resources he gives you.
Josue Avila Artavia MATH240 Expecting an A+ smiletoday 12/10/2023	I will keep it short and simple. Josue is the goat. He is an incredibly TA and makes really confusing topics very very easy to understand. He answers all questions during his discussion sections...and doesn't make you feel like an idiot, a problem most math teacher have. He is brilliant and very relatable. If you have him as your TA you are in luck. Thank you Josue.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/08/2023	Pretty awful overall. I've heard she give generous curves so my grade is probably not as bad as I think but she's still terrible. I am a compsci major and i need to know linear algebra well and she has not prepared me. Quizzes arent super hard but she'll post a quiz on friday and make it due saturday night which is criminal. hard to understand in lecture as well. She is a nice person but not a great professor overall.
James Conway MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/08/2023	I honestly think that Prof. Conway might be slightly overrated. I had him for MATH240 and his lectures were very informative and he made sure to cover the breadth of each topic. But he rarely would cover examples and when he did he would make them very confusing. I took linear in high school and I would say the course is very manageable but having a good TA makes it ALOT easier. I had Josue and he is amazing. 5 stars. Conway is by no means a bad choice, and his exams are very fair, but be prepared to do some extra work outside of lecture.
James Conway MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2023	A lot of these review say Conway is a great professor and even though I do agree but there are some things that may make this class hard for some people. The main thing about his class is that 75% of the final grade is exams, that puts a lot of emphasis on the tests, but the way conway teaches is very theory based, he goes into a lot of detail explaining how formula works. This means that during class he does not go through a lot of practice problems. The exams on the other hand are 100% problems with almost none focusing on the theory behind the formulas. If you want an in depth understanding of lin alg this IS the class for you, but the main problem with this class is that his lecture content and tests don't align well. On top of that he teaches at a really fast speed which makes taking notes and listening at the same time a bit hard. Other than that the quizzes are really easy, he records his lectures, posts his notes, and posts grades to canvas as well as gradescope. If your TA gives good practice problems then this class should be pretty easy, but mine didn't really give a lot of practice problems as I don't know how much it would help.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/07/2023	Stefan is a great lecturer and has relatively easy midterms, which are worth 15%, 15%, and 10% of your grade (10% is your lowest grade). Every week you don't have an exam, you have a quiz in one of your discussions, which are different for different TAs from what I've heard. Personally, my TAs quizzes were very easy and often only 1 question. Quizzes make up 10% of your grade, and the lowest one gets dropped. There is no homework for his class but I would recommend doing the suggested textbook problems to keep up. Other than this, the final is worth 35% which could have a large impact on one's grade, but if its anything like the midterms it shouldn't be too bad. Take 240 with Stefan.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/05/2023	While not the worst teacher in the world, I can definitely get why people were frustrated with her in the past. Lectures can be disorganized, she sometimes spends entire lectures on topics she'll say will only take half, and makes content directly taken from the textbook feel more confusing than it should be. TAs were very lenient on grading homework though and matlabs though, however for exams they seemed to have an "all or nothing" approach when it came to partial credit, which became very frustrating at times. If you do have to take Hatice or in general are struggling with linear algebra, I highly recommend watching Kimberly Brehm's and 3Blue1Brown's youtube series on the subject. They don't cover every topic you'll see in class, but both are incredibly helpful with the majority of them.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/30/2023	Not the best teacher I've had, but probably doesn't deserve as low a rating as she has on here. For Math240, she gave three exams and a final, each worth 20% of the grade. Exams were almost always easier than the practice sets she posted beforehand, and were generally straightforward. 8% of the grade was quizzes, but they were online and she allowed two attempts on each. MATLAB projects weren't particularly difficult and also made up 8% of the grade. Homework was worth 4% of the grade and she only assigned a few problems a week, usually no more than an hour of work. Since this was her first time teaching 240 I'm cutting her some slack, but she wasn't very good at explaining the content and didn't provide much better explanation than the textbook did. It's possible she's just not very good at teaching, but I'd expect she improves as she gets more experience teaching this class. She is very kind and accommodating, and it was nice that she didn't assign a crazy amount of work outside of class. This class in general isn't the most difficult when it comes to math, so even if she is the worst professor for the class, getting the grade you want is still very doable.
Javier Reyes MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/30/2023	A really sweet man who just wants his students to succeed. Sometimes it is a bit hard to understand what he is trying to teach, but he does it with gusto.
James Conway MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/29/2023	THE GOAT!!!! Quizzes and exams are easy, matlabs can take some time but are fair. Records everything. Honestly you don't even need to go to lecture or discussion, just doing the homework will prepare you enough for the exams and quizzes. Also the homework is optional. Only downside for me is that he spends a lot of time explaining how specific formulas or concepts work, which could be seen as a good thing if you really want a deep understanding, but is unnecessary for the assessments.
Hatice Sahinoglu MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/27/2023	Honestly, not as bad as everyone is saying. Her speaking is completely understandable, and her writing is legible, as long as you sit in the front half of the class. She covers material well enough, and her discussions have online quizzes that are difficult but solvable from the material covered in lecture.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/22/2023	He is not as amazing for MATH240 and has a very hard deadline for assignments.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Anonymous 11/17/2023	I don’t recommend him. People say that’s he’s easy or that he’s good but he’s not. This class of his is hard. Although it’s not calculus 1 or 2, it’s challenging in its own way. The only reason why people say this class is easy is because they are either good at math, took calculus 3 or their brains just can understand things quickly, but if you have a hard time understanding concepts at the fast paced Wong throws them at you and then exams you on things that he didn’t cover, then don’t take this class. Yes he will test you in harder versions than what he taught you and sometimes he won’t solve a problem how he wants you to solve it in front of you because according to him you should already know how to do it from the previous chapter and should automatically learn how to adjust that way to what hw is doing here. Your grades are just quizzes, exams and matlab. That’s it. Choose a teacher that grades you on homework, so you can better learn the material.
Shaoyang Zhou MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/29/2023	Very good TA. Explains things nicely and quizzes are usually 5 true false and 1 easy problem. Super nice :)
Yong Cui MATH240 Expecting a W Anonymous 08/29/2023	Going to keep this short he's mostly a TA for math240/math241 and I was unlucky enough to have him for 240. He is not good at explaining things at all he tries to cram theorem and goes too fast like the other reviews here mentioned. The first day of linearly algebra discussion he didn't follow the professor's format of row reduction and made mistakes because he's trying to go too fast because he spent the majority of the time talking about content that wouldn't even be covered until 10 weeks later. If you have him as your TA literally take anyone else even an average TA will be better than this guy. Also I think his grade data speaks for his quality of teaching he's just not very good in fact he's so bad that he has his own planet terp reviews.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A juiceman 08/26/2023	1. Did you think the exams or other major assignments were fair? · The exams and major assignments were very fair, with a direct application of the problems covered during lecture and discussion. — 2. Did you think the professor had reasonable expectations of the students in the course overall? · Yes, the professor had reasonable expectations and focused on direct application of the course material. — 3. Were you a fan of the professor's teaching style? · I enjoyed the professor's lecture style. · It was important to attend in person (and be on time) to catch hints about what would be covered in exams and quizzes. · The hand-written notes on the chalkboard were helpful, and I recommend taking occasional notes on his verbal explanations as well. · Wiseley was patient and took the time to fully answer questions, even if they seemed basic. — 4. Was the workload appropriate for the number of credits? · The workload was relatively relaxed. Only one hour per week was needed for quizzes, and about 6-8 hours were required to complete practice problems for the exams. The textbook was not necessary unless clarification was needed. — 5. Was this course a waste of time or was it beneficial in some way? · This course was definitely worthwhile as linear algebra is relevant to computer science, machine learning, and graphics. · It was interesting to learn about its applications towards the end but this course is mostly applying the concepts. — 6. How much support were you given throughout the semester (office hours, extra resources, etc.)? · There was no class Piazza or answer key provided for practice problems, which made me feel more isolated and unsure compared to my regular CS classes. · The TAs were hit or miss; however, Wisely was particularly helpful during office hours, offering patient guidance from basic principles to a full understanding. — 7. TLDR I would recommend Wisely for MATH240, but attending lectures and studying for quizzes and especially exams is crucial. Completing practice problems and getting them checked is also important. It sucks there's no Piazza or solutions to practice problems.
Yong Cui MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 08/07/2023	It wasn't that bad of a class. I took it online over the summer, so I had ample time to prepare for the tests. There were only four assignments( 2 quizzes, a midterm, and a final). The quizzes were straightforward (just two questions pretty much copied and pasted from his lecture notes), but the exams were a bit difficult. He did compensate for the difficulty with possibly the best curve I have ever seen. However, beware that you will have to self-study to do well since he does not explain things adequately (I just read the textbook and watched some videos on youtube). He does lack personality, and the lectures are pretty boring. I honestly wouldn't even waste my time watching them; just look over his lecture notes. Lastly, I feel like he didn't try too hard to help us understand the concepts; he merely introduced the topics to us and expected us to learn from the textbook. This is how I like to learn anyway, so I ended up with like 97, but many people need more than just the textbook, which is why the final average was 25%.
Yong Cui MATH240 Expecting an A- Joebiden69 07/22/2023	God awful. I’ve never added a new professor/TA before but with how he conducted the course this summer I have to set up a page to warn future students about him. The lectures were impossible to keep up with and he goes way too fast to make any sense to any normal person. He covered way too much theory and proof stuff that was not related to anything on any of the exams which wasted everyone’s time. The class average pre curve on our final was a 21%. That’s terrible do you know how awful you have to be for that to be ur class average he should be absolutely ashamed with how his students performed. I studied very hard and did a lot better than average but I still am not getting an A which I needed to get. Not to mention he gave like no partial points on the final + he only determined our grade off of four assignments. Two quizzes a mid term and a final. If you lose any points on any of these your grade is fucked and o got completely fucked by the final. I hope he reads this and is ashamed of his class average because generally I like to take responsibility for my own grades but I can’t ignore how god awful he was as a TA he should be fired. I forgot to mention he also is unresponsive to emails and absolutely terrible at answering questions. He did one thing right throughout this class and thats curving. thats literally it he should never have this job again
Haoran Li MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/07/2023	Great guy, very responsive and helpful. I never really attend the lectures but he does post his lecture notes which are very helpful as they contain examples and important topics to remember. He goes over practice exams the day before the tests which is very helpful. The class has 10 online assignments (basically hw assignments assigned a week prior to the due date), 2 Matlab projects (not hard at all as they are posted like a month before and you have all the time in the world), 2 midterms (not that bad at all, mostly similar to the online assignments), and one final. The only reason I am giving a 4 star is because he is not the most engaging teacher, I would often get very bored but thats like every math class ever. If you are someone who also zones out often I would definitely recommend Paul Cartie on youtube, he goes over the same exact topics covered in this class.
Yong Cui MATH240 Anonymous 06/30/2023	Worst math class I've ever taken. You might think no homework and just 2 quizzes, a midterm, and a final is a blessing, but linear algebra is a class where you can't get by just self-studying whatever questions you think are helpful. I needed examples of how HE wrote his questions so I could be more prepared for his tests. Not getting that meant the midterm felt like a slap in the face, even after a bunch of studying. His lectures were too theoretical. Now, I'm a math major and the professor I had all year last year got some complaints about being too theoretical, but not from he. He had a reasonable and interesting balance of theory and examples. Yong, however, was almost purely theoretical. Even when he went over an example, he just could not explain it nearly as well as any youtube video I could search up about the same topic. While these help, they aren't going to have the same exact types of questions as his midterms. Beyond that, he's not a personable teacher. He makes no effort whatsoever to connect with or empathize with his students. This was a summer course on zoom. He didn't show his face, and office hours were by appointment only and yet he took multiple days to answer email. The result, along with the sparse assignments, is a course that almost feels like you aren't taking it, until you realize you have the midterm and final. I need more practice questions from him, more approachability when it comes to office hours and questions in general (he often responded condescendingly to them), and just better lectures with way more practical examples. I'm writing this after having just taken the midterm, so maybe something will change my mind before the final.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 06/25/2023	he is a nice guy. however, his lectures were boring and he really taught directly from the textbook. since he was new to math240, he had no practice exams to study with. his exams were not necessarily difficult, but they were very long. the true/false on his exams were taken directly from the textbook, but they were very specific and he didn't go over these much in class. i feel he also doesn't explain conceptual theorems well and sometime they were confusing to understand. overall hes not the worst choice, but also not the best.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/09/2023	Pros: He is an amazing teacher. Like, can explain concepts really well. You don't really need to look at the textbook in this class if you really pay attention in lecture. He responds to emails really quickly and with really helpful replies, and he's always fun and helpful to talk to during office hours. Cons: I often struggle to learn and take notes simultaneously. Which is definitely a me problem, but I know a lot of other professors posted their lecture notes on ELMS, which he didn't do. He did record, but it was blurry because of how outdated the armory tech is. However, the main challenge was that our exams were harder than all other 240 professors. That said, they definitely were fair, but the other professors were just so much easier. Plus, he didn't curve at all. All said though, his teaching skills, approachability, and helpfulness outweigh any of these cons. He teaches very much like he tests, so I would definitely recommend Wong to anybody who plans to attend class, and I wouldn't recommend him if you don't plan to do so.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting a W Anonymous 06/08/2023	Wong is as good as you can get when it comes to Linear Algebra professors, from what I hear and see. His lectures are clear and engaging, and he communicates very well via Canvas. Weekly quizzes in discussion keep you up to speed during the fast-paced course, MATHLAB homeworks are very doable and can be completed as a team, and there is plenty of practice problems posted for exam prep. He definitely appeals more to students invested in the subject, which I had a hard time finding within myself. I had to drop this course because it was too much with my other classes and personal challenges, but when I schedule to repeat it (as I am a CS major and will need to complete 240 at some point) I will be trying to get Wong again. Glhf
Abba Gumel MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/07/2023	Dr. Gumel is very passionate about what he teaches and his enthusiasm shows in his lectures, but finding resources to study with may be abit inconvenient. Would have liked access to more practice problems and more graded practice before exams.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/02/2023	Wiseley is a great lecturer but he moves very fast. You have to be ready to study many hours outside to class to be able to keep up with him. I fell behind once and I was behind the entire semester and had to work very hard for the exams. On top of that, his TAs are all international students with accents that make it very hard to understand them, so its difficult to get help in discussion which is a really important part, so keep that in mind. He does give you hints to what will be on the weekly quizzes which is useful, and I've heard his exams are easier than most other profs. So he's def worth taking.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/26/2023	I cannot express how GOOD of a lecturer he is. You have to attend every lecture or make some friends in the class who you can ask of their notes since the recordings are absolute doo doo, but man, he knows his stuff. He goes over content directly from the textbook, but his teaching enhances the material by making it easier to understand. You can ask questions during lecture and he actually answers them (also he has no problems with doing so), he is very helpful during office hours, and the exams are extremely fair. Yeah, they can be kinda tricky but there was never a problem I got incorrect that I did not ever learn how to solve. Any type of transformation question is what I was really confused on during lecture but that's it. Recommend taking Wisely for any class you can.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/26/2023	Pros: -Easy weekly quiz -Responsive to emails -Friendly -Provided several final exam answer keys from past years Cons: -Teached directly from textbook -Failed to provide extra detail to help students understand complex topics in the class -Failed to provide midterm practice exams Ultimately, I found it hard to understand Linear Algebra under his teaching and midway through the semester I began to attend a different professor's lectures. At the time of this review he is quite middle of the road but is a nice guy and is willing to help if you ask.
Weimin Jiang MATH240 Anonymous 05/24/2023	Weimin is an awesome TA. Very knowledgeable, very good at teaching, very caring. Just down to earth guy. One of the best math TA's without a doubt
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/17/2023	Good instructor although he follows the book pretty much to a tee he explains concepts well and doesn’t give much work. His exams might be hard but he gave a pretty nice grade cutoff at the end of the course. Overall he’s Very nice and worth taking imo.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting a B ikaici 05/17/2023	Decent lectures, and beautiful notes. His exams are decent, but grading is pretty harsh, especially with true/false questions- even if you get the answer correct its practically impossible to even get full credit on the question. Quizzes are weekly and when combined with MATLAB assignments due on the same day it can become overwhelming. Honestly, this class wasn't very fun but I doubt Math240 is that fun anyway.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/16/2023	Extremely overrated. You can either show up to class and get examples that he shows which could be similar to quiz/test questions (don't try to watch the recordings they are recorded on a carrot), but it's completely doable to never go to lecture and just learn from the book/videos. Not much leeway for mistakes, if you do not so good on one exam its gonna really hurt your grade. MATLAB is really boring - no one can say that they enjoy doing it. Honestly, take another professor for easier midterms and less sweaty/pretentious kids. How to do well: Download textbook and study guide for textbook, do problems Do past exams/finals (find the answer keys from past students) - I literally grinded past finals and aced my final. Overall, he is a decent person but most of these reviewers are glazing and he ain't allat.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting a C- Anonymous 05/16/2023	My grade was mostly my own fault, so don't mind that. Honestly, he isn't the worst lecturer as other reviews have said, because they are well structured, he has ample examples and explains each topic fairly in depth where it makes sense. However, it can certainly be not very engaging at times. His MATLAB grading is easy, just answer the questions and you'll at least get a 40/50. Personally I struggled a bit with the quizzes, but if you study the textbook beforehand you will be fine. He is a nice guy, and he is communicative in his office hours and his TAs were great! His exams felt fair, but the True/False questions are very difficult and not many resources are given to actually study how to answer them correctly. Overall, it was a pretty hard class, (I though MATH240 was supposed to be easy??) and I wouldn't have survived without Francisco's curve at the end, which was around 5%.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/15/2023	Very solid professor. His midterms are on the rough side as there is no practice material to study for them. You only have problems from the textbook. His TAs are amazing though and he does give a decent curve at the end. I would recommend him over other professors.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2023	Wiseley is an amazing lecturer. He is very detailed and is always open to answering questions. His office hours are extremely helpful and definitely allowed me to understand the concepts beyond the surface. The midterms are extremely fair as well as the quizzes. Just make sure you practice and do some studying, because lectures alone will not allow you to retain the information to a good level. A few topics take a little longer to absorb but overall I really enjoyed the material. My biggest recommendation is to go to office hours and get to know him.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Anonymous 05/09/2023	He is a very good professor. However, the TA's can barley speak English thus do a poor job explains the examples, which ends up hurting you. But overall, quizzes, exams, and MATLAB's are very fair. Looking back, I wish he would at least post step by step examples of the examples he wants the TA's to go over.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/05/2023	Great professor, very fair. Exams are hard, but pretty fair. Barely any homework throughout the year other than some matlabs which aren't too bad. He's very good at explaining linear algebra and if I had the option to I would take him for another class. Def a Math Department Goat. He is an interesting guy though...
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/04/2023	Horrible teaching, choose someone better worth your time! Trust me.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/04/2023	Honestly, he is a fantastic lecturer I don't know if he recently got better but some of these reviews do a disservice to how good of a lecturer he is, and if you are ever confused about something he has no issue with people asking questions. He always makes himself available for office hours and is really a helpful guy the midterms are exactly like the example problems he does in class and he explains everything so well I can't stress enough of how much a good lecturer he is the only times you might walk away confused is linearly transformation and change of basis because those topics are taught out of order and that's it. Overall solid professor take him if you can you won't regret it. Don't forget to practice because people assume lectures alone will be enough and that's their downfall in this class.
Abba Gumel MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/02/2023	Professor Gumel is a nice guy but is not the most helpful math instructor. He reads from a note pdf on his computer which is word for word taken from the textbook, so you are honestly saving time by just reading the textbook yourself. Your grade is based solely on three midterms, the final, and weekly quizzes which are weighted much less than the exams, so if you do poorly on an exam your grade will show that. There are also Matlab projects in which he has no part, he doesn't even know when they are assigned/due and his TA is in charge of all of that. It is his first year teaching at UMD so I think the class experience overall is kind of a trial run, but he is not the worst ever - you really need to study in order to do well on exams (which he boasts about making hard) and he provides minimal study material so you are pretty much on your own.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/01/2023	Very monotone and unenergetic during lectures. Lectures go word from word from the textbook. You could just read the textbook and get more value out of your time then going to lectures. Suggested questions in the textbook don't represent exam questions. His true false questions on exams are worth 20 percent of the exam grade, and there is no real way to study for them. Grading is really strict. He is new to teaching 240, take someone with more history behind this course.
Fushuai Jiang MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/25/2023	Good teacher, records his lectures. His quizzes and tests are very fair. His lectures could be better but his notes are pretty good and contains most of the information you need to know.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/19/2023	Teaching is based solely on the textbook. Grading on MatLab is incredibly strict, one small syntactic mistake leads to 5+ points off on a 10 point question. Exams are generally fair besides the conceptual true or false section which can be very confusing and unclear. Isn't the best, isn't the worst.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/19/2023	I loved having Manning for MATH240. He was a passionate and engaging lecturer, and was always enthusiastic about answering questions. He never came off as condescending whenever asked questions. He put a large emphasis on the theoretical side of linear algebra, so if you want to come out of this course not only knowing how to do the computation but also understanding the concepts of linalg, I highly recommend taking Manning.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/19/2023	I don’t know how his ratings got so high. The only reason I chose him as my MATH240 professor were these reviews. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT make the same mistake as me. This man recites the textbook WORD FOR WORD for each and every one of his lectures; and that’s all he does. I have found Khan Academy and talented professors on youtube FAR more useful than anything this man has said or done. The homework is unstructured and vague and he provides no practice material yet makes THE VAGUEST true/false questions worth 20% of EVERY SINGLE EXAM (even though you can’t practice them even with the textbook as the textbook DOESN’T PROVIDE ANSWERS TO TRUE/FALSE HOMEWORK QUESTIONS). Overall, he is a very nice man and I don’t feel great writing this review but the amount of mental strain his class has put on me is absurd; and I don’t want anyone to fall into the same trap.
Fushuai Jiang MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/19/2023	NOT a great lecturer, but he knows what he's talking about and if you go to his student hours to ask questions, it makes things much more clear.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/18/2023	I honestly have no clue why his reviews were so high. I attended every lecture and barely learned anything. His lectures consist entirely of theorems and definitions and he doesn't attempt to explain anything. The exams are fair, but the final had content that was not covered at all. I have no point of reference for the other professors, so maybe this is just how Math240 is as a class, but I don't get the 4.63 rating.
Pablo Cedillos MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/16/2023	I had Pablo as TA for Math 240 in fall 2022. He is very kind, inspiring, friendly, and teaches very well!
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/12/2023	I have no idea why people dislike Manning so much. His lecturers are very engaging and you can tell he's really passionate about what he's teaching. As long as you attend class, do all the assignments, and study a bit before the quizzes/exams, you should be fine. Though, I do admit some of the questions on his exams were kind of "gotcha" questions, especially the true and false ones. But a lot of those questions are just homework problems that he tells you to do anyways, so they aren't terrible. Great professor, would highly recommend taking.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a D Anonymous 03/29/2023	His lectures are disorganized and has messy handwriting during lectures, so sometimes it's impossible to understand what he wrote. He has online recorded lectures from COVID so I guess those helped a little. His exams are somewhat fair, but we had weekly quizzes in which it varied from TA to TA. I had to try to learn linear algebra by myself.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/16/2023	Beautiful notes, felt like exams were really easy so far. His lectures are very clear and concise - the pace is a little quick but isn't really a problem. A thing I really liked about him was that he goes into the "why" of things.
Francisco Arana Herrera MATH240 Expecting a C Anonymous 03/11/2023	Don't take him for Math240,these positive reviews are from different courses and he is not like this in Math240. He probably read every positive things about him on here and made it so he doesn't have that anymore. Also this review is his only math240 review. Takes points off for silly mistakes even though your answer is correct you get almost no points because you made simple mistake. Doesn't give mock exams so you have no idea what to expect on the day of exam (considering your whole grade depends on those exams its hit or miss).I read the book and did every exercises on the book but exam is nothing near alike to book exercises. No recordings for the class so if you want to go back to look certain topic you can't.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a B akl2025 02/20/2023	Terence is really chilled and interesting lecturer. He might not very organized with his notes, but he explains difficult concepts well. The quizzes and midterms are fair, but the final for Fall 2022 was more difficult that I thought. Overall, his class is good and I definitely recommend it.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 02/08/2023	Nathan Manning is a great lecturer and his tests are fair. His class isn't overly difficult, I only got a B- because I didn't complete all of the MATLAB assignments. He articulates his thoughts excellently and by the end you will have a good base for linear algebra. Take him if you have the opportunity.
Pablo Cedillos MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/01/2023	I am happy that I had him as my TA for Math 240. No negatives. He’s an excellent TA. Actually the best TA.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/22/2023	Definitely a chill guy and fair exam maker. Straight from the textbook and no one gets A-'s which is cool.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Anonymous 01/05/2023	Many reviews on here are surprised that Manning has a low rating but its not because of an easy A or things just given to us as students. I feel like out of all the professors who teach Lin. Algebra, if you're going to give hard exams that are heavily theory based, then it would be nice to have things that help us know if we are on the right track like practice exam answers. The TAs for this class all teach a bit differently and some are more helpful than others in preparing them for quizzes and material which leaves those with different TAs to fend for themselves almost. I feel like most people who say the class is great are naturally good at math already or come in with some knowledge that prepares them better. I learned a lot no doubt by taking this class and I always enjoy a challenge, but not at the risk of my grade being UMD has a +/- system. For the sake of maintaining your GPA AND learning the material, I suggest another professor. He is a great guy but for me personally, I don't really plan on being friends especially if its just to help my grade. That just seems shallow to me so I rather learn, get my grade, and move on.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Anonymous 01/05/2023	Great guy, very knowledgeable, and always takes time to answer questions. His tests were fair, but the final was pretty tough (although it was made by Manning). He usually said what would be on the weekly quizzes, but would always talk super fast to the point it would be very easy to miss something. Although, he was very helpful during office hours. Definitely a good choice.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/03/2023	Amazing lecturer. He is a child at heart and conveys things in a great manner. Make sure you go to lecture and really take good notes because some specifics that he mentions are very important for his exams and for the final. Some exams are tricky, but as long as you have a good idea of everything going on from a conceptual standpoint, you will be okay.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/30/2022	Good luck trying to get in contact with this guy digitally, not gonna happen. People complain that the exams are too hard or don't reflect what we do in class, but they usually don't do the recommended homework. Our exams are the hardest compared to all the other professors, but he doesn't give A- compared to other professors. He also replaces your lowest exam grade with your final if it improves your grade. I'd say pretty solid professor, you just have to be on top of your own stuff.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/29/2022	Chill Prof but the exams were hard
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/26/2022	Really good, knowledgeable teacher. He shows a lot of different examples but for me, it was really hard to understand everything conceptually. Make sure TO LISTEN TO HIM while he's teaching because nothing he writes will explain anything conceptually. - IF YOU HAVE A BAD TA FOR DISCUSSION, GO TO ANOTHER TA's class. - YOU HAVE TO SHOW UP TO LECTURE EVERY DAY BECAUSE THE RECORDINGS ARE SO BAD (240p with muffled audio) Quizzes are really easy. He tells you the questions the lecture before and there was often an example that he worked out in class of that question (show up to lecture) Final is difficult (got a score in the low 80s). Exams were fair (high 80s,90s) and definitely easier than some of the other teachers like Long. No homework is assigned/graded. Good professor, just wished he explained some of the earlier topics a little more.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Anonymous 12/24/2022	I mean the other reviews pretty much sums up everything I was going to say. Good professor and easy class, take it if you want to learn and also get a GPA booster.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A- iapyges 12/23/2022	I concur with the overall consensus that Nathan is a great guy, and echoing another reviewer, he's also based: he plays video games, thinks that covid is real, and hates Nazis. As for his lecturing style, I found it to be animated and engaging, although his presentation of proofs was sometimes hard to follow for someone with no proof-writing experience. The weekly quizzes, of which two are dropped, are pretty much free points, as are the four Matlab assignments. Exams are fair and very similar to the practice exams, although practice exam answers aren't given out to encourage students to come to office hours and ask questions. Overall, this was a fair but rigorous course with a solid professor who I'd be happy to have again.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2022	Wisely Wong is a beast. Take him at all cost, zero regrets.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/21/2022	Wong is pretty cool. The midterms weren’t anything crazy, and the final was decently difficult. The reason he gets 2 stars is because of how fast he teaches. It got to the point where I felt I wasn’t learning anything so I stopped coming to the class. I learned a decent amount through the textbook and some MIT lectures. The camera Wong records the class with is extremely bad, but I blame that on the ARM building. With all that being said, this class stressed me out a lot because the concepts were flying in class and I could it grasp them, so I spent a lot of time trying to learn it myself. Unfortunately, there were some concepts that he only went over in lecture that the book doesn’t go over, so you do miss some things. Wouldn’t recommend taking this class if you can avoid it.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/20/2022	Lectures are ok but his exams are written so poorly.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/17/2022	Worst professor in the Math department, exams are too hard.
Yong Cui MATH240 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 12/16/2022	Honestly a funny guy when he isn't overly stressed or urgent (he usually is) but not lenient with grading and doesn't do a great job at answering questions. Generally did a good job letting us know what to study for quizzes and exams though.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2022	I feel like I'm the odd one out for saying it because there are just so many positive reviews on here, but I know for a fact I'm not the only one who thinks Wong is very overrated. Yes, he doesn't give you any surprises on quizzes/exams, which I appreciated. Yes, he's a nice guy. But does that mean he deserves a better rating than someone like Justin? Certainly not. The fact that he tells you what to expect on assessments is the upside of his class. But aside from that, I genuinely don't think he is that good of a teacher. He overcomplicates simple concepts and doesn't explain difficult concepts in enough detail because he expects that you'll catch on. Students would often ask him reasonable questions for clarification, to which he would say stuff like "Have you taken Calc 3? Have you taken CMSC250? You would understand if you had. I can't explain this to you, it's just hard because it's math and you'll have to figure it out yourself." He gave exam review problems but refused to give solutions for them, claiming "You can check yourself to see if your work is correct." The problem, though, is that if you don't actually understand the concepts then you can't check your work! I found my TA and the textbook to be way better resources than Wong. I even felt bad for my TA because he had to teach us so much stuff that Wong never clarified in class. Overall, I wouldn't say to avoid his class; just be prepared to do some self-teaching and don't expect to understand the material just from his lectures.
Matthew Welsh MATH240 Expecting an A personasdfghjkl 12/14/2022	Overall, excellent professor. - Moves at an easy-to-follow pace, and covers the material in a way that fits an introductory course. However, he's also willing to talk about more advanced topics during office hours. (e.g. I asked him to explain the determinant, and apparently the determinant of A = [a_1 a_2 ... a_n] is the unique real number such that a_1 ∧ a_2 ∧ ... ∧ a_n = (det A) (e_1 ∧ e_2 ∧ ... ∧ e_n) where ∧ denotes the exterior product) - Notes are hand-written during lecture, he uploads notes to ELMS afterwards in case you miss lecture. - Homeworks are optional, but if you don't do them you'll probably fail the course - Exams are pretty much taken exactly from the homework, with some numbers changed - Clearly passionate about math
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/14/2022	He's a really nice guy, and his quizzes and exams are pretty fair. However, his teaching style is somewhat mediocre, and I find myself often referring to the textbook over lecture notes.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Anonymous 12/14/2022	For a professor that has taught 10+ courses, he most definitely knows how to teach. One of the best lecturers and note-takers at this university. I struggle with math and Wiseley has made me a bit more interested in learning about math. His name truly checks out. Also, a shoutout to his TA Weimin Jiang. Two GOATs in the math department. Please take his class if there is an open spot. You'll hear others complain about their math classes, but not from Professor Wong.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a D Anonymous 12/13/2022	The class is terribly structured and the professor's lectures are not engaging. You are only graded on 3 exams, a final, 2 matlabs, and 10 quizzes (exams taking up the majority of your grade), and messing up on just one exam can affect your letter grade. Only take his class if you are capable of teaching yourself linear algebra. I had to rely on outside sources to understand concepts. Also, he does not respond to emails or he will respond super late.
Matthew Welsh MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/12/2022	Welsh is a great professor, a really nice person and just overall pretty chill. His lectures are interesting, and he uploads the notes online. If you ask a question, he's genuinely happy to answer it, and will do so very thoroughly. The midterms aren't hard, and he's flexible with deadlines and overall accommodating. He actually listens to feedback form the students. The class feels like a community, where people know each other and are actually interested in the lecture material. He took a lot of time to grade homework and midterms, but that's not a big issue in my opinion. Also, during the last midterm, it was a bit of a disarray, in the sense that even the TAs weren't sure what material is going to appear on the midterm, but it worked out fine in the end. Overall I would really recommend Welsh. He's so far the best professor I've had.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/09/2022	Gave pretty engaging lectures was overall a pretty enthusiastic teacher. The way he taught however was theory heavy which is not my specialty. The one time I interacted with him over email, he just offloaded questions to his TA's and replies honestly made him feel like a douche. Overall, quizzes and exams was fair but most of my learning came from the textbook instead of actual lectures.
Matthew Welsh MATH240 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/09/2022	A really nice guy and generally easy to understand professor, but took forever to grade assignments (other than midterms) and didn't always provide the best study materials. Seems a lot better than other lin alg professors though so he'd probably be your best bet.
Weimin Jiang MATH240 Anonymous 12/08/2022	Goated TA. He is very knowledgeable about the information that he teaches. I usually do not understand math TAs, but Weimin condenses the information so that you can understand it better. It also seems that he cares about his students. Whenever anyone has a question, he will answer with a good in-depth explanation. He also has a great sense of humor whenever he cracks a joke. One time he didn't know how to say a word, so bro said, "Como se dice..." in such a fluent accent. It was truly the funniest thing he said. Wherever this man goes in life, if he ever teaches a course, I am willing to take that course.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/07/2022	Very enthusiastic and positive guy, but a terrible professor. Lectures often confuse more than teach with more focus on high level extensions of a topic than on the simple topic we're supposed to be learning. Seriously, the content of the class is easy, but the combination of terrible lectures and tests intentionally written to be more difficult than most homework and practice problems makes it difficult to do well even if you have a good TA and can self-study the content well. Honestly, he's a really nice guy, but don't take this class with him.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/07/2022	Wiseley is the absolute GOAT. Midterms are extremely fair. He wants all of the students to succeed. You're able to tell that he loves teaching linear algebra when he explains hard concepts and answering questions from students. Dr. Wong is by far one of the greatest professors I've encountered in the Math department so far. I'd take him no matter what.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/05/2022	I don't know why some people dislike Manning. There's a lot of good things about his class, like getting practice exams nearly identical to the problems on the actual exams. He also gives partial credit for problems, so getting the steps right and the numbers wrong still gets you a fair amount of points. The exams are definitely fair, and you have everything you need to succeed on them. Just do the practice problems, study regularly, and understand the concepts, then you'll be fine. You won't get by without understanding the concepts, since this is a very conceptual course. Those who complain probably have never been asked to do that before. Also, previous lecture videos were given and lectures are not mandatory at all. Practice exam answers are not released, but checking with other people is just fine. If you want an easy A, don't take Manning, but his class is good preparation for the kinds of classes you'll see later.
Matthew Welsh MATH240 Anonymous 12/04/2022	Excellent professor. Easy to understand, midterms are fair, and the best part is that the class feels like a community. I never thought I would say that I would look forward to go to math, but with Welsh, I always do.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/02/2022	Terence is probably the best professor for Math240. He always wears shirts with wolves on them, drinks a Mountain Dew in every class, and always references old sci-fi media in his lectures. He's full of personality and passion but is also a really great lecturer. I've never felt lost in his class, though linear algebra concepts can be challenging at times. His exams are fairly similar to the practice ones, but they are a little challenging - especially considering how he doesn't give homework, and the only grades you get are three exams, two MatLabs (very easy), and ten quizzes (moderately easy). He does curve the class by replacing the lowest exam score with the final & dropping the two lowest quiz grades.
Matthew Welsh MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/28/2022	Welsh is a great professor. He is is very accommodating towards his class and takes the class feedback into account. He writes his lecture notes by hand during the class which is nice if you are also taking notes. Even if you miss lectures, his notes are pretty easy to understand. He's pretty good at explaining the concepts but sometimes the things he says can be confusing, but just watch the concept on youtube or go to his office hours. He hasn't curved any of our midterms so far, but I've gotten a decent amount of points back on both, so don't be afraid to go ask for more points.
Matthew Welsh MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/28/2022	A living legend is a great way to put it. He's very kind and understanding and doesn't lack as a professor. He's flexible with deadlines and is very helpful during office hours. He definitely cares about his students and makes this class easy!!!
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/27/2022	I don't want to hate on Nathan. He's a fantastic lecturer (very well organzied) who wants his students to learn the ins and outs of linear algebra. He also tries to lighten up the mood during lecture by saying or doing something funny (got on his knees and begged for us to memorize the rotation matrix). Occasionally, he goes on tangents about a proof or some student's questions. His exams are fair (3 plus a final), there's weekly quizzes, 4 matlab projects, and homework isn't graded. However, I just wish he gave answers to practice exams. That way we would know if we did the problem right. Other than that, good professor.
Matthew Welsh MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/25/2022	He's good at teaching, understands the course subject very well. Don't let the content creep up on you, though... the first half of the semester is much more lightweight than the second!
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/17/2022	Manning is a nice and passionate teacher with exams on the same level of difficulty as practice problems you'll do in discussions. Unlike other classes, the exam questions are not multi-step derived forms of problems, they are literally exactly the same problems you will do as practice/review (aka ezpz). There are a few flaws, but I think the class is good enough to warrant a 5/5. For example, it's not always entirely clear what the point of some part of a lecture is because he likes to go on tangents based on student questions and/or some proof that likely won't be that useful to you. That being said, I found his lectures more than adequate for understanding the subject. You can kind of get a sense of what will be helpful. Write down the important parts, don't worry about writing every detail of the proofs, and the class will be easy.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/15/2022	I was really surprised to see the negative reviews here because I really love this professor and Linear Algebra. I'm honestly not that great at math but I think Manning is an incredible professor and very clearly knowledgeable and passionate about what he's teaching, and if I'm ever confused I just watch previously recorded lecture videos and everything starts to make sense. His exams have gotten easier and more reasonable, though they are still somewhat harder than other professors. He makes them super similar to the exam reviews he puts out on ELMS so if you just study those questions you can ace the exam. He's also really accommodating with your circumstances; I was out with COVID for two weeks and he was super reasonable in helping me find time to make up my work and exams. Overall, don't trust these super negative reviews on here, I had a great time in Dr. Manning's class and I'm not any kind of math nerd, I was just there to pass the class and move on with my degree.
Matthew Welsh MATH240 Expecting a C Anonymous 09/25/2022	Decent professor who hand-writes lecture notes during class and uploads them online so you don't have to attend lectures if you don't want to.
Matthew Welsh MATH240 Anonymous 09/21/2022	Matthew Welsh is a living legend. He is extremely chill and takes his time to explain concepts. He is extremely accommodating and truly adjusts to feedback from the class. The semester has been easy going so far as the workload is manageable and he makes sure to be reasonable with what he expects from his students.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 09/08/2022	Very thorough lectures, he makes things very easy to understand. Exams are fair and homework can be tricky but not too bad.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a D Anonymous 08/08/2022	Terrence was not a bad professor. However, he don't respond to the emails. Also, he don't give homework at all, by which some people won't learn and won't have enough problems.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 06/02/2022	Knows his stuff and you will learn a lot if you take him. However... his exams are MUCH more difficult than every other professor, and he refuses to curve with exam averages of 65%. Not accommodating at all, and is slightly egotistical when you interact with him. Take any other professor if you care about your grade and want a kind professor. Also releases the study guide key midnight BEFORE the morning of the exam because I guess he likes making his student's lives more difficult.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/25/2022	Terence is overall a good lecturer. Linear algebra can be hard for some people to grasp and sometimes he went through material fast, but he would go back and answer questions if you asked. His exams weren't that hard and he held review sessions on youtube and gave us practice exams too. He will never respond to his email though so you're better off going to your TA or Terence's office hours
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2022	I have mixed feelings because I felt like I preferred my experience in math141 over Math240 simply because the exams in 240 had so many easy places to lose points. If you study ahead, his classes are very useful, but sometimes not as much if you didn’t. The textbook was so good for the class and he went directly off of it which helped. He also had easy hw and matlab projects but the timings felt rushed
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2022	A super chill down to earth guy! His exams include questions that are VERY similar to questions he gives you in lectures or homework, and overall his other assignments were straightforward and very doable. His grading policies are incredibly lenient, and if I'm being honest, you get what you get for a grade, especially given his generosity with grading. Linear Algebra is quite the new subject for anyone with experience with math from before, and I will say terence will teach it to you well if you're willing and apt to learn :).
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/20/2022	Highly underrated professor. I learned very well in this class just from the lectures, even though he tells you to read the book and do the homework I was able to get an A with only lectures. His exams are far from difficult, the person below me mentioned a difficult question with a fraction but the next class after you could tell he felt bad, he made an error when making the exam and because the numbers didn't work out how he thought they would he grade extremely leniently on that question. I'm really not sure why he's so lowly rated, after seeing these reviews and then taking the class I was surprised what a great professor Nathan was. Unrelated, but he even plays Elden Ring, so he's very based as well!
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/19/2022	Extremely chill professor. I love this man so much. There is very little homework, but the homework there is is very reasonable and fairly easy so long as you know what you're doing. There are some people who call out in class which can get a tad annoying, but all the lectures are recorded on his YouTube channel; so any time you want to skip and watch the lectures you can. You honestly wouldn't miss too much, but I do overall recommend going to the lectures. The practice exams are fairly close to the real exam, but don't go memorizing them specifically as they don't cover every topic in the testable section and he makes sure to put some of these topics on these tests. The only reason I didn't get an A in this class is completely MY fault as I didn't properly prepare for the exam. Terence is a GOD professor.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/18/2022	Manning is a great teacher but he is veery strict about all his examinations even though they are very tough compared to other professor's exam. No matter what is the average of the exam he will not curve it and at the end of the semester his curving will be bare minimum. If you want to really learn linear algebra in-depth take him. But if you want a A in the class I'd suggest some other professor. He knows the topic really well and will go out of his way to teach but at the same time to get a good grade in his class is tough!
Nathan Manning MATH240 Anonymous 05/17/2022	He is an outstanding lecturer. His exams can be difficult, especially one that was arguably downright unfair, but he apologized for it afterward so it's all good in the end. He is an underrated instructor, if you consider yourself good at math or you're willing to put in the work don't be afraid to take Math240 with Manning.
Terence Long MATH240 Anonymous 05/16/2022	He's a really good lecturer but I don't think he's ever answered anyone's emails, which can get annoying if you have a quick question/concern. Some of his exams were a little difficult but they were mostly on par with what we learned. The only thing I really struggled with was the T/F sections because they were solely based on theorems and memorization and applying them, and I'm not very good with that, especially since there are hundreds in the book.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Anonymous 05/14/2022	Lectures are interesting and help you understand the topic very easily, take him if his class has a spot.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Anonymous 05/11/2022	Manning is genuinely passionate about the subject, and it is very obvious that he's incredibly knowledgeable in the topic of linear algebra. Also usually a very nice guy, but that's about where the positives for this dude's class end. I'm going to preface this review by saying I had Hatice Sahinoglu for Math141 (look her up if you've never had her), so I'm absolutely not exaggerating when I say this man is so much worse in almost every way. Firstly, his entire course is structured terribly. Taken directly from his canvas page/syllabus, he expects you to 1) read and take notes on the subject to be covered before class for a half hour at least, 2) come to class and take detailed notes, and 3) do all of the homework problems for every lecture. While 2 and 3 are very reasonable requests, there is absolutely no excuse for telling students to learn the curriculum outside of lecture BEFORE he even goes over it. We pay an incredibly large amount of money to learn from experienced, knowledgeable professors at a flagship state university, and Manning's inability to cover the entire curriculum in class is not even close to a relevant excuse to requiring his students to learn the content from a BOOK before lectures to simply pass the class. Moving on from his general course structure, many students find his lectures themselves to be incredibly unhelpful. Manning moves VERY fast, mainly resulting from a promise he makes to his students that he will never be more than 10 minutes off from his course schedule. Everyone finds the chapter very easy? Too bad, you're gonna be spending a full 50 minutes on it. Insanely difficult topic that nobody understands (aka most of the class)? Sucks to suck, you're gonna be moving on after just one lecture. He very clearly prioritizes being on schedule over ensuring his students actually understand the subject, which he cleverly disguises by asking students "Everybody good?" after covering a main idea. He then glances around the room, and if he sees a SINGLE thumbs up he will move on immediately. His lectures are also incredibly theoretical, and I can barely remember a single time he has provided a solid, concrete example of a topic. There were multiple occasions where students asked "Can you give an example?", and his response would just be a confused look, clearly thinking "Why would you even need an example of this?" when many students clearly did. Even when he agreed to do an example, he'd go off on a 20 minute proof of a theorem that's far beyond the scope of the class, and then never actually specify whether or not we would be tested on it. Discussion sections will be your best friend for actual example problems, since Manning either has the inability to make them, or simply doesn't care about his students enough to do so. Truly the final nail in the coffin for this guy is the exams. As if this class couldn't possibly get any worse, his exams are BEYOND difficult, and Manning clearly enjoys the idea that his exams are regarded as way harder than other professors. As an example, on our third and final exam of the class, we were asked to orthogonalize a basis for a vector space. Since anyone reading this likely doesn't know what that means, just know that it involves fairly tedious computations that get exponentially more difficult throughout the problem if fractions are involved. Of course, in typical Manning style, he gives us a fraction of 14/13 very early in the problem. My final answer (which got full credit)? A vector with massive numbers, subtracted by the fraction 208/6578. His exams prioritize giving problems that extend the topics in class by an amount that makes them barely recognizable. Any problem that you happen to know how to solve is almost guaranteed to require computations that make it impossible to complete within the time limit. Although he does provide practice exams before every exam, for whatever reason he is completely against providing answer keys to them, and the entire class had to practically beg him before he finally agreed. As other reviews mention, his "answer keys" to these practice exams are barely more helpful than the problems themselves. Most of them simply state "put it into MATLAB", and in one problem where students were asked to compute the null space, simply stated "do the null space thing" (I'm not kidding, that's actually what it said). For our third exam, he put out the answer key 2 HOURS before the exam started, and was accompanied by a simple canvas message essentially stating "sorry, my bad". Manning also doesn't curve (even when the exam averages are in the 60s), and doesn't drop any exam grades. For anyone that made it this far, here's my recommendation to you: It's just not worth it. Manning has single-handedly plummeted my GPA, and nearly made it impossible for me to pursue my intended major. Pick ANYONE else, and if there's no other option, just wait another semester. You have to have a strong background in linear algebra and/or theoretical math and proofs to do well with Manning, or put in an INSANE amount of hours outside of class, which is entirely unacceptable for an introduction to linear algebra class.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/09/2022	You get what you expect in Professor Long's class. He's a laid-back, cut-the-BS Professor who teaches you what you need to know. The exams are easy and the HW is light and reasonable. He gave a small curve at the end, which was nice. MATH240 is not the hardest class, and Long keeps it that way. Long is also pretty understanding if you have to coordinate things with him. Long is simply an all-around solid Professor who will get you through Linear Algebra. Good luck.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/07/2022	Very deceiving - he gently/heavily hints at exams being very similar to practice exams that he gives you, and then the actual exam is the practice exam ramped up if you ever have an issue, I swear on my life that he put a fake email in the syllabus, and will never ever never ever respond to anything if you don't directly go to him. He has all his lectures on youtube though, and they are extremely helpful and match what he actually does in lecture, if you ever decide to go. Also, he has absolutely no authority over the class. I physically could not attend lecture anytime after the second week because of how annoying people were in the class with calling out. Also, I know linear algebra comes pretty easily/quickly to some people, and Terence understands that, but if it doesn't come to you quickly, you'll go crazy. I felt like an idiot several times throughout the semester from him saying things like "you can clearly see this...", "this is trivial...", or he just won't explain somethings sometimes because he views everything as trivial, you know, since he is an entire professor and has been studying the same stuff for years straight............... Content wise, he'll give you everything you need, and the homeworks/matlabs were easy. Sanity wise, i feel insane
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a C- Anonymous 05/05/2022	He expects you to speak in linear algebra at the end of his course. So get ready to learn a new math language. His exams are really tough and how questions are formatted is confusing. You might know the answer but the way questions ask you makes you forget everything you know. He usually asks some weird questions that you have never seen in exams that are worth more than half of the exam so even if you knew everything else that 1 question will make you get 50 percent. The positive reviews here are only there because he is a cool and likable person and makes some jokes but I am not taking this course to like the professor I am taking it to pass it and learn something.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/04/2022	Great professor. Explains things extremely clearly. Take him if you can.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Anonymous 04/29/2022	Manning seems like a great guy, but it's a completely different story when it comes to him as a professor. He very clearly understands the material, but he goes through it at such a rapid pace and in such abstract terms that it makes it difficult to follow along in class. His exams are also insanely difficult. On Manning's second midterm, the average was a 65. For reference, the second exam average for Long (another professor, highly recommend you take him instead) was an 80. My friends in Long showed me their practice exam and it was miles easier than any of the questions we had on our practice exam. Manning is also highly averse to posting answer keys to his practice exams. We had to practically beg him to do it for the first exam, and he still only released it the night before the exam. This, at least, was better than what he did on the third exam, where he literally released the answer key solution 2 hours BEFORE the test. At least the final is supposed to be easier because of all the exams that Manning throws at you. Overall, the Nathan Manning Linear Algebra Experience™ is not something that I would recommend embarking on. The only pros are that he's more than happy to help out during office hours and that the final is considerably easier since other professors put their input into the exam as well.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Anonymous 04/29/2022	Manning is a terrible professor for linear algebra and you would be much better off taking the course with literally anyone else. For starters, his lectures are unusually abstract and fast paced. Rather than using concrete examples, he wastes too much time going over proofs and expects that his students understand them right off the bat. A vast majority students fail to understand what Manning is trying to explain and end up spending a significant amount of time outside of class to understand the linear algebra concepts. He also becomes somewhat passive aggressive when students don't understand what he is explaining. The main issue with Manning is his exam difficulty. Exams are either extremely conceptual or require ridiculous amounts of computation. Linear algebra is not a hard topic, but Manning takes exceptional pride in making his exams more challenging than usual. While other professors (such as Terence or Wisely) tend to keep the arithmetic and concepts needed for exams on the low, Manning's exams are so computationally demanding or theoretical that you won't have enough time to finish your exam in the given 50 minutes, meaning many questions will be left only partially answered. The exam practices he gives are barely related to the real exams, and he doesn't provide answer keys to the practice exams until THE DAY of the real exam (answer keys DIDN'T EVEN CONTAN ANSWERS, they merely said to use MATLAB to find the computation, and when they contained numerical answers, they often contained errors). When using Manning's practice exams as a study guide, I found some of the questions to be very difficult and time-consuming, but when I take a look at practice exams from Wisely and Long, I am able to solve them mentally in the blink of an eye. Averages on the exams are typically between 60-70%, which is much lower than what other professors have which is around mid to high 70%'s. In summary, if Manning is your only option, waitlist for another professor or take 240 a different semester. You will save yourself a lot of stress and time if you do so, otherwise prepare to have your mental health and gpa plummet down the drain.
Dmitrii Gudin MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/08/2022	Fantastic professor, very friendly, wants students to succeed. When I took linear algebra over the summer of 2021, he made the content very easy to understand and didn't overload assignments in the short time frame of the class. I highly recommend him for 240 and any other class he might be teaching.
Pablo Cedillos MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 03/13/2022	One of the best TA in UMD
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/25/2021	Wiseley is a great professor and really nice guy. The lectures were straight to the point and easy to understand. He did a lot of first giving the definition of whatever new thing we were learning about, and then going through examples. His exams are fair and easy if you do the suggested exercises for the sections being covered. We had weekly quizzes during discussion section which was a little annoying but still useful for reviewing and making sure you were on top of the new content. He's really great at answering your questions during office hours and is not condescending about it at all (unlike some other profs). Right before the final he held a 3 hour review session on Zoom with practice questions. If you can, take him!!!!
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Anonymous 12/22/2021	He does his best.
Thibaut Castan MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2021	I took this class Fall 2018. I basically self taught myself all the concepts from the textbook (which is amazing). The discussions were pretty helpful (although there were weekly quizzes), but I didn't feel like I got much out of lecture. He has a very thick french accent and writes in cursive, which can be difficult at times, but overall he seemed approachable. Yashinski taught a few of the other sections this semester, and from what I've heard he's a great professor.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/21/2021	Allan is an amazing professor. However, like any math class, your ability to do well in his class and understand the lectures heavily depends on if you practice what you learned during lecture daily. Do this, and going to class won't feel like a bore but a really enjoyable experience. The notes you write down during are also really good for understanding the material, if you were unable to focus during class. In addition, he is extremely helpful during office hours and will make sure you have a thorough understanding of the concept you struggled with.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/18/2021	Great guy, very down to Earth. Lectures were pretty good but took me a couple rewinds to really get it down. He tends to skip over some of the basics of somethings that he assumes you would catch onto, but if you're like me then it'll probably take you a little bit to figure out. Overall, great class and definitely would take Wong again.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/18/2021	Wiseley was one of the best math professors I've ever had. He went really fast in lecture but given all the material we had to cover, he tried his best to explain it in intuitive way. Getting an A in his class is totally possible. I made the mistake of slacking off on the final. Study well and you'll ace his exams.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2021	Underrated professor. People didn’t like him online but his in-person lectures are good and you can tell he’s passionate about the subject.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting a B mewuzhere 12/16/2021	Good professor, not my favorite lecturer. The course was super organized and everything was laid out nicely. The homework and exams were fair. The schedule of the course was clear and followed very closely. However, I found the lectures oftentimes focused heavily on the parts of definitions rather than giving an intuitive understanding. Although there were many times that intuition was given, it felt backwards. A long-winded definition usually came first and I found this overwhelming. Overall this was a decent course. I would not necessarily recommend Allan but I would certainly not avoid his course. I would not be unhappy taking another course with him.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2021	Professor Yashinski is the goat for this class. He's able to easily present the material in a digestible fashion, and the textbook is relatively easy to follow along. I usually studied along with the textbook, but make sure to also go through his lecture notes because there can be some random facts that can show up on the exams. He also has lecture videos (provided for my year) which gave even more information if you miss a lecture. The homeworks are a breeze and the tests are very similar to the past tests he gave as well. You'll do well if you practice the exams. He's usually also the course chair for this course so the final is also not too hard because you'll be used to the type of questions he will put on a test.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/14/2021	As basically everyone else has said, Yashinski is an amazing professor. The only reason I am expecting a B+ is my own inability to take a test without making stupid arithmetic errors (or suddenly forgetting the concept behind a 10 point question). Content is explained amazingly and except for some weird theory-related topics, it clicked pretty much instantly for me. The only grades in the class are 6-question weekly online assignments, 4 MATLAB projects, and the exams. The online assignments are great for making sure you actually understand material as you go.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/13/2021	Unlike what you would expect from his PlanetTerp and RateMyProfessor reviews, Manning is a very good professor for linear algebra: his structure for the course accommodates different learning approaches / styles, his lectures and additional materials were very effective at gradually building an understanding of the subject which is markedly more abstract than calculus, and his office hours were very accessible and helpful. Pros: + Lectures are well structured, very accommodating to questions on lecture material during lecture or office hours + Lectures were optional in person and asynchronous lecture videos were always an option, however in person lectures were very engaging and well tailored to students' needs + Office hours also provided a very versatile option for learning material at your own pace, if you are having trouble with content he's happy to help you through it, and if you are interested in learning concepts ahead of time you can always ask about more advanced concepts, and his explanations here are very useful. + The textbook and 3Blue1Brown videos were very useful in providing additional computational / visual examples and exercises for the lecture material, for you to fill in the gaps between lectures. + Quizzes (graded) and homework (optional) are very useful for reinforcing the content. Cons: - The most significant issue with the course is the exam difficulty, though coming to the end of the semester this can also be somewhat of a benefit if you put in enough work, is the exam difficulty. Manning's exams are notoriously difficult, but by comparison it very much prepares you to crush the final.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/09/2021	Content was all very well-explained, though I mostly just watch the videos. Exams felt super fair and if you did the homework you should be more than adequately prepared. Required homework load was pretty light, though there are optional homework problems you can do for practice. MATLAB projects were actually really good review and generally pretty cool. Would highly recommend.
Wiseley Wong MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/07/2021	Wong was an amazing professor and clearly cares about teaching. His lectures are logical and easy to follow. I genuinely enjoyed 240 with him.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/06/2021	Solid lecturer, tests follow from practice exams and aren't too bad. Have a graded online assignment due every Monday night which is only grade beside exams. Would recommend.
Dmitrii Gudin MATH240 Anonymous 07/24/2021	A great lecturer. I had him for linear algebra in the summer course and he made the material so easy to understand. Though some of the topics were quite difficult to grasp conceptually, his explanations solved that problem. He is a really great teacher and you can tell that he cares about his students and what he is teaching.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Anonymous 06/29/2021	Manning is a bad professor for linear algebra. I took this course in Spring 2021, and there were several issues with this course. One issue was that nothing in the course was easily accessible. You had to ask or email for almost everything, including things like previous midterms because they never stayed published on ELMS. While this wasn't a huge issue, it was tedious and time consuming. Additionally, previous quizzes could sometimes not be given back to students at all depending on your TA. Answers and answer keys for quizzes or exams were also never released or given to students. Other issues about accessibility included the fact that some critical course policies were never written down and published on ELMS. Things like 'how much the curve will be' or 'what material will be on this week's quiz' were questions whose answers were confusing and never clearly explained and always had to be asked about in office hours instead of Manning making an announcement. All of this made it very difficult to study and learn from mistakes and improve on them or understand the course structure in general. Another issue was the lectures. Manning's lectures were often much longer than they needed to be and filled with confusing terms and vocabulary. He actively stayed away from using examples to illustrate key ideas and instead used ever changing linear algebra specific vocabulary to explain things that could've been done much more simply. This makes lectures almost useless because of the difficulty caused by trying to understand what Manning is talking about. My biggest issue with this course was the tests. Manning purposefully designs his tests to take at least 10 minutes longer than the allotted time. This meant that there was at least one question on the test which was impossible to answer properly, or parts of it had to be left blank. This happened on all of his midterms. You almost have to approach it more like a standardized test like an AP test or the SAT or ACT because it requires a strategy on how to manage your time and answer questions in a way that might not be completely correct but will maximize your points. Every course has this to some extent but I've never seen a need for testing strategy as much as for Manning. Manning also does not curve much, if at all despite pretty low test averages (60-70%). This semester he curved 1% or less. Overall I don't think Manning is a terrible professor, but a bad professor for linear algebra. Linear algebra isn't a terribly hard course, and if you take it with another professor or at another university even, you would find this to be true. But Manning makes linear algebra much more difficult than it should be with the way he abstractly explains things and his course policies and structure. Positives about Manning are that he was very personable, easy to like, and his final was pretty fair compared to his other tests. My advice is waitlist for another professor, even if their sections are full because there is a good chance you'll get in, and if you don't, wait another semester, it's not worth it. If you somehow have to take Manning, use the textbook and do the homework because it was the thing that helped the most, more than watching all the lectures.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/20/2021	I took this course in Spring 2021 So looking at some of these review, I guess this review will be a bit of a hot take. While I do have some criticisms of Manning, I generally believe that he's a pretty good teacher. Pros: + His asynchronous videos are detailed enough so that you get enough content out of them, but concise enough that they don't take up too much time. + Manning was more than happy to answer most questions that students had during office hours + Exam question difficulty and partial credit is fair. Not generous, mind you, but I believe that the majority of questions asked were completely in the realm of possibility. + Weekly quizzes offer a simple way to slightly boost your grade. They are also not that hard, and serve as a great assessment of what you know, and what you should study prior to the midterm. Cons: - I do agree with most reviews here that exams (mostly talking about midterms here rather than quizzes or the final) are very hard. However, I believe that most of this can be attributed to exam time rather than exam questions. For all 3 of the midterms, I found myself thinking that if I had just 10 more minutes, I could have aced the exam. Luckily, the final does not have this problem (5 problems in 50 minutes for midterms vs 8 problems in 120 minutes for the final). So for the midterms, just make sure that you not only understand the concepts, but also that you can solve problems quickly. - Jumping off the last point, one thing that causes the midterm time crunch is the sheer amount of computations that are required to be done. This became a large problem during the 3rd midterm, but was also an issue during the other two midterms. While I understand that this is a Linear Algebra class and computations for row reductions are necessary, the amount of fractional computations that can pop up can be insane. I feel like this issue could be solved quickly if we were allowed access to basic calculators for the exam.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/12/2021	Stefan is a pretty good teacher. I think his exams were also well-designed. Never any trick questions. If you did the homework, you can go into the exams fairly confident. And there were no quizzes in discussion sections or anything, so you can safely skip them. The only thing that bugged me a bit is that he switched from synchronous to asynchronous lectures a week into the semester. I prefer synchronous lectures, but it's not that big a deal because Stefan was active on Piazza, so you could still get questions answered there.
Jacob Erickson MATH240 Anonymous 04/21/2021	One of the most condescending TA's I have ever had to deal with. Repeatedly sends strongly worded emails at their students belittling them for making errors on exams. Instead of working through a problem so that students understand, degrades students' work and tells them to "write better answers next time." I hope they never EVER get to teach an actual class because it will be a trainwreck.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/21/2021	Allan is one of the best professors for MATH240. He explains concepts well and his exams are very fair. Homework is optional but helps you prepare for the quizzes and exams. Expect similar questions from quizzes to exams. Sometimes homework has a few harder questions but usually these are to challenge yourself and never appeared on exams. If you have to take MATH240 take it with Yashinski.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/29/2021	Ignore the 1 star review below. 50 minutes is pretty much the standard time most math exams are, even online. His exams are very similar to homeworks, so if you don't do the homeworks, you obviously won't do well on exams. Otherwise, Allan is a god-tier professor.
Stefan Doboszczak MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 03/10/2021	Amazing professor. Explains things very well, answers questions in a helpful way, and tests are extremely fair.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/16/2021	Yashinski's online class was probably the best online math class I've ever taken and will take. His lectures were extremely organized and he explained tough sections well. Homework was suggested, not turned in for a grade, but I doubt you could pass without doing it. Quizzes were same as the homework problems but with different numbers. Exams were similar to past semesters but about 2x the difficulty. I'd say studying the older exams would be your best bet. I personally have a hard time paying attention to lecture videos so I stopped watching them halfway through the semester and switched to just reading the textbook. The textbook for this course is amazing so if you learn well from a book and like math, you'll have an easy time.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A- CrazeddRabbi 01/13/2021	Seemed nice, and held office hours for an hour every day, so definitely a plus there. However, his lectures (asynchronous) weren't great. They sometimes run long which was annoying, but the real problem was that after the first unit he stopped using examples as often. Even when he did examples, they were often still very theoretical instead of numerical, so if you didn't understand the concepts the examples really didn't help you at all, and would often just make you more confused. He would also frequently make mistakes in his videos, and he would catch most of them after a minute or two, but some slipped by - again, normally wouldn't be a huge problem, but if it's one of his few numerical examples (where most of the mistakes happen) and you're already struggling to understand, him making and uncaught mistake will just confuse you even further. Finally, his quizzes and exams were insanely difficult. I got Bs and Cs for most of them. Luckily, there was a standard final exam given to all sections of MATH240 regardless of the instructor. When I was taking the old finals in the testbank as practice, I was surprised at how much easier they were. Whereas most exams I would spend the whole time only to get ~80, I got a 96 on the final with ~40 minutes to spare AFTER checking my work. For another perspective on how ridiculously hard the quizzes and exams were, up until the final exam, my grades within MATH240 and MATH310 were always within less than one percentage point of each other - and considering that MATH310 is an upper-level weed-out class for math majors with a "C" average, that really, really, really should not have been the case.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/12/2021	Had him in Fall 2019. He is simply put, one of the best professors I've ever had. He is clear and engaging during lecture, and it is remarkable how he makes such a complex topic simple to understand. Homeworks are not required, but are strongly recommended for your own success on exams, which were very fair. If you see Allan teaching a class, TAKE IT!
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/11/2021	Excellent lecturer, his videos are very clear with great examples. Exams were also not too difficult.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/11/2021	Awesome professor, would definitely recommend. He's pretty understanding, explains concepts well, and has reasonable tests/quizzes.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Anonymous 01/08/2021	The exams Manning gives are very difficult, and I just found that it was very abstract. Don't take him if you aren't trying to challenge yourself. He is nice overall and seems to be a good lecturer, but sometimes I think he just assumes we know a lot more than we really do.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/21/2020	Very good lectures. Some of the quizzes and exams were a bit more difficult than I was expecting, but overall it wasn't too bad. My main criticism is that some of the MATLAB assignments took forever to grade (one assignment from late September was still not graded by the week of finals), but this seems to be an issue with the TAs than with him.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A tybug 12/20/2020	Great lecturer, great person, and funny to boot. The biggest complaint I heard from my classmates was that the exams were too theoretical / abstract. He split our exams into an open-notes takehome portion and a closed-notes in-class portion, and only the takehome was abstract. I don't disagree that the takehomes were more abstract than people are used to, but frankly, Manning is trying to drill some rigor into the students. If you want rigor, Manning is the professor to take. If you don't, he is probably one to avoid.
Eoin Mackall MATH240 Anonymous 12/18/2020	Really chill, laid-back dude. He designed the class really well for an online environment. There were 5 midterms and they were all take-home, open-notes, and week-long, which relieved a lot of stress of online learning. Weekly homework was 10-15 question Canvas quizzes, but you really should be doing more. He is able to explain concepts well during lecture and is pretty good at drawing/handwriting. For improvement, more of the textbook problems should be assigned for homework.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/10/2020	If math isn't your thing, avoid him. I admittedly have never excelled in math courses, but I've always gotten by. He makes linear algebra seem like some foreign language. He is a very chill and hip guy, but as a professor he's as low grade as they come. The exams are seriously overwhelming, and he gives you practically no time to finish them. Don't anticipate a curve. If he is your only option, wait 'til the next semester. Heed my warnings.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/09/2020	I felt he handled online teaching amazingly well. Lectures were asynchronous (this semester) with each one broken down into separate parts. He closely follows the content from the textbook and presents it in a very clear manner. The organization is great and he really knows his stuff. Homework and discussions were not mandatory, except for ~weekly quizzes which were held at the end of discussions. Lowest two quiz scores are dropped. We got plenty of time to do the MATLAB projects and "take-home" style exams.
Eoin Mackall MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/05/2020	really good lecturer - got into the theory side of things a lot but explained them well enough for anyone to get it; answered questions with really detailed answers, plus quizzes had unlimited attempts + times & you had a week to do all the midterms; chill guy would definitely recommend
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/17/2020	One of the most caring, funny teachers I’ve ever had. Very apparent he really cares about the students and makes the course material very interesting. It’s not the easiest course material but if you put in the work you’ll get an A
Archana Khurana MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/18/2020	I've struggled in other math classes up until this one, but she really takes the time needed to have everyone understand the topics and parts that build up to a new topic. Haven't needed to but I would feel very comfortable going to her if an issue came up as well
Mestiyage Gunatilleka MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/15/2020	I took MATH240 with Danul in Fall 2019. His lectures are incredibly dry; he basically just reads off the textbook while writing the definition word-for-word extremely slowly. Having a good TA can really help you actually learn and master the material. I stopped going to lectures halfway through the semester and it didn't affect my grade at all. The textbook is very helpful, practice problems from the book regularly and you'll be set. The exams are almost exactly like the practice exams.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 02/07/2020	Bad lecturer with poor explanation skills. He only copies definitions from the textbook
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/24/2019	Good lecturer, exams were too hard and poorly managed. Class average was 20 points lower than the rest of the profesors in our semester
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/21/2019	Alan is a really nice teacher but lin alg can be really boring. If you sit in the back, it may be hard to hear him or see what he is writing on the chalkboard so sit as close as you can!! This was one of my mistakes. Honestly I thought this class would be my easy A but I was wrong. Once you fall off, you really fall off since every lesson is based off the previous. (It was hard for me to be on top of doing practice problems for this class b/c I was focused on CMSC216 and CMSC250). This class is not challenging but that does not mean that it is not a lot of work. Doing the recommended practice problems really help for the weekly quizzes and definitely do the practice exams!! I learned the lessons better by going to discussion!! My TA (Chula) was really good at reteaching it in a more simplified way and I learned more from going to discussion than lecture.
Nathan Manning MATH240 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 12/16/2019	Extremely disrespectful. I attended office hours every week, and he didn't help with any of the material whatsoever
Danul Gunatilleka MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/16/2019	I really don't know what's up with the reviews..his lectures are atrocious and simply going to a lecture at the beginning of the school year, and then going again at the end, you will see how only about 1/4 of the students still go. He literally rewrites concepts from the textbooks but with less details. However, he's a really nice guy who is understanding. He really is trying my best in my opinion. I think he'll get better over time (hopefully), and I wish him the best of luck
Danul Gunatilleka MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/12/2019	Review below really says it all
Mestiyage Gunatilleka MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/04/2019	Danul is a great person, but as a lecturer isn't very engaging. Most of the semester I have spent learning the course material on my own because I don't get too much out of his lectures. If you have questions for him he is always good with answering them.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/02/2019	Stopped going to lectures because he literally just writes off the textbook and explains it in a way that leaves you more confused most of the time. Seems like a great guy but he does not prepare you well at all. Basically you can take him and self study the class and go to discussions, you probably will still do well. Just don't expect to learn from lectures.
Danul Gunatilleka MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/19/2019	He is a bad lecturer who seems to only be able to read out of the book and always struggles to express himself whenever he deviates. He also has a tendency to pause in-between many of his words as if he expects the class to finish his sentences. He also makes many errors when writing down problems. I don't know if it was his fault but my TA also seemed under-prepared. The only pro is his quizzes are pretty easy and the TA basically give you the questions earlier in the week. The exams, while vague and confusing, are usually pretty similar to the practice exam. You just gotta learn from youtube/textbook. (MIT OpenCourseWare and 3Blue1Brown are good)
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Anonymous 09/05/2019	Yashinski is quite organized in presenting mathematical theorems and then doing practice problems to help us understand what they look like in application. This is a huge plus compared to the other lecturers. He also avoids that fatal flaw with math professors/lecturers where they teach one thing, and then the whole exam is much harder than the practice problems or there's some derivations that you didn't learn in class. If you're looking for success in math, as tough as it is, he is your... second best bet. Nobody can really beat Justin Wyss-Gallifrent in teaching math at UMD.
Samuel Bloom MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/29/2019	Sam is one of the greatest math teachers I met and is the best type of professor I can imagine. Sam gave great lectures, which are rigorous and clear. Sam gave fair quizzes and exams, he never made questions unclear, and 99% of exam materials are covered in lectures, and others can be found in the textbook.
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/01/2019	Funny, easy, good lectures
Terence Long MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2019	Funny and easier than other professors
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/06/2019	Really good lecturer, kinda funny. Exams are pretty easy as long as you study.
Noah Chrein MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/11/2018	AMAZING TA. I have nothing else to say about that. He was such a good TA and probably taught better than the professor. He is organized and clear about the concepts he is discussing. Very friendly and approachable. A capable teaching assistant and I hope he becomes a professor one day.
Allan Yashinski MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/11/2018	Great professor. Funny and engaging, explains concepts very well and is fair with grading and exam questions. I wish midterms had more time but what can you do? I feel like I really understood linear algebra from the way he taught it. I know his style isn't best for everyone, but his style was perfect for me.
Alex Blumenthal MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/11/2018	I enjoyed 240 with Alex. Very good at explaining concepts and his lectures are easy to follow. Tests weren't too challenging, as long as you understand and do the homework/quizzes you'll be fine. Only gripes I have about the class was that he never provided any practice tests for the exam. Not a big deal though since his exams were pretty close to the homework. He also doesn't drop any quizzes, which makes it a bit less forgiving but the quizzes are also similar to the hw.
Alex Blumenthal MATH240 Anonymous 12/11/2018	Really friendly, knowledgable instructor. He frequently checked in with the class to make sure they understood the material, made himself available for students having trouble in the course. I would recommend taking any course with him!
Alex Blumenthal MATH240 Expecting an A lizi1410 12/11/2018	I really enjoyed taking MATH240 with Alex. He was a great professor and was very organized with his lectures. He was really passionate about what he was teaching, and that made it a lot easier to stay interested. He didn't post past exams or anything, but if you do the recommended homeworks, study quizzes, and do Yashinski's past exams you will be completely fine. Overall, I would definitely take him again if I could. Highly recommended!
Thibaut Castan MATH240 Expecting an F Anonymous 11/19/2018	He french
Ryan Hunter MATH240 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/17/2018	Easy to understand, stays after class to answer questions, responds to emails. Overall, he is a really great professor and wants all his students to understand the concepts well. However, his tests are hard and challenge you conceptually. Our class average on the tests have always been high 60's and even though he gives us practice material he often asks much more difficult questions on the test. I learned a lot from him and he makes sure to set aside time in class where u can ask him questions about the test, but the course was challenging regardless. He also decided to help out a few students at the end by bumping that up 1% which was really nice of him. Great professor, challenging tests.
Joseph Iverson MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2017	Great teacher. Posts fill-in lecture notes so it's easier to follow along with his instruction. Very good at explaining the concepts, especially if you're a visual thinker- he draws a lot of pictures. Would highly recommend.
Raluca Rosca MATH240 Anonymous 12/17/2015	Absolutely the worst teaching experience I’ve had in my life. Dr. Rosca’s research better be damn good, because her teaching could not be worse. She excels at leaving students confused, upset, and totally lost. You could get an A without ever attending lecture, and by the same token you can attend every lecture and still fail if the material confuses you, as it did me. Avoid at all costs.
Raluca Rosca MATH240 Anonymous 01/12/2015	The actual class isn't that hard, in my opinion. However, I think Rosca could have done a better job with engaging the class. She reads off PowerPoints for most of her lectures, which I thought was a bit obscure. Some of the material that was a bit confusing wasn't taught very well by her, so I had to rely on YouTube to teach me some of the concepts. She's very nice at office hours though, so go to those if you need additional one-to-one help. Although not terrible, you should probably see if you can get a different professor for Linear Algebra.
Raluca Rosca MATH240 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/23/2014	She's pretty mediocre as an instructor. She does have the slides that have a good deal of the most important info in the book displayed for you, so it's a good way to guide your notes. Bring the book with you to class so you can write in notes if you fall behind the lecture. She's got an accent(surprise, surprise) and has a drab monotone, and isn't particularly good at communicating material, but she can help you in office hours. A good TA will help tremendously, but one with yet another accent, that moves through material very quickly, like mine, will leave you reeling for your book to study yourself. It's not a bad idea, anyway, since just about everything you need to know in the course is in it, and all the homework exercises are in it. I think this is in every 240 section, but watch out for the MATLAB projects. If you go in with no MATLAB experience and little to no CompSci experience, prepare for long nights of figuring things out. If you've never used MATLAB before, maybe try MATH206 or play around with it before you take this course. One more thing: 100 points are for quizzes in discussion based on homework(12 total, 2 dropped, 10 points each), 100 for four MATLAB projects(graded out of 25), 300 for three 100 point midterms, and 200 for the final, for 700 total. One nice thing she did is if you do better on the final than on your lowest midterm (going by percentages), then 1/2 of the points you earn on the final will replace your lowest midterm, in addition to your final grade out of 200. Great for a final-exam recovery if one of your exams sucked. In summary, she's not that good of a teacher, but she does a good job setting up the course to help you succeed if you put in the work. I couldn't avoid Rosca, as she taught every 240 section this semester, but shop around and see if there's someone better. If not, at least she's not so bad that it would worth putting off a required course that only she teaches that particular semester.
Raluca Rosca MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/22/2014	Dr. Rosca was an all around good professor. Her midterms were fair and her final was easy. She also replaces your lowest midterm with your percentage from your final if higher and drops two of the weekly quizzes. Many people do not show up to class since she teaches out of the book and uses Powerpoints also on Elms, but she was a decent lecturer. Rosca had a bad reputation from being hard the previous semester and especially hardly curving, but this semester her grades were overall higher.
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 08/05/2013	Bar none the WORST PROFESSOR IVE EVER HAD. If you are not a math major DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. If you are a CS major deciding whether to take linear or calc 3 and boyle is your only choice..take calc 3. I'm not sure if it was just my semester but every practice test we were given was VERY different from the actual exam. It was actually quite depressing as me and my friends actually studied the practice exams and would know how to do each computation problem on the exams (and homeworks) and then his exams would turn out to be 30% t/f, 20% proofs (which are from the chapters), 20% easy problems, and 30% random bullshit he just made up while creating it. The class averages on each exam (except the first exam which was the only exam that actually stuck true to the practice exams) were around 50% and he couldn't understand why. Simply put: he does not teach the material, he just goes over random proofs that you will never have to know and then attempts to teach the material (which he ends up failing at doing). Since he fails at teaching the material you will have to resort to paying very close attention to discussion along with doing the homework and reading the chapters. I did all 3 of those things and still ended up with a C+. The only reason why I gave him 2 stars was because he was very understanding when I told him I wouldn't be able to make the final exam 6 hours prior (due to illness) and let me take the alternate exam the day after.
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Expecting an A kingpinchimp 05/20/2013	I was not a very big fan of his teaching at all. He took a very long time to explain anything, and even after I couldn't really understand what he was going for. The lectures weren't very helpful at all, so a lot of times I brought my textbook and just listened to him in case he mentioned anything not in the book. I guess I could DO linear algebra at the end of the course, but I did not UNDERSTAND linear algebra or what I was actually doing. Another complaint I had was the excessive True/False on tests. Unless you memorized everything he has ever said word for word (and more) they are very difficult, and make up literally about 30% of the entire exam. There obviously is no partial credit for these, so on every exam it is really easy to get 10-20 points slashed off right off the bat just for not memorizing some simple and often irrelevant fact.
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/15/2013	I got a B-, and realistically that's on me. I was hoping for a little help from the curve to get the dreaded 2.7 GPA, but no such luck(which is an awful system by the way, why would a professor ever bring this upon someones GPA), but i digress. Boyle isn't the worst professor I've ever taken, but I stopped going to his lecture because he has a tendency to beat a dead horse and I was falling asleep in his class. Discussion and self study helped me well enough, and I aced nearly all the quizzes. My bigger issue lies with how the test-homework format is so different. For homework, you'll be given large amounts of numerical problems to work out, and a couple of theory questions as the last couple for questions. DON'T skip these!!!!! The exams are LOADED with theory questions!!!!!! Know the theory, it is crucial!!!!!!!
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Anonymous 05/06/2013	Boyle made the material a lot more confusing than linear algebra should be. I had to learn everything from discussion, since lecture only confused the few people that still showed up. And what's more, he loves true or false. So much so that it became 36% of our exams. And it's not easy true or false, it's bullshit logic errors that can somehow make something that doesn't make any sense true, which by the way he doesn't go over in class. In short, don't try to take this class with him if you can. The exams aren't fair, lecture is confusing, and he is overall a jackass to anyone that's not a math major.
Antoine Mellet MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/23/2012	Not amazing, but definitely good enough. Stuck to the book 100%, which gives students who are not math-saavy to hear two different perspectives on the material, and gives students who ARE math-saavy the freedom to just skip class and read the book, which is great. Exams were very easy and very straightforward, no curveballs whatsoever. Has a very thick accent but you'll get over it after about 2 class periods. There is a quiz before every class period, but if you take the time to actually open your textbook, there is no reason why you should not end up with a near-perfect score in the end.
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Anonymous 05/15/2012	Dr. Boyle is a genuinely sweet guy that knows what he's doing. That fact that he often lectured without notes shows how knowledgeable he is in his field. During lecture, it can get a bit confusing because he isn't the best at presenting the material in a way thats easy for someone that's not a math major to understand. Lecture can get a bit boring, especially if you don't follow is logic. He does try to engage the class and ask questions. His exams are completely reasonable because many of the problems come from old exams. Having said that, it's really easy to lose points on proofs and true/false questions if you don't know the material well. Quizes depend on your TA - mostly based off homework, easy points. Four MATLABs, easy points. Final is not so easy.
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/06/2012	I liked Boyle; he wasn't a boring professor, and he tried to keep the class engaged by going around and asking people questions about the material during lectures. The content wasn't that difficult, but he doesn't always explain the concepts that well. Then he puts concept based questions on the test that are worth a lot of points with no partial credit. Over all though, I learned a lot and would definitely recommend taking this class with Boyle.
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/06/2012	Boyle is the only teacher whose lectures make the material more confusing. I actually learned more for the first few months by reading the book for half an hour than by going to class. About halfway through the semester he realized he could be slightly entertaining so he would occassionally throw in a joke which did make the class non-worthless.
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Expecting an A+ autonym 01/12/2012	If you're a math major or at least comfortable following logic throughout lecture, he's great. He is good at engaging the class, not out of touch like many. And he appreciates enthusiasm, is responsive to emails and answers extra questions after class. I have no complaints about Boyle. He does like his T/F, and sometimes asks them during class to keep you on your toes. He wants you to know the concepts well enough to be able to confidently apply logic to them; that's all. As for his handwriting, it's fine, don't listen to that guy. You try writing "diagonalizable" 5 times in chalk.
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/05/2012	Was not the biggest fan of Boyle. Took 240 with him and I'm pretty sure I understood 3 of the lectures or something. He would be much better if he had a written plan of what he was going to talk about/write on the board and followed it exactly. I've always been pretty good at math, I'm a math major and have never gotten less than an A in a math class. Scraped by with an A in this one by like half a percent. He's a nice guy and is willing to answer questions during lecture. He definitely knows math well, just not great at teaching it. I pretty much learned out of the book for this class. If you have to take him, you'll be fine if you read the book before or after lecture and take notes on that. I still suggest going to lecture because he loves to test on proofs and true or false questions, many of which are taken from his lectures. The tests are very similar to his other ones on testbank, so study those. VERY important: if your TA gives hard quizzes, switch TA's. He does not curve by TA, and the TA's make their own quizzes so that can really screw you over. Highest grade in my section was like 90 or something, and highest grade in other sections was 97 or 98. Overall, if he's your best option go ahead and take him, but he's not the greatest.
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Expecting a B Nathan Mendelsohn 12/19/2011	He definitely knows the material REALLY well, but he didn't do a very good job explaining it. It was quite hard to pay attention for more than 10 or 15 minutes. Also, the tests seemed much harder than they should have been given that he only ended up curving the final.
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2011	he is a great professor. he prefer to test his student on definitions, which is good for students. b/c some of the teachers just show students how to solve the question, as the result, students can give formula and solve the question, but they have no idea why it's work. before the class he always give us true and false question. be careful on those question, it may on your test. every week, it will have quiz,I think different TA has different quiz. homework is easy, make sure to solve them. there are so many true and false questions in the test, thus, to do the old test will really helpful, especially, the question on true and false! Matlab is not so bad, very easy, it should not take so much time on those problems. He is the great one, and very kind, if you have question, just ask him, don't be afraid. good luck
McBlaine Boyle MATH240 Expecting a B Kevin Garcia 04/25/2011	As others have noted, his lectures are very proof-based. If you're a math major interested in pure mathematics, take any course he's teaching. He's an above average professor that is very knowledgeable in the subject. One drawback is that his handwriting tends to be rather sloppy, so adjusting may be an issue. He rarely lectures with notes, so there many instances of long pauses as he tries to work out the next few sentences. His exams have a lot of True/False questions, which can be a double-edged sword. Make sure to know properties of proofs and definitions of terms. 240 isn't a difficult subject in general, as long as you do the HW problems. It's one of those courses that you'll kick yourself for not getting an A in. Overall, if Justin W-G or Grillakis are teaching 240, I'd take it with them (in that order) before Boyle.
Matei Machedon MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/06/2011	If you have a TA named Safa, switch out immediately. He grades homework very randomly (takes random points off for not having "neater handwriting", when both he and the professor write in hieroglyphics). The class overall is not too terrible, but there was no curve and I got a B because of the TA's grading based on neatness and quantity of the work you show as opposed to the correctness. If you turn in 10 pages of work, you get a perfect score. If you turn in 2 pages, but get the right answer, you lose points for "not showing enough work"
Matei Machedon MATH240 Anonymous 12/16/2010	Excellent professor. Lectures are good. He does a lot of examples. And exams are very easy. If you attend all his lectures and do all the hw, there's no reason for you to not get an A.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting a B plmqaz 10/27/2010	I would give this dude a 10/5 if I could, he's that great. Literally could answer any question anyone had immediately. Has such an all-encompassing handle on the material he's able to teach it to you in his sleep. He is a phenomenal teacher and I am so glad I took his course, just to see what a good teacher is like!
Antoine Mellet MATH240 Expecting an A fiddlerkrt 03/01/2010	Can't say I was thrilled with his teaching style, but he is decent. The class is pretty easy overall. Just be sure to do the homework and read the book for the online quizzes.
Antoine Mellet MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/09/2009	I loved his class and teaching style. He is very honest to the syllabus and covered everything in good detail. I would sometimes his lectures could get a bit monotonous, but i had a great TA,so if i wasn't paying attention in lecture, i would make it up in discussion. I think three quizzes a week and a homework every week is a bit too much, but if u don't read book regularly, this course material can be pretty hard. so in a way, all the exercises were helpful, albeit a bit painful. Mellet is strongly recommended. He wants students to learn and will help you in any way.
Antoine Mellet MATH240 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2009	Great teacher, though he did not stray from the book at all, which may have limited his overall usefulness. Daily quizzes annoying. He has a noticeable accent, but I find it fun to listen to, not detrimental to my understanding at all. He is also very approachable.
Antoine Mellet MATH240 Expecting an A+ jdresa 05/20/2009	Decent professor, somewhat hard to understand and teaches straight from Lay's syllabus. Pretty easy class overall though.
Antoine Mellet MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/20/2009	I didnt find Dr. Mellet's style of teaching very helpful, and his thick french accent made it worse. He taught straight from the book. His exams weren't too hard, and overall he's a nice guy. It also depends on what TA you get. Overall it wasnt too difficult to get an A as long as you do the homework and understand the material.
Antoine Mellet MATH240 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/14/2009	He is such a charming professor. Love his soft smile and French accent. Actually this course is pretty easy. You can just study for it by reading the textbook. But going to his class is a really nice thing.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/12/2008	Best teacher ever! He explains everything thoroughly and makes a lot of jokes which makes lecture helpful and enjoyable. He doesn't curve but he explains everything so well you won't need a curve anyway. Definitely take him for any and every math class you can!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting an A- xinio64 07/28/2008	One of the best math professors at UMD. He did a wonderful job explaining the material to us and was more the willing to help us whenever he could. Like other people said, write down the stuff he writes on the board. It's enough info to study with. The textbook you use is crap anyway, so don't rely on it. We didn't even have to address him formally, he just told us to call him "Justin". He's so cool. I wish he could teach all of my classes. The material for MATH240 is still quite difficult, however. You have to pay attention and do the assigned homework. But Justin will help you as much as he can. TAKE HIS CLASS WHENEVER POSSIBLE.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/20/2008	Amazing professor. Is very approachable and teaches in a very relaxed and fun style. Always welcomes questions in class and attendance at office hours. He posts sample exams for each exam in the course. They're similar to the actual exams, but not verbatim. Analyze the sample exam questions and try to think of ways of re-phrasing the questions as some of the actual exam questions can be a bit tricky. Write down everything he says in lecture and you'll never need to open the book except to do homework problems. Studied right off of my class notes. I would definitely recommend taking a math course with him.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Anonymous 05/19/2008	By far, the greatest math teacher I've ever had. Very clear and straight forward, easy to understand. He is also very kind and approachable and he prepares you well for exams. People do well on the exams not because they're easy, but because everyone actually learns the material. I completely agree with one of the comments below....if you are a girl, you will want to marry him.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting a B pluralfacade 05/15/2008	Best. Teacher. Ever. He makes math interesting and fairly understandable. Just like someone else said, you can copy down what he writes on the board verbatim and that will be more than enough material to study from.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting an A dk11 04/24/2008	Best Math teacher ever. His lectures are awesome. He has a great sense of humor which makes the lectures so much fun. He puts up 2 sample exams for each exam which is really helpful. And the MATLAB assignments are pretty easy too. Overall a great professor and an easy class .
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Anonymous 04/22/2008	Go to the Lectures and just write down everything he writes even if you aren't paying attention because you will be able to read the notes and understand exactly how to do everything. Make sure you look at the homework every once and a while because he will explain the concepts so well that you will understand the problems in class but then when it gets to a quiz you might not remember. He also makes MATLAB simple and easy, you should have no problem with matlab even if you hate it and if you do, email him and most likely he will give you a hint.
Thomas Haines MATH240 Expecting a B Anonymous95 04/15/2008	He is a very smart professor and will help with any problems. He does proofs about a third of the time and practice problems the other two thirds. He does curve at the end which is why I got a B. I would say if you are good or fair with math to take him. If math is a poor subject for you, look for someone else.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting a B yayourumd 12/18/2007	Justin was by far the best math professor I've ever had. He teaches math in a way that people who aren't actually geniuses can understand it. He was the only good experience I've had with the math department, adn was basically just amazing. He was phenomenal and awesome in every way shape and form and you should all go out of your way to take his class. He also had a great sense of humor which helped a lot. And to the person who said he has BO, I have no clue what he's talking about. I had to go to him for help and talk tohim after class a lot and never had an issue. I'm guessing that the anonymous person was anonymous because the BO is actually theirs and were trying to cover it up!!

Shin Song
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/21/2024

Great professor. I definitely learned so much paying attention to lectures. To be fair, the lectures are a little boring, but if you pay attention and spend time reviewing the textbook after class, you will be fine. There are weekly discussion quizzes, but they are very easy, the lowest 2 of them are also dropped. The exams are definitely a lot harder than the quizzes, but still manageable if you are willing to put time to study hard outside of class. She also is very understanding, and gives a lot more practice and review for exams than other professors. Would highly recommend Song for Math240 as long as you are committed to putting in a good amount of effort studying after class.

Shin Song
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/20/2024

The class itself is not that difficult and she is super nice, but I've had to teach myself almost everything past the first couple of weeks because her lectures are just her reading from the textbook and copying down formulas. Some topics she won't even do examples on. But, discussion quizzes are free, my TA would basically work out the problems on the quizzes right before we take them. Exams are also pretty easy if you do the practice exams she gives. I think you'd be better off taking another professor if you can, but it's not the end of the world if you have to take Song

Shin Song
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
10/26/2024

Very nice person, but lectures are useless as she gets content straight from textbook(no need to go if you do assigned textbook probs and look at posted online notes). Discussions are actually really useful (but still don't rlly need to go), weekly quizzes are free as TA shows similar problems right before quiz. Has decent practice problems for exams. Exams are stupid long and always has one question that we had little practice with but aren't too bad. Take if you're fine with only coming exam days and can learn from textbook.

Shin Song
MATH240

Anonymous
10/24/2024

she’s a nice enough person but not a good professor. her lectures don’t really make sense and i’ve had to teach myself everything. the discussion sections are basically just a second lecture that still doesn’t make sense. there is no homework, only suggested problems that she uploads days after the lecture, which she doesn’t give the solutions to. for the second exam she didn’t upload the practice exam until 10pm 2 days before, leaving us with one day to do it. she also didn’t put any practice problems on a certain subject on said practice exam but there were questions on it on the actual exam. she also doesn’t drop any exams…hoping for a big curve at the end of the semester. TDLR; you’ll basically have to teach yourself this course. study hard for exams because you never know what she’ll put on them.

Shin Song
MATH240

Anonymous
10/22/2024

She's a nice person, but her lecture style is really not great. The lecture consists of her writing down theorems word by word directly from the text book at a incredible speed without much explanation. This is really not good since linear algebra involves a lot of abstract ideas and her lecture style does not help breaking down the concepts. I ended up needing to self teach myself everything through textbook and youtube videos because the lecture is so hard to follow.

Shin Song
MATH240

Anonymous
10/15/2024

She's nice and writes decent notes, but she relies completely on the textbook. There's barely been a single lesson she's done so far that wasn't doing the exact same thing the textbook was doing (same variables and examples), which isn't great due to the textbook itself being unclear too. She occasionally makes mistakes in the material being taught, making the lectures even more unreliable. The only real plus to lectures is the review day before the exam, but you're most likely studying by yourself at that point. For many professors, the textbook is more so used as an additional tool to help students review and study, but for Shin, the textbook is almost required. Quizzes in the class are lenient and graded fairly as long as you show that you know what you're doing. Even if you screw up on a few of them, you'd be fine grade-wise. Exams though are another beast. The questions range from rather easy (such as simple determinants or row reduction) to hard and obscure questions that are either relegated to the textbook or have only been done a month prior (looking at you, E1 Q3). The true and false questions are also particularly bad due to the fact that they're meant to trip you up at the end of the test. The worst part of it is how so many points are allocated to justifying your answers in English, which is especially bad due to how she wants you to explain them in a SPECIFIC way by question. You can be right in your explanation, but if it's not a specific explanation she was grading on, you're docked a few points. Speaking of, for the practice problems, you're only given the answers in the Tuesday discussion (where if you miss them on the board because the TA erased them as soon as possible, tough luck), adding unnecessary difficulty to the course. For practice exams, they only help for easier exam questions so if you think you're gonna get practice on the harder questions, you're SOL if you don't search the entire textbook. I will say that she's good at explaining questions and material when asked, most likely due to her being a highly-rated TA prior to becoming a professor (as seen in an older review and on other platforms). However, she still acts like a TA as a professor, meaning her lecturing style depends on other material, leading to the rampant use of the textbook. Overall, she's good if you want a decent grade without putting in too much effort on anything besides exams, but if you actually want to know the material (which may be necessary for Math or CS), it's better to take Yashinski or Wong over Shin. Tldr: She's good for your grades, bad for your education, but better than Rosca. You could probably do just fine in the course if you used the textbook instead of coming to class. Make sure to study like hell for the exams.

Shin Song
MATH240

Anonymous
09/22/2024

Her notes and resources are alright, but the way she explains things aren't the best. Just make sure to follow along with the testbook and you would be good.

Haoran Li
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/20/2024

Took him for MATH240 over the summer. As someone who came into the class not knowing anything about linear Algebra I felt pretty confident by the end in my abilities. He was patient with his students and very understanding. Linear Algebra can be a hard class but taking it with Haoran made it seem doable.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Anonymous
08/13/2024

She may have an understandable accent, but she is incredibly unorganized and does not prepare students for exams very well. My recommendation is Khurana as she seems to care more about her students.

Shin Song
MATH240

Anonymous
07/29/2024

Shin was my TA for MATH240 and she was the absolute best. She always went above and beyond, is a great discussion teacher, and cares genuinely about the material and her students! She also had a website where she updated and created supplementaty documents regularly. 100% recommend.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
06/17/2024

Honestly, I love his lecture style and personality. His notes were clear and helpful, and he always posted them online. I did well on all three exams, and was expecting an A, but got a C on the final, which was a lot harder than the other exams and also weighted very heavily. I don't think I can blame him for that though, just be sure to ask questions as soon as you're confused. It's obvious that he loves the topic, as he likes to make nerdy math jokes. My TA, Alzubair, was also super helpful. It's a little hard to understand him sometimes, but he always tried his best to explain topics. He also gave us tips on how to do problems in a much easier way than we learned in lecture.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/12/2024

I personally really enjoyed the class and thought her accent was completely understandable. Very down to earth and willing to sit down with you during office hours to help walk you through the material. Class does require investing time on your own to make sure you actually understand what’s going on, but it’s a math class after all. I would say if you need or want to take this class be prepared to actually commit to learning the material, go to her office hours, and understand its a four credit class for a reason (even if the homework isn’t as bad).

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/10/2024

TL;DR : If you can self study well, take this class. Pros: - Her homeworks, quizzes, and exams are fairly easy and close to what gets covered in lecture and in the textbook. If you can do the practice problems in the textbook and do the practice exams she gives you, you'll be set for the exams. - Most of the TA's are really kind and will help you with whatever questions you have - She's genuinely a kinda person and likes to joke around in class, she's a pretty chill person too. - Her MATLAB projects are reasonable, and you can work with a partner for all of the projects. Cons: - Her handwriting isn't the best, and her lectures can feel scattered a lot of the time, so you're better off going to another MATH240 lecture or just reading the textbook. - She does have a slight accent, so if you're used to listening to accents, then you'll be fine. ----------------------------- Pro tip: 3Blue1Brown's youtube playlist on Linear Algebra helped SO MUCH. I can't put into words how much those videos helped visualize things for me. Definitely watch his videos while your taking this course

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/30/2024

The course if made up of 10 quizzes (15% total, lowest 2 dropped), 4 matlab assignments (10% total), 3 exams (15% each), and the final (worth 30%). Overall the difficulty of the quizzes might depend a little bit on your TA, but most TA's go over a question identical to the Quiz right before the Quiz which make it very easy, my TA was also extremely nice with partial credit, on one quiz I made a mistake on the very first problem which affected all of my other answers, but i only got one point off (out of 20 points). The matlabs are sometimes annoying, and its never really talked about in class, but they are not particularly difficult, and you're allowed to work in a group. The exams are fair, but contain a lot of multiple choice. Overall, the lectures are very interesting but I was usually always exhausted by the end of them, because there is a lot of information to absorb.

Archana Khurana
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/20/2024

If she's teaching a math class that you need - take her. She makes everything simple to understand. She explains concepts for the first part of the class, and then walks you through problems on her iPad for the second part. Regarding exams, she lets the class know during the review class what types of problems to be familiar with for the exam. The class averages were very high for the first two exams. The third exam was tough because it covered a lot of material. All of the exams were friendly in terms of difficulty - including the final. It seemed to me that she wanted everyone to succeed.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/20/2024

She was a solid teacher and a very nice person. At times, she went very fast and would just show us her prewritten notes, but she only did this for a few lectures. Tests are annoying because you only have 50 mins to do them, but she was nice to help us review for them. My TA, Shin Song, did a great job preparing us for exams with practice. However, professor needs to maintain better communication with her TAs because my TA was often unaware about changes made by the professor. All in all, I was worried coming in to this class because of her reviews but she's actually a pretty good professor.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/19/2024

Sweet and funny person, and her accent isn’t an issue, but her lectures are very disorganized. After the first lecture, I literally decided to self-study for the rest of the semester on top of going to lecture because I knew that was the only way I could learn. Not much of a workload, but my self-studying made up for it. There are weekly quizzes that are online and you have two attempts. They were pretty fair. There were 3 exams and 4 MATLABS. The exams were definitely harder than examples we did in class and the quizzes but they made me feel prepared for the final. The MATLABS were easy, though I would appreciate having more than one week to do them.

Archana Khurana
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/18/2024

A very organized professor who cares about her students. This year she started posting notes before a class start so that during class you can follow along more easily. Her midterms are very fair since she gives a lot of practice exams/materials. And she took time outside of class to host review sessions for the final so the students would feel less stressed. Imo, she's just one of the nicest professor out there:)

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
05/18/2024

First off the workload wasn’t too bad. There is weekly homework and canvas quizzes, and three big tests. The grading is fair, not as generous with partial credit as I would have liked but nothing insane. One annoying thing is that homework is due on paper in discussion, so discussion attendance is basically mandatory. As far as the professor goes, she is really nice and most of the reviews here are wayyyy too low. Dr. Sahinoglu is a pretty good teacher and definitely cares about her students. For example she will hold extra office hours before tests and is always happy to answer questions. Her lectures are a bit boring but are understandable if you pay attention. The best part is that the curve is VERY generous. You only need around a 50% to pass with a C- which saved me. As long as you don’t get behind and keep up with homework/quizzes you’ll be fine. Dr. Sahinoglu is really nice, don’t be scared off by these reviews.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/17/2024

Look, she isn't perfect. I do agree that she can have a hard time explaining topics. I actually think that the way she explains things is great, but it feels like she only knows that one way of explaining any given topic, which is a problem if you do not understand the first time. But she is very, very nice. I do not understand the comments about the accent, maybe it was worse in the past, but she is perfectly capable of being understood. The curve was very generous.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/17/2024

I would definitely recommend Professor Wong for anyone taking difficult math courses. He makes taking notes for exams easy and is always very clear about challenging concepts. Specific details mentioned on exams are clearly mentioned during lectures. Quizzes are extremely easy, as we are told beforehand what each question on the quiz (about 1-2 questions each) would be about ahead of time. While I initially struggled to understand the more conceptual aspects of this class, these difficulties were less about the teaching and more about the challenging nature of MATH240 overall. Wong is also very helpful during office hours with a slight sense of humor.

Archana Khurana
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/17/2024

She cares about her students.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Anonymous
05/17/2024

She's a really kind person who knows their stuff, but I don't recommend unless you plan on self learning everything. Lectures are directly outlined from the book no deviations, extra workload is light, exams were difficult conceptually dense.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/16/2024

A lot of people slammed her for being really bad and having terrible English but at least for MATH240 she was actually pretty good. She's nice, has a good sense of humor, and her grading is very generous. MATLABs were extremely easy, they held you hand through the whole thing so don't worry if you "don't know how to code". Weekly quizzes (but they're online at home) and weekly homework, but neither are super terrible as long as you took notes/get help from TAs. Lecture material is somewhat similar to what will be on your exams, and discussion is pretty helpful too, but I'd say try not to get caught up in the weird vocabulary, just learn as much of the theory as you can because half the exam is True/False or short justification based on the theory. The actual computation is so much easier than any calc class you will/have already taken. She also curves like 20% or something. I got super lazy and stopped trying and ended with a 65% and still got a B- for my final grade. Basically, if you don't get super lazy and try to put in a little effort outside of lecture, you're chillin.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/16/2024

The lectures are ok, but only if you read the textbook beforehand. Her accent is very easy to understand, so I don't understand the people complaining about it. I enjoyed the class, but if you don't learn well from a textbook, you may want to pick a different professor.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
05/15/2024

great person, tragic teaching

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/14/2024

Wiseley is an incredible professor. He has an even-paced lecturing style that stays consistent throughout the semester. He never front loads anything so you always feel like you understand the course content. What makes the class even better is his incredible arsenal of PhD TAs. Their discussion sections are incredibly helpful—anything that you were unfamiliar about from lecture gets cleared up instantly. Grading for this class is also very fair and stress free. There are 4 very simple matlab assignments that help with general understanding of course concepts, 10 quizzes (very straightforward and your two lowest get dropped), and 3 midterms. The exams are never curveballs and if you complete his review sheets before each one you should be fine. Overall, great guy, great class, you're guaranteed to do well if you go to class.

Archana Khurana
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/14/2024

Cannot get better than this. Best professor I've had during my 4 yrs at UMD.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/12/2024

Completely incompetent. Her lectures are just her tracing the textbook and even then she makes mistakes in copying it and gets mad when people call her out. Needs an ego trim and/or to read the textbook herself and do some practice problems to brush up on the information she's supposed to know.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/12/2024

Hatice is a very kind lecturer and really cares about her students. She also gives a very generous curve and distribution when it comes to exams and finals. However, I feel that she explains material at a very high level and for most of the semester I was teaching myself and not getting much from the lectures. Hatice makes herself very available for office hours. I recommend attending as much as you can and get a very solid understanding on theorems and definitions, as she will expect that you know them when explaining things to you. Her exams can be pretty rough as well but most if not all the questions are from the textbook and the curve makes up for it. She also gave us all croissants and held lawn office hours which was very kind of her.

Archana Khurana
MATH240

Expecting a C
Anonymous
05/11/2024

Archana was a really good professor that really cares about her students. Holds really useful review sessions and her exams are basically a culmination of the review she does in class and has it posted to elms. Easy exams if you really study the material, gives EC problems on exams as well

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/10/2024

Professor Hatice is a great teacher. She gives very little work per week, which is nice because you can work at your own pace. Her lectures are easy to follow, and I'm honestly not sure what all the bad reviews are for. She holds late-night office hours before exams and when the weather is nice, she holds outdoor office hours on the mall with croissants. She is very kind and is open to all questions. She wants you to succeed, and is constantly asking for feedback. The exams sometimes were tricky, but overall they weren't too bad if you attended class and discussion.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
05/10/2024

Very good instructor, all of these low reviews are just people who are butthurt they didn't do well in a hard class. She is a little boring, but a really nice person who really cares about her students. Very willing to help and tends to be fair. Would recommend.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/09/2024

Did a very poor job holding attention during lectures. Exams were difficult but reasonable.

Abba Gumel
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/08/2024

It's been a year since I took this class (Sp23). Looking back, I realize that I learned nothing in this class and this has severely under-prepared me for my upper level CS classes. I just had to ask my friend what a dot product and cross product are. (I could also just be stupid but I'd like to think that my 3.9 GPA says otherwise)

Archana Khurana
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/08/2024

Archana gave us 3 mid terms, with the first having an avg 90%+. However, this was only because she virtually gave away the questions and they were just different numbers. However, exam 2 and 3 could not be any different, as the grades were significantly lower. There was one question on exam 3 that we had seen one time from a one off extra review section. Archana's voice is extremely high pitched, and on top of this all she repeats herself up to four times, to a 200 person lecture hall. This almost became a game between my friends and I, as we would take small bets as to how many times she would repeat herself on a given problem. She would also post her notes, which were helpful, as she would also post her filled out notes.

Qi'an Chen
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/02/2024

He is a great TA, very genuine, and cares about students. He goes through questions quickly but does a good job of breaking down the content and defining everything to the tea. He takes precise notes on the board and posts answers to review for us to study.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/24/2024

Dr. Wong is a great professor. His lectures don't make sense during lectures but once you go home and do the option practice it clears everything up. The quizzes are really easy the TA goes over them before you take them (at least mine did). His exams are fair. As long as you do all the practice he gives you, you will be fine. Just remember to work in groups for MATLAB which will save you a lot of time.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
04/23/2024

she is the sweetest soul, her exams are hard but you have to study and attend office hours for help! i would definitely take her course again, also her tas were very helpful. while i do agree that its hard to pass her class, she curves generously so dont worry.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
04/01/2024

i hate to say this because she is literally so so nice and sweet but her lectures are just so incomprehensive and hard to follow. She is pretty unclear about content on exams and is kinda all over the place sometimes, her accent isn't the problem. The workload is super easy I just don't feel like I'm ever properly prepared for exams because I'm basically teaching everything to myself.

Abba Gumel
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
03/14/2024

Awesome.

Javier Reyes
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
02/27/2024

the GOAT really helpful and accommodating during office hours

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Anonymous
02/22/2024

I had Wong during the fall 2023 semester and all I have to say is take him if you can. Although he goes fast, his explanations are very concise, but my TA (SHE IS A QUEEN) still CARRIED me during discussion. The quizzes are predictable as there are no tricks and no surprises (there are quizzes every week but he TELLS you what the quiz will be on during lecture, so it is very important to attend lecture if possible. His style of teaching is honestly fairly typical and traditional for a math course, he goes over examples and tries his best to answer questions. He emphasizes INTUITION (MAKE SURE TO STUDY A LOT OF THEORY FOR THIS CLASS! The true/false questions in the textbook prepare you) and mentions calculus 3/multivariable/MATH241 occasionally during class because most of what we've learned are also in that class. There are no webassigns and no homework, but he does give you suggested textbook problems that are for the most part pretty helpful, AND DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE GRADED MATLAB WORK. Most of the textbook problems are harder than what you'll be learning, BUT IT'S OKAY, you can always go to office hours and ask or ask your friends. No homework but it is HIGHLY encouraged to go to office hours, ask questions, and practice! I've always found the conceptual and computational stuff easy to grasp, and most of the units use previous units (like row reducing in the very first chapter), so it is very important to make sure you have the fundamentals down. When it comes to the theoretical stuff, all I can say is practice and ask questions. With exams, they are fair but he allows for regrade requests. If you attend lecture and study, you will be fine. Overall, amazing teacher. He is the GOAT! He explains concepts very well, quizzes are easy, exams are fair, and this might be more subjective but this class was honestly much easier than Calculus 2.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/21/2024

His lectures were not hard to follow, and any confusion on class material was cleared up in discussion pretty well. There are weekly quizzes in discussion, but he tells you what the question(s) will be asking in lecture beforehand, so as long as you study what he tells you to it's not hard at all. Exams were pretty fair as well. I'd recommend taking him if you can.

Foivos Chnaras
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
02/01/2024

lowkey the goat man.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a C
soymilk
02/01/2024

goated teacher. i honestly shouldve tried harder so i don't really have the right to say this... but i half ahhed most of the hw and studied the night before for exam and somehow passed bc he taught well. the class isnt hard if you take notes

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
01/22/2024

She’s awfully nice and also her accent was completely understandable? So don’t really know why people are complaining… If you go to lecture you should get an A… I skipped like 10 of them tho LOL. Her curve is so effing generous and she gives Baklava at the end of class! 🤗 she is so pookie

James Conway
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
01/20/2024

Conway's first time teaching MATH240 was a mixed bag. The good -- very nice guy. Will crack a joke here & there and makes himself approachable. Hires excellent TAs, seriously, they made discussion so worthwhile. All lectures are recorded, all notes are posted to Canvas. MATLABs are straightforward, as are the weekly quizzes. His notes, while hindered by bad handwriting, are VERY thorough. This is where Conway distinguishes himself: you will understand linear algebra in greater depth from him than anyone else. His lecturing is excellent, and his answers to questions are very clear. Critiques -- He's harder than the other professors. His teaching style focused more on abstract and theoretical understanding, not practical examples or more straightforward explanations. It's a perfect example of "doing too much." This means that he will test you on that one bullet point he scribbled down while talking about that one proof. Our exam averages were consistently lower than the other teachers, and this is why. Additionally, his notes feel overstuffed sometimes. He will write down mathematical proofs that fall outside the scope of the course. I also feel like he moved too fast sometimes; he would often finish a section early and then just go off on a tangent and write more to fill the time. I think cutting out the filler & writing slower/more legibly to correct the pace would be sensible, as I don't like feeling like I have carpal tunnel 30 minutes into lecture... I like Conway as a person and I can appreciate how he encouraged a truly comprehensive understanding of the subject matter. But he is not for everyone and demands more from you than I initially expected. He is very receptive to student concerns, and I think he'll improve in future semesters teaching this class.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting a C
Anonymous
01/19/2024

not bad but not great. my grade was going to be a b+ but i tanked the final which is why it's a c. my ta wasn't very good but he did grade the weekly quizzes pretty leniently. if you're confused def talk to him bc he can be easier to understand than the TAs. lectures are NOT RECORDED and i had a 9am lec so i ended up oversleeping a lot of the time

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
01/14/2024

She's not as bad a teacher as everyone says. She's quite understandable, her handwriting is legible, and she even waits for you to copy down notes. The only thing is the tests did not have enough questions, so you lost points quickly. Also, they sometimes contained questions which we barely went over in class.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
01/03/2024

lectures are great and so are discussions. I ended with a B since I didn't attend any lectures or discussions after the first 2 weeks. I only went if there was a quiz or exam. Review his practice exams and you'll be fine. he also tells you what the quiz questions will be in lecture, so if you don't go, ask someone what he said will be on the quiz. I ended with a B mainly because I didn't attend any lectures or discussions, so I was self studying the whole class. If you go to class, it should be an easy A.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/28/2023

He is really boring and honestly idk why so many people say he is great. His exams or ok but the final was awful.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/28/2023

He follows the textbook pretty directly, but he works through the problems pretty well so that you can understand all of the concepts. The quizzes are pretty easy, and he curves the exams that most people did really badly if they did not reflect the general knowledge of the class. He is very kind and understanding if you have any problems. Although he is somewhat of a boring lecturer, I still found them helpful to go to.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/20/2023

Wong is fast paced, but that's the nature of the course. And its not like he ignores questions, either. His quizzes are relatively easy, even more so if you do a handful of his *optional* textbook HW problems every so often. In fact, most of his questions are just HW problems, in my honest opinion, even for midterms and the final. There are some conceptual TF questions that he asks, but those are relatively easy if you either understand the concepts well enough or if you do some practice. Overall, the class was relatively easy, though it required a bit of effort. Try not to cram and just be consistent in terms of practice.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/20/2023

I had him for both MATH241 and MATH240. His exams are fair, his lectures are engaging, and his notes are very easy to follow. There was no curve for either class and no recorded lectures but they aren’t needed. He makes learning difficult concepts feel easy.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/19/2023

I really like Wong's class. 240 is a pretty fast-paced course, and while I wasn't always absorbing everything he was saying in real-time, his notes on the board are extremely helpful (particularly his little yellow side notes-- write them down!!). He doesn't necessarily try too hard to be liked, but he's so good at handling and validating student questions that you just naturally have to love him. Wong is communicative and reachable outside of class, does an excellent job of explaining abstract concepts, and overall made me love the course. Prioritize having him for 240!

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/19/2023

TLDR: Class had a low workload, with some improvements to be made in her explanations, but pretty good for her first time teaching math 240. She also gave us baklava on the last day of lecture. The class was very by the book, but in that respect she still did well. I had no problems understanding her even with her accent. She sometimes had to clarify her handwriting or had to reexplain variables because she used no vector notation, but it was pretty minor. She acknowledged that people had complained of her going too fast so she really slowed it down when doing examples. She could improve on her explanations; Some topics were taught better than others, although my TA covered many blindspots (shout out to Ryan Chen). Although in fairness, the ones she didn't do as well on were less important in the exams. Maybe prepare to go to discussion or ready the textbook to supplement the lecture if you're not confident in the class, but it was not bad. Homework was very low, and the weekly quizzes were not bad and you had 2 tries.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Anonymous
12/19/2023

Not a good 240 teacher at all. Hard to follow and doesn’t curve at all.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting a D
Anonymous
12/19/2023

Didn't curve a single assignment the whole semester. If you do badly on one assignment, you're basically screwed the whole way through.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/19/2023

Not the best lecturer, mic wouldn't always work so back of lecture room could not hear, not easy to do well

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/18/2023

The vast majority of what is taught you will not understand. Linear Algebra is much more difficult than advertised which I did not expect. The class goes heavy into theorems, definitions, and abstract concepts. Linear Algebra is a hard transition from Calculus because it is much less computational. Wong himself is severely overrated. Not sure what is up with the high reviews. While he is a great guy that is approachable and will answer all questions asked during class well, much of what he is actually teaching will not taught well. Exams 1 and 3 were reasonable, but exam 2 was very difficult with a low average. The practice exams were just ok. Wong as a teacher is just ok, you could definitely get worse but really not anything to get excited about when taking his class. Lectures are boring and not very important because so much of what he says wont make sense. Quizzes are easy and he will let you know what's on them a few days before. The final was brutal but not impossible. It's important to understand that this class will not be easy especially taken with other hard classes int he same semester. Overall, I would not recommend Wong for 240 even though his reviews seem to be so high.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/18/2023

stefan seems like a good professor but i didn’t really like his teaching style since it was literally all just kind of reading straight from the textbook. linear is a relatively theoretical and i felt like i learned better just reading the textbook. also, my ta would just tell us to do our homework during discussions which made discussions a little useless. class is very test/quiz heavy, with the only non-quiz material being the 4 matlab projects (very easy). the tests are pretty fair though, and as long as you do the homework + some of the practice exams, you should be good.

James Conway
MATH240

Expecting an A
bermudarhombus
12/16/2023

Conway is incredible, he's an engaging lecturer, a fair grader, and is genuinely understanding if you forget to give an assignment .

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/16/2023

don't miss a lecture or its gg

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/15/2023

Great dude, very very fair exams. I skipped most of the lectures because it was in the morning, but I could mostly stay up to date because he never strayed from the textbook. The only problem is that 85 percent of the class is quizzes and exams, which is rather heavy, so you have to do well on those because there is no other significant way to bring your grade up.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/15/2023

I love Stefan. His personality and teaching style led to really straightforward and engaging lectures. He was always open to answering questions in class and gave really quick, thorough, comprehensive answers; he knows his stuff. Especially for him not usually teaching linear, I was thoroughly impressed. He never made us do hard applications of linear algebra and kept applications of subjects pretty simple throughout the semester. Exams were fair, sometimes a little difficult and sometimes a bit of a time crunch, but not bad. 3 midterms and a cumulative final. He doesn't have required homework but has practice problems posted if you want or need. Quizzes in discussion once each week, usually pretty easy. Four pretty easy MATLAB projects throughout the semester. Would absolutely take him again because his lectures are crystal clear and he doesn't expect too much of you.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Anonymous
12/14/2023

Prof Stefan is a great professor. I have had him now for both MATH241 and 240 and his teaching style was exactly the same: to-the-point lectures, optional homework, one quiz a week, and 3 exams with a final. My only gripe is that is if you do bad on one exam, it will have a huge impact on your grade so stay locked in for the exams.

James Conway
MATH240

Expecting a C
Anonymous
12/14/2023

I had a really bad experience in this class. I thought the content was taught in an incredibly unintuitive manner (generally a theorem given with no intuitive context or explanation). There wasn't so much of an effort to give a real grasp or feel for the concepts and everything felt like it was supposed to be retained in isolation which made it hard because linear algebra is a very connected topic. Also the exams were out of 50 so every small mistake you made was amplified tremendously and then review materials were quite different from what the test looked like and asked for. Additionally, the distribution of concepts on the test did not match the way things were emphasized in lectures or quizzes so it felt very nitpicky. A bad time for sure. Would not recommend.

James Conway
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/14/2023

Conway is a very thorough teacher! I enjoyed his lectures and the consistent posting of notes/recordings of lectures was especially useful if you aren't able to make it to lecture. His office hours are also very useful - he takes the time to whiteboard out any problems you might have questions on and explain it to you patiently, step by step. He does have a tendency to value conceptual questions on assessments, which did make the course a bit more difficult, but overall, he's an excellent teacher!

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/13/2023

His class is extremely well structured. If you do the suggested homeworks, you will do well on the quizzes and exams. The quizzes are graded very generously. The exams are written fairly. His lectures never went over time. He is very active on piazza.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/13/2023

Not the best, but also not the worst. I agree with the other reviews here saying that it's difficult to understand much if you aren't in the front few rows, but she gives people time to copy her notes down (she projects a piece of paper onto the board, occasionally using the chalkboard to add important notes/annotate). That being said, I honestly found the textbook more helpful than lectures for MATH240: oftentimes it felt like she couldn't explain stuff people were having trouble understanding in different ways. That being said, in terms of grading I have few complaints. Weekly quizzes which are pretty easy, weekly homework assignments that pertain to 3-5 textbook problems, and tests which, as others have mentioned, are easier than the practices provided on ELMS. I did not find this class very difficult.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/12/2023

Wong is the GOAT. His notes and lectures simplify the material so well and makes it understandable for most students. Ignore reviews that say his class is difficult (the grade distribution says that about 35% of students get an A). He's such an understanding and down-to-earth guy and one of the few 5-star reviews I give on here. I promise you won't regret it!

James Conway
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/12/2023

His quizzes are very easy. The TAs will teach you everything you need to learn right before the exam. But he focuses too much time explaining the behind-the-scenes logic and does not do enough example problems in class. He also goes over everything too quickly. The textbook is amazing though, which is why I was able to self-teach myself. The exams are also fair.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/11/2023

Has decent lectures and simplifies the content to make it understandable. She wants her students to succeed and gives easy exams.

James Conway
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/11/2023

I'm currently taking Conway and I think that overall he is a good professor. The exams are fair and the quizzes are really easy. The only gripe I have with him is I feel that his notes and lectures aren't the best. It might just be me, but I have found that when I watch some of my friend's professors I understand the material a bit better. Overall, I'd recommend taking him his class is not hard enough that you'd have to worry about failing, but I think if you are looking to get an A in this class be prepared to do a lot of studying outside of the resources he gives you.

Josue Avila Artavia
MATH240

Expecting an A+
smiletoday
12/10/2023

I will keep it short and simple. Josue is the goat. He is an incredibly TA and makes really confusing topics very very easy to understand. He answers all questions during his discussion sections...and doesn't make you feel like an idiot, a problem most math teacher have. He is brilliant and very relatable. If you have him as your TA you are in luck. Thank you Josue.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/08/2023

Pretty awful overall. I've heard she give generous curves so my grade is probably not as bad as I think but she's still terrible. I am a compsci major and i need to know linear algebra well and she has not prepared me. Quizzes arent super hard but she'll post a quiz on friday and make it due saturday night which is criminal. hard to understand in lecture as well. She is a nice person but not a great professor overall.

James Conway
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/08/2023

I honestly think that Prof. Conway might be slightly overrated. I had him for MATH240 and his lectures were very informative and he made sure to cover the breadth of each topic. But he rarely would cover examples and when he did he would make them very confusing. I took linear in high school and I would say the course is very manageable but having a good TA makes it ALOT easier. I had Josue and he is amazing. 5 stars. Conway is by no means a bad choice, and his exams are very fair, but be prepared to do some extra work outside of lecture.

James Conway
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/08/2023

A lot of these review say Conway is a great professor and even though I do agree but there are some things that may make this class hard for some people. The main thing about his class is that 75% of the final grade is exams, that puts a lot of emphasis on the tests, but the way conway teaches is very theory based, he goes into a lot of detail explaining how formula works. This means that during class he does not go through a lot of practice problems. The exams on the other hand are 100% problems with almost none focusing on the theory behind the formulas. If you want an in depth understanding of lin alg this IS the class for you, but the main problem with this class is that his lecture content and tests don't align well. On top of that he teaches at a really fast speed which makes taking notes and listening at the same time a bit hard. Other than that the quizzes are really easy, he records his lectures, posts his notes, and posts grades to canvas as well as gradescope. If your TA gives good practice problems then this class should be pretty easy, but mine didn't really give a lot of practice problems as I don't know how much it would help.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/07/2023

Stefan is a great lecturer and has relatively easy midterms, which are worth 15%, 15%, and 10% of your grade (10% is your lowest grade). Every week you don't have an exam, you have a quiz in one of your discussions, which are different for different TAs from what I've heard. Personally, my TAs quizzes were very easy and often only 1 question. Quizzes make up 10% of your grade, and the lowest one gets dropped. There is no homework for his class but I would recommend doing the suggested textbook problems to keep up. Other than this, the final is worth 35% which could have a large impact on one's grade, but if its anything like the midterms it shouldn't be too bad. Take 240 with Stefan.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/05/2023

While not the worst teacher in the world, I can definitely get why people were frustrated with her in the past. Lectures can be disorganized, she sometimes spends entire lectures on topics she'll say will only take half, and makes content directly taken from the textbook feel more confusing than it should be. TAs were very lenient on grading homework though and matlabs though, however for exams they seemed to have an "all or nothing" approach when it came to partial credit, which became very frustrating at times. If you do have to take Hatice or in general are struggling with linear algebra, I highly recommend watching Kimberly Brehm's and 3Blue1Brown's youtube series on the subject. They don't cover every topic you'll see in class, but both are incredibly helpful with the majority of them.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/30/2023

Not the best teacher I've had, but probably doesn't deserve as low a rating as she has on here. For Math240, she gave three exams and a final, each worth 20% of the grade. Exams were almost always easier than the practice sets she posted beforehand, and were generally straightforward. 8% of the grade was quizzes, but they were online and she allowed two attempts on each. MATLAB projects weren't particularly difficult and also made up 8% of the grade. Homework was worth 4% of the grade and she only assigned a few problems a week, usually no more than an hour of work. Since this was her first time teaching 240 I'm cutting her some slack, but she wasn't very good at explaining the content and didn't provide much better explanation than the textbook did. It's possible she's just not very good at teaching, but I'd expect she improves as she gets more experience teaching this class. She is very kind and accommodating, and it was nice that she didn't assign a crazy amount of work outside of class. This class in general isn't the most difficult when it comes to math, so even if she is the worst professor for the class, getting the grade you want is still very doable.

Javier Reyes
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/30/2023

A really sweet man who just wants his students to succeed. Sometimes it is a bit hard to understand what he is trying to teach, but he does it with gusto.

James Conway
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/29/2023

THE GOAT!!!! Quizzes and exams are easy, matlabs can take some time but are fair. Records everything. Honestly you don't even need to go to lecture or discussion, just doing the homework will prepare you enough for the exams and quizzes. Also the homework is optional. Only downside for me is that he spends a lot of time explaining how specific formulas or concepts work, which could be seen as a good thing if you really want a deep understanding, but is unnecessary for the assessments.

Hatice Sahinoglu
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/27/2023

Honestly, not as bad as everyone is saying. Her speaking is completely understandable, and her writing is legible, as long as you sit in the front half of the class. She covers material well enough, and her discussions have online quizzes that are difficult but solvable from the material covered in lecture.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
11/22/2023

He is not as amazing for MATH240 and has a very hard deadline for assignments.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Anonymous
11/17/2023

I don’t recommend him. People say that’s he’s easy or that he’s good but he’s not. This class of his is hard. Although it’s not calculus 1 or 2, it’s challenging in its own way. The only reason why people say this class is easy is because they are either good at math, took calculus 3 or their brains just can understand things quickly, but if you have a hard time understanding concepts at the fast paced Wong throws them at you and then exams you on things that he didn’t cover, then don’t take this class. Yes he will test you in harder versions than what he taught you and sometimes he won’t solve a problem how he wants you to solve it in front of you because according to him you should already know how to do it from the previous chapter and should automatically learn how to adjust that way to what hw is doing here. Your grades are just quizzes, exams and matlab. That’s it. Choose a teacher that grades you on homework, so you can better learn the material.

Shaoyang Zhou
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/29/2023

Very good TA. Explains things nicely and quizzes are usually 5 true false and 1 easy problem. Super nice :)

Yong Cui
MATH240

Expecting a W
Anonymous
08/29/2023

Going to keep this short he's mostly a TA for math240/math241 and I was unlucky enough to have him for 240. He is not good at explaining things at all he tries to cram theorem and goes too fast like the other reviews here mentioned. The first day of linearly algebra discussion he didn't follow the professor's format of row reduction and made mistakes because he's trying to go too fast because he spent the majority of the time talking about content that wouldn't even be covered until 10 weeks later. If you have him as your TA literally take anyone else even an average TA will be better than this guy. Also I think his grade data speaks for his quality of teaching he's just not very good in fact he's so bad that he has his own planet terp reviews.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
juiceman
08/26/2023

1. Did you think the exams or other major assignments were fair? · The exams and major assignments were very fair, with a direct application of the problems covered during lecture and discussion. — 2. Did you think the professor had reasonable expectations of the students in the course overall? · Yes, the professor had reasonable expectations and focused on direct application of the course material. — 3. Were you a fan of the professor's teaching style? · I enjoyed the professor's lecture style. · It was important to attend in person (and be on time) to catch hints about what would be covered in exams and quizzes. · The hand-written notes on the chalkboard were helpful, and I recommend taking occasional notes on his verbal explanations as well. · Wiseley was patient and took the time to fully answer questions, even if they seemed basic. — 4. Was the workload appropriate for the number of credits? · The workload was relatively relaxed. Only one hour per week was needed for quizzes, and about 6-8 hours were required to complete practice problems for the exams. The textbook was not necessary unless clarification was needed. — 5. Was this course a waste of time or was it beneficial in some way? · This course was definitely worthwhile as linear algebra is relevant to computer science, machine learning, and graphics. · It was interesting to learn about its applications towards the end but this course is mostly applying the concepts. — 6. How much support were you given throughout the semester (office hours, extra resources, etc.)? · There was no class Piazza or answer key provided for practice problems, which made me feel more isolated and unsure compared to my regular CS classes. · The TAs were hit or miss; however, Wisely was particularly helpful during office hours, offering patient guidance from basic principles to a full understanding. — 7. TLDR I would recommend Wisely for MATH240, but attending lectures and studying for quizzes and especially exams is crucial. Completing practice problems and getting them checked is also important. It sucks there's no Piazza or solutions to practice problems.

Yong Cui
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
08/07/2023

It wasn't that bad of a class. I took it online over the summer, so I had ample time to prepare for the tests. There were only four assignments( 2 quizzes, a midterm, and a final). The quizzes were straightforward (just two questions pretty much copied and pasted from his lecture notes), but the exams were a bit difficult. He did compensate for the difficulty with possibly the best curve I have ever seen. However, beware that you will have to self-study to do well since he does not explain things adequately (I just read the textbook and watched some videos on youtube). He does lack personality, and the lectures are pretty boring. I honestly wouldn't even waste my time watching them; just look over his lecture notes. Lastly, I feel like he didn't try too hard to help us understand the concepts; he merely introduced the topics to us and expected us to learn from the textbook. This is how I like to learn anyway, so I ended up with like 97, but many people need more than just the textbook, which is why the final average was 25%.

Yong Cui
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Joebiden69
07/22/2023

God awful. I’ve never added a new professor/TA before but with how he conducted the course this summer I have to set up a page to warn future students about him. The lectures were impossible to keep up with and he goes way too fast to make any sense to any normal person. He covered way too much theory and proof stuff that was not related to anything on any of the exams which wasted everyone’s time. The class average pre curve on our final was a 21%. That’s terrible do you know how awful you have to be for that to be ur class average he should be absolutely ashamed with how his students performed. I studied very hard and did a lot better than average but I still am not getting an A which I needed to get. Not to mention he gave like no partial points on the final + he only determined our grade off of four assignments. Two quizzes a mid term and a final. If you lose any points on any of these your grade is fucked and o got completely fucked by the final. I hope he reads this and is ashamed of his class average because generally I like to take responsibility for my own grades but I can’t ignore how god awful he was as a TA he should be fired. I forgot to mention he also is unresponsive to emails and absolutely terrible at answering questions. He did one thing right throughout this class and thats curving. thats literally it he should never have this job again

Haoran Li
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
07/07/2023

Great guy, very responsive and helpful. I never really attend the lectures but he does post his lecture notes which are very helpful as they contain examples and important topics to remember. He goes over practice exams the day before the tests which is very helpful. The class has 10 online assignments (basically hw assignments assigned a week prior to the due date), 2 Matlab projects (not hard at all as they are posted like a month before and you have all the time in the world), 2 midterms (not that bad at all, mostly similar to the online assignments), and one final. The only reason I am giving a 4 star is because he is not the most engaging teacher, I would often get very bored but thats like every math class ever. If you are someone who also zones out often I would definitely recommend Paul Cartie on youtube, he goes over the same exact topics covered in this class.

Yong Cui
MATH240

Anonymous
06/30/2023

Worst math class I've ever taken. You might think no homework and just 2 quizzes, a midterm, and a final is a blessing, but linear algebra is a class where you can't get by just self-studying whatever questions you think are helpful. I needed examples of how HE wrote his questions so I could be more prepared for his tests. Not getting that meant the midterm felt like a slap in the face, even after a bunch of studying. His lectures were too theoretical. Now, I'm a math major and the professor I had all year last year got some complaints about being too theoretical, but not from he. He had a reasonable and interesting balance of theory and examples. Yong, however, was almost purely theoretical. Even when he went over an example, he just could not explain it nearly as well as any youtube video I could search up about the same topic. While these help, they aren't going to have the same exact types of questions as his midterms. Beyond that, he's not a personable teacher. He makes no effort whatsoever to connect with or empathize with his students. This was a summer course on zoom. He didn't show his face, and office hours were by appointment only and yet he took multiple days to answer email. The result, along with the sparse assignments, is a course that almost feels like you aren't taking it, until you realize you have the midterm and final. I need more practice questions from him, more approachability when it comes to office hours and questions in general (he often responded condescendingly to them), and just better lectures with way more practical examples. I'm writing this after having just taken the midterm, so maybe something will change my mind before the final.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
06/25/2023

he is a nice guy. however, his lectures were boring and he really taught directly from the textbook. since he was new to math240, he had no practice exams to study with. his exams were not necessarily difficult, but they were very long. the true/false on his exams were taken directly from the textbook, but they were very specific and he didn't go over these much in class. i feel he also doesn't explain conceptual theorems well and sometime they were confusing to understand. overall hes not the worst choice, but also not the best.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/09/2023

Pros: He is an amazing teacher. Like, can explain concepts really well. You don't really need to look at the textbook in this class if you really pay attention in lecture. He responds to emails really quickly and with really helpful replies, and he's always fun and helpful to talk to during office hours. Cons: I often struggle to learn and take notes simultaneously. Which is definitely a me problem, but I know a lot of other professors posted their lecture notes on ELMS, which he didn't do. He did record, but it was blurry because of how outdated the armory tech is. However, the main challenge was that our exams were harder than all other 240 professors. That said, they definitely were fair, but the other professors were just so much easier. Plus, he didn't curve at all. All said though, his teaching skills, approachability, and helpfulness outweigh any of these cons. He teaches very much like he tests, so I would definitely recommend Wong to anybody who plans to attend class, and I wouldn't recommend him if you don't plan to do so.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting a W
Anonymous
06/08/2023

Wong is as good as you can get when it comes to Linear Algebra professors, from what I hear and see. His lectures are clear and engaging, and he communicates very well via Canvas. Weekly quizzes in discussion keep you up to speed during the fast-paced course, MATHLAB homeworks are very doable and can be completed as a team, and there is plenty of practice problems posted for exam prep. He definitely appeals more to students invested in the subject, which I had a hard time finding within myself. I had to drop this course because it was too much with my other classes and personal challenges, but when I schedule to repeat it (as I am a CS major and will need to complete 240 at some point) I will be trying to get Wong again. Glhf

Abba Gumel
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
06/07/2023

Dr. Gumel is very passionate about what he teaches and his enthusiasm shows in his lectures, but finding resources to study with may be abit inconvenient. Would have liked access to more practice problems and more graded practice before exams.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/02/2023

Wiseley is a great lecturer but he moves very fast. You have to be ready to study many hours outside to class to be able to keep up with him. I fell behind once and I was behind the entire semester and had to work very hard for the exams. On top of that, his TAs are all international students with accents that make it very hard to understand them, so its difficult to get help in discussion which is a really important part, so keep that in mind. He does give you hints to what will be on the weekly quizzes which is useful, and I've heard his exams are easier than most other profs. So he's def worth taking.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/26/2023

I cannot express how GOOD of a lecturer he is. You have to attend every lecture or make some friends in the class who you can ask of their notes since the recordings are absolute doo doo, but man, he knows his stuff. He goes over content directly from the textbook, but his teaching enhances the material by making it easier to understand. You can ask questions during lecture and he actually answers them (also he has no problems with doing so), he is very helpful during office hours, and the exams are extremely fair. Yeah, they can be kinda tricky but there was never a problem I got incorrect that I did not ever learn how to solve. Any type of transformation question is what I was really confused on during lecture but that's it. Recommend taking Wisely for any class you can.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/26/2023

Pros: -Easy weekly quiz -Responsive to emails -Friendly -Provided several final exam answer keys from past years Cons: -Teached directly from textbook -Failed to provide extra detail to help students understand complex topics in the class -Failed to provide midterm practice exams Ultimately, I found it hard to understand Linear Algebra under his teaching and midway through the semester I began to attend a different professor's lectures. At the time of this review he is quite middle of the road but is a nice guy and is willing to help if you ask.

Weimin Jiang
MATH240

Anonymous
05/24/2023

Weimin is an awesome TA. Very knowledgeable, very good at teaching, very caring. Just down to earth guy. One of the best math TA's without a doubt

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/17/2023

Good instructor although he follows the book pretty much to a tee he explains concepts well and doesn’t give much work. His exams might be hard but he gave a pretty nice grade cutoff at the end of the course. Overall he’s Very nice and worth taking imo.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting a B
ikaici
05/17/2023

Decent lectures, and beautiful notes. His exams are decent, but grading is pretty harsh, especially with true/false questions- even if you get the answer correct its practically impossible to even get full credit on the question. Quizzes are weekly and when combined with MATLAB assignments due on the same day it can become overwhelming. Honestly, this class wasn't very fun but I doubt Math240 is that fun anyway.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/16/2023

Extremely overrated. You can either show up to class and get examples that he shows which could be similar to quiz/test questions (don't try to watch the recordings they are recorded on a carrot), but it's completely doable to never go to lecture and just learn from the book/videos. Not much leeway for mistakes, if you do not so good on one exam its gonna really hurt your grade. MATLAB is really boring - no one can say that they enjoy doing it. Honestly, take another professor for easier midterms and less sweaty/pretentious kids. How to do well: Download textbook and study guide for textbook, do problems Do past exams/finals (find the answer keys from past students) - I literally grinded past finals and aced my final. Overall, he is a decent person but most of these reviewers are glazing and he ain't allat.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
05/16/2023

My grade was mostly my own fault, so don't mind that. Honestly, he isn't the worst lecturer as other reviews have said, because they are well structured, he has ample examples and explains each topic fairly in depth where it makes sense. However, it can certainly be not very engaging at times. His MATLAB grading is easy, just answer the questions and you'll at least get a 40/50. Personally I struggled a bit with the quizzes, but if you study the textbook beforehand you will be fine. He is a nice guy, and he is communicative in his office hours and his TAs were great! His exams felt fair, but the True/False questions are very difficult and not many resources are given to actually study how to answer them correctly. Overall, it was a pretty hard class, (I though MATH240 was supposed to be easy??) and I wouldn't have survived without Francisco's curve at the end, which was around 5%.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/15/2023

Very solid professor. His midterms are on the rough side as there is no practice material to study for them. You only have problems from the textbook. His TAs are amazing though and he does give a decent curve at the end. I would recommend him over other professors.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/15/2023

Wiseley is an amazing lecturer. He is very detailed and is always open to answering questions. His office hours are extremely helpful and definitely allowed me to understand the concepts beyond the surface. The midterms are extremely fair as well as the quizzes. Just make sure you practice and do some studying, because lectures alone will not allow you to retain the information to a good level. A few topics take a little longer to absorb but overall I really enjoyed the material. My biggest recommendation is to go to office hours and get to know him.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Anonymous
05/09/2023

He is a very good professor. However, the TA's can barley speak English thus do a poor job explains the examples, which ends up hurting you. But overall, quizzes, exams, and MATLAB's are very fair. Looking back, I wish he would at least post step by step examples of the examples he wants the TA's to go over.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/05/2023

Great professor, very fair. Exams are hard, but pretty fair. Barely any homework throughout the year other than some matlabs which aren't too bad. He's very good at explaining linear algebra and if I had the option to I would take him for another class. Def a Math Department Goat. He is an interesting guy though...

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/04/2023

Horrible teaching, choose someone better worth your time! Trust me.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/04/2023

Honestly, he is a fantastic lecturer I don't know if he recently got better but some of these reviews do a disservice to how good of a lecturer he is, and if you are ever confused about something he has no issue with people asking questions. He always makes himself available for office hours and is really a helpful guy the midterms are exactly like the example problems he does in class and he explains everything so well I can't stress enough of how much a good lecturer he is the only times you might walk away confused is linearly transformation and change of basis because those topics are taught out of order and that's it. Overall solid professor take him if you can you won't regret it. Don't forget to practice because people assume lectures alone will be enough and that's their downfall in this class.

Abba Gumel
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/02/2023

Professor Gumel is a nice guy but is not the most helpful math instructor. He reads from a note pdf on his computer which is word for word taken from the textbook, so you are honestly saving time by just reading the textbook yourself. Your grade is based solely on three midterms, the final, and weekly quizzes which are weighted much less than the exams, so if you do poorly on an exam your grade will show that. There are also Matlab projects in which he has no part, he doesn't even know when they are assigned/due and his TA is in charge of all of that. It is his first year teaching at UMD so I think the class experience overall is kind of a trial run, but he is not the worst ever - you really need to study in order to do well on exams (which he boasts about making hard) and he provides minimal study material so you are pretty much on your own.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting a C
Anonymous
05/01/2023

Very monotone and unenergetic during lectures. Lectures go word from word from the textbook. You could just read the textbook and get more value out of your time then going to lectures. Suggested questions in the textbook don't represent exam questions. His true false questions on exams are worth 20 percent of the exam grade, and there is no real way to study for them. Grading is really strict. He is new to teaching 240, take someone with more history behind this course.

Fushuai Jiang
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/25/2023

Good teacher, records his lectures. His quizzes and tests are very fair. His lectures could be better but his notes are pretty good and contains most of the information you need to know.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/19/2023

Teaching is based solely on the textbook. Grading on MatLab is incredibly strict, one small syntactic mistake leads to 5+ points off on a 10 point question. Exams are generally fair besides the conceptual true or false section which can be very confusing and unclear. Isn't the best, isn't the worst.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/19/2023

I loved having Manning for MATH240. He was a passionate and engaging lecturer, and was always enthusiastic about answering questions. He never came off as condescending whenever asked questions. He put a large emphasis on the theoretical side of linear algebra, so if you want to come out of this course not only knowing how to do the computation but also understanding the concepts of linalg, I highly recommend taking Manning.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
04/19/2023

I don’t know how his ratings got so high. The only reason I chose him as my MATH240 professor were these reviews. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT make the same mistake as me. This man recites the textbook WORD FOR WORD for each and every one of his lectures; and that’s all he does. I have found Khan Academy and talented professors on youtube FAR more useful than anything this man has said or done. The homework is unstructured and vague and he provides no practice material yet makes THE VAGUEST true/false questions worth 20% of EVERY SINGLE EXAM (even though you can’t practice them even with the textbook as the textbook DOESN’T PROVIDE ANSWERS TO TRUE/FALSE HOMEWORK QUESTIONS). Overall, he is a very nice man and I don’t feel great writing this review but the amount of mental strain his class has put on me is absurd; and I don’t want anyone to fall into the same trap.

Fushuai Jiang
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
04/19/2023

NOT a great lecturer, but he knows what he's talking about and if you go to his student hours to ask questions, it makes things much more clear.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
04/18/2023

I honestly have no clue why his reviews were so high. I attended every lecture and barely learned anything. His lectures consist entirely of theorems and definitions and he doesn't attempt to explain anything. The exams are fair, but the final had content that was not covered at all. I have no point of reference for the other professors, so maybe this is just how Math240 is as a class, but I don't get the 4.63 rating.

Pablo Cedillos
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/16/2023

I had Pablo as TA for Math 240 in fall 2022. He is very kind, inspiring, friendly, and teaches very well!

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/12/2023

I have no idea why people dislike Manning so much. His lecturers are very engaging and you can tell he's really passionate about what he's teaching. As long as you attend class, do all the assignments, and study a bit before the quizzes/exams, you should be fine. Though, I do admit some of the questions on his exams were kind of "gotcha" questions, especially the true and false ones. But a lot of those questions are just homework problems that he tells you to do anyways, so they aren't terrible. Great professor, would highly recommend taking.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a D
Anonymous
03/29/2023

His lectures are disorganized and has messy handwriting during lectures, so sometimes it's impossible to understand what he wrote. He has online recorded lectures from COVID so I guess those helped a little. His exams are somewhat fair, but we had weekly quizzes in which it varied from TA to TA. I had to try to learn linear algebra by myself.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
03/16/2023

Beautiful notes, felt like exams were really easy so far. His lectures are very clear and concise - the pace is a little quick but isn't really a problem. A thing I really liked about him was that he goes into the "why" of things.

Francisco Arana Herrera
MATH240

Expecting a C
Anonymous
03/11/2023

Don't take him for Math240,these positive reviews are from different courses and he is not like this in Math240. He probably read every positive things about him on here and made it so he doesn't have that anymore. Also this review is his only math240 review. Takes points off for silly mistakes even though your answer is correct you get almost no points because you made simple mistake. Doesn't give mock exams so you have no idea what to expect on the day of exam (considering your whole grade depends on those exams its hit or miss).I read the book and did every exercises on the book but exam is nothing near alike to book exercises. No recordings for the class so if you want to go back to look certain topic you can't.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a B
akl2025
02/20/2023

Terence is really chilled and interesting lecturer. He might not very organized with his notes, but he explains difficult concepts well. The quizzes and midterms are fair, but the final for Fall 2022 was more difficult that I thought. Overall, his class is good and I definitely recommend it.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
02/08/2023

Nathan Manning is a great lecturer and his tests are fair. His class isn't overly difficult, I only got a B- because I didn't complete all of the MATLAB assignments. He articulates his thoughts excellently and by the end you will have a good base for linear algebra. Take him if you have the opportunity.

Pablo Cedillos
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/01/2023

I am happy that I had him as my TA for Math 240. No negatives. He’s an excellent TA. Actually the best TA.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
01/22/2023

Definitely a chill guy and fair exam maker. Straight from the textbook and no one gets A-'s which is cool.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Anonymous
01/05/2023

Many reviews on here are surprised that Manning has a low rating but its not because of an easy A or things just given to us as students. I feel like out of all the professors who teach Lin. Algebra, if you're going to give hard exams that are heavily theory based, then it would be nice to have things that help us know if we are on the right track like practice exam answers. The TAs for this class all teach a bit differently and some are more helpful than others in preparing them for quizzes and material which leaves those with different TAs to fend for themselves almost. I feel like most people who say the class is great are naturally good at math already or come in with some knowledge that prepares them better. I learned a lot no doubt by taking this class and I always enjoy a challenge, but not at the risk of my grade being UMD has a +/- system. For the sake of maintaining your GPA AND learning the material, I suggest another professor. He is a great guy but for me personally, I don't really plan on being friends especially if its just to help my grade. That just seems shallow to me so I rather learn, get my grade, and move on.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Anonymous
01/05/2023

Great guy, very knowledgeable, and always takes time to answer questions. His tests were fair, but the final was pretty tough (although it was made by Manning). He usually said what would be on the weekly quizzes, but would always talk super fast to the point it would be very easy to miss something. Although, he was very helpful during office hours. Definitely a good choice.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/03/2023

Amazing lecturer. He is a child at heart and conveys things in a great manner. Make sure you go to lecture and really take good notes because some specifics that he mentions are very important for his exams and for the final. Some exams are tricky, but as long as you have a good idea of everything going on from a conceptual standpoint, you will be okay.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/30/2022

Good luck trying to get in contact with this guy digitally, not gonna happen. People complain that the exams are too hard or don't reflect what we do in class, but they usually don't do the recommended homework. Our exams are the hardest compared to all the other professors, but he doesn't give A- compared to other professors. He also replaces your lowest exam grade with your final if it improves your grade. I'd say pretty solid professor, you just have to be on top of your own stuff.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/29/2022

Chill Prof but the exams were hard

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/26/2022

Really good, knowledgeable teacher. He shows a lot of different examples but for me, it was really hard to understand everything conceptually. Make sure TO LISTEN TO HIM while he's teaching because nothing he writes will explain anything conceptually. - IF YOU HAVE A BAD TA FOR DISCUSSION, GO TO ANOTHER TA's class. - YOU HAVE TO SHOW UP TO LECTURE EVERY DAY BECAUSE THE RECORDINGS ARE SO BAD (240p with muffled audio) Quizzes are really easy. He tells you the questions the lecture before and there was often an example that he worked out in class of that question (show up to lecture) Final is difficult (got a score in the low 80s). Exams were fair (high 80s,90s) and definitely easier than some of the other teachers like Long. No homework is assigned/graded. Good professor, just wished he explained some of the earlier topics a little more.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Anonymous
12/24/2022

I mean the other reviews pretty much sums up everything I was going to say. Good professor and easy class, take it if you want to learn and also get a GPA booster.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A-
iapyges
12/23/2022

I concur with the overall consensus that Nathan is a great guy, and echoing another reviewer, he's also based: he plays video games, thinks that covid is real, and hates Nazis. As for his lecturing style, I found it to be animated and engaging, although his presentation of proofs was sometimes hard to follow for someone with no proof-writing experience. The weekly quizzes, of which two are dropped, are pretty much free points, as are the four Matlab assignments. Exams are fair and very similar to the practice exams, although practice exam answers aren't given out to encourage students to come to office hours and ask questions. Overall, this was a fair but rigorous course with a solid professor who I'd be happy to have again.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/22/2022

Wisely Wong is a beast. Take him at all cost, zero regrets.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
12/21/2022

Wong is pretty cool. The midterms weren’t anything crazy, and the final was decently difficult. The reason he gets 2 stars is because of how fast he teaches. It got to the point where I felt I wasn’t learning anything so I stopped coming to the class. I learned a decent amount through the textbook and some MIT lectures. The camera Wong records the class with is extremely bad, but I blame that on the ARM building. With all that being said, this class stressed me out a lot because the concepts were flying in class and I could it grasp them, so I spent a lot of time trying to learn it myself. Unfortunately, there were some concepts that he only went over in lecture that the book doesn’t go over, so you do miss some things. Wouldn’t recommend taking this class if you can avoid it.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/20/2022

Lectures are ok but his exams are written so poorly.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/17/2022

Worst professor in the Math department, exams are too hard.

Yong Cui
MATH240

Expecting a D+
Anonymous
12/16/2022

Honestly a funny guy when he isn't overly stressed or urgent (he usually is) but not lenient with grading and doesn't do a great job at answering questions. Generally did a good job letting us know what to study for quizzes and exams though.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/15/2022

I feel like I'm the odd one out for saying it because there are just so many positive reviews on here, but I know for a fact I'm not the only one who thinks Wong is very overrated. Yes, he doesn't give you any surprises on quizzes/exams, which I appreciated. Yes, he's a nice guy. But does that mean he deserves a better rating than someone like Justin? Certainly not. The fact that he tells you what to expect on assessments is the upside of his class. But aside from that, I genuinely don't think he is that good of a teacher. He overcomplicates simple concepts and doesn't explain difficult concepts in enough detail because he expects that you'll catch on. Students would often ask him reasonable questions for clarification, to which he would say stuff like "Have you taken Calc 3? Have you taken CMSC250? You would understand if you had. I can't explain this to you, it's just hard because it's math and you'll have to figure it out yourself." He gave exam review problems but refused to give solutions for them, claiming "You can check yourself to see if your work is correct." The problem, though, is that if you don't actually understand the concepts then you can't check your work! I found my TA and the textbook to be way better resources than Wong. I even felt bad for my TA because he had to teach us so much stuff that Wong never clarified in class. Overall, I wouldn't say to avoid his class; just be prepared to do some self-teaching and don't expect to understand the material just from his lectures.

Matthew Welsh
MATH240

Expecting an A
personasdfghjkl
12/14/2022

Overall, excellent professor. - Moves at an easy-to-follow pace, and covers the material in a way that fits an introductory course. However, he's also willing to talk about more advanced topics during office hours. (e.g. I asked him to explain the determinant, and apparently the determinant of A = [a_1 a_2 ... a_n] is the unique real number such that a_1 ∧ a_2 ∧ ... ∧ a_n = (det A) (e_1 ∧ e_2 ∧ ... ∧ e_n) where ∧ denotes the exterior product) - Notes are hand-written during lecture, he uploads notes to ELMS afterwards in case you miss lecture. - Homeworks are optional, but if you don't do them you'll probably fail the course - Exams are pretty much taken exactly from the homework, with some numbers changed - Clearly passionate about math

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/14/2022

He's a really nice guy, and his quizzes and exams are pretty fair. However, his teaching style is somewhat mediocre, and I find myself often referring to the textbook over lecture notes.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Anonymous
12/14/2022

For a professor that has taught 10+ courses, he most definitely knows how to teach. One of the best lecturers and note-takers at this university. I struggle with math and Wiseley has made me a bit more interested in learning about math. His name truly checks out. Also, a shoutout to his TA Weimin Jiang. Two GOATs in the math department. Please take his class if there is an open spot. You'll hear others complain about their math classes, but not from Professor Wong.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a D
Anonymous
12/13/2022

The class is terribly structured and the professor's lectures are not engaging. You are only graded on 3 exams, a final, 2 matlabs, and 10 quizzes (exams taking up the majority of your grade), and messing up on just one exam can affect your letter grade. Only take his class if you are capable of teaching yourself linear algebra. I had to rely on outside sources to understand concepts. Also, he does not respond to emails or he will respond super late.

Matthew Welsh
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/12/2022

Welsh is a great professor, a really nice person and just overall pretty chill. His lectures are interesting, and he uploads the notes online. If you ask a question, he's genuinely happy to answer it, and will do so very thoroughly. The midterms aren't hard, and he's flexible with deadlines and overall accommodating. He actually listens to feedback form the students. The class feels like a community, where people know each other and are actually interested in the lecture material. He took a lot of time to grade homework and midterms, but that's not a big issue in my opinion. Also, during the last midterm, it was a bit of a disarray, in the sense that even the TAs weren't sure what material is going to appear on the midterm, but it worked out fine in the end. Overall I would really recommend Welsh. He's so far the best professor I've had.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/09/2022

Gave pretty engaging lectures was overall a pretty enthusiastic teacher. The way he taught however was theory heavy which is not my specialty. The one time I interacted with him over email, he just offloaded questions to his TA's and replies honestly made him feel like a douche. Overall, quizzes and exams was fair but most of my learning came from the textbook instead of actual lectures.

Matthew Welsh
MATH240

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
12/09/2022

A really nice guy and generally easy to understand professor, but took forever to grade assignments (other than midterms) and didn't always provide the best study materials. Seems a lot better than other lin alg professors though so he'd probably be your best bet.

Weimin Jiang
MATH240

Anonymous
12/08/2022

Goated TA. He is very knowledgeable about the information that he teaches. I usually do not understand math TAs, but Weimin condenses the information so that you can understand it better. It also seems that he cares about his students. Whenever anyone has a question, he will answer with a good in-depth explanation. He also has a great sense of humor whenever he cracks a joke. One time he didn't know how to say a word, so bro said, "Como se dice..." in such a fluent accent. It was truly the funniest thing he said. Wherever this man goes in life, if he ever teaches a course, I am willing to take that course.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/07/2022

Very enthusiastic and positive guy, but a terrible professor. Lectures often confuse more than teach with more focus on high level extensions of a topic than on the simple topic we're supposed to be learning. Seriously, the content of the class is easy, but the combination of terrible lectures and tests intentionally written to be more difficult than most homework and practice problems makes it difficult to do well even if you have a good TA and can self-study the content well. Honestly, he's a really nice guy, but don't take this class with him.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/07/2022

Wiseley is the absolute GOAT. Midterms are extremely fair. He wants all of the students to succeed. You're able to tell that he loves teaching linear algebra when he explains hard concepts and answering questions from students. Dr. Wong is by far one of the greatest professors I've encountered in the Math department so far. I'd take him no matter what.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/05/2022

I don't know why some people dislike Manning. There's a lot of good things about his class, like getting practice exams nearly identical to the problems on the actual exams. He also gives partial credit for problems, so getting the steps right and the numbers wrong still gets you a fair amount of points. The exams are definitely fair, and you have everything you need to succeed on them. Just do the practice problems, study regularly, and understand the concepts, then you'll be fine. You won't get by without understanding the concepts, since this is a very conceptual course. Those who complain probably have never been asked to do that before. Also, previous lecture videos were given and lectures are not mandatory at all. Practice exam answers are not released, but checking with other people is just fine. If you want an easy A, don't take Manning, but his class is good preparation for the kinds of classes you'll see later.

Matthew Welsh
MATH240

Anonymous
12/04/2022

Excellent professor. Easy to understand, midterms are fair, and the best part is that the class feels like a community. I never thought I would say that I would look forward to go to math, but with Welsh, I always do.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/02/2022

Terence is probably the best professor for Math240. He always wears shirts with wolves on them, drinks a Mountain Dew in every class, and always references old sci-fi media in his lectures. He's full of personality and passion but is also a really great lecturer. I've never felt lost in his class, though linear algebra concepts can be challenging at times. His exams are fairly similar to the practice ones, but they are a little challenging - especially considering how he doesn't give homework, and the only grades you get are three exams, two MatLabs (very easy), and ten quizzes (moderately easy). He does curve the class by replacing the lowest exam score with the final & dropping the two lowest quiz grades.

Matthew Welsh
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
11/28/2022

Welsh is a great professor. He is is very accommodating towards his class and takes the class feedback into account. He writes his lecture notes by hand during the class which is nice if you are also taking notes. Even if you miss lectures, his notes are pretty easy to understand. He's pretty good at explaining the concepts but sometimes the things he says can be confusing, but just watch the concept on youtube or go to his office hours. He hasn't curved any of our midterms so far, but I've gotten a decent amount of points back on both, so don't be afraid to go ask for more points.

Matthew Welsh
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/28/2022

A living legend is a great way to put it. He's very kind and understanding and doesn't lack as a professor. He's flexible with deadlines and is very helpful during office hours. He definitely cares about his students and makes this class easy!!!

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
11/27/2022

I don't want to hate on Nathan. He's a fantastic lecturer (very well organzied) who wants his students to learn the ins and outs of linear algebra. He also tries to lighten up the mood during lecture by saying or doing something funny (got on his knees and begged for us to memorize the rotation matrix). Occasionally, he goes on tangents about a proof or some student's questions. His exams are fair (3 plus a final), there's weekly quizzes, 4 matlab projects, and homework isn't graded. However, I just wish he gave answers to practice exams. That way we would know if we did the problem right. Other than that, good professor.

Matthew Welsh
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/25/2022

He's good at teaching, understands the course subject very well. Don't let the content creep up on you, though... the first half of the semester is much more lightweight than the second!

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/17/2022

Manning is a nice and passionate teacher with exams on the same level of difficulty as practice problems you'll do in discussions. Unlike other classes, the exam questions are not multi-step derived forms of problems, they are literally exactly the same problems you will do as practice/review (aka ezpz). There are a few flaws, but I think the class is good enough to warrant a 5/5. For example, it's not always entirely clear what the point of some part of a lecture is because he likes to go on tangents based on student questions and/or some proof that likely won't be that useful to you. That being said, I found his lectures more than adequate for understanding the subject. You can kind of get a sense of what will be helpful. Write down the important parts, don't worry about writing every detail of the proofs, and the class will be easy.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
11/15/2022

I was really surprised to see the negative reviews here because I really love this professor and Linear Algebra. I'm honestly not that great at math but I think Manning is an incredible professor and very clearly knowledgeable and passionate about what he's teaching, and if I'm ever confused I just watch previously recorded lecture videos and everything starts to make sense. His exams have gotten easier and more reasonable, though they are still somewhat harder than other professors. He makes them super similar to the exam reviews he puts out on ELMS so if you just study those questions you can ace the exam. He's also really accommodating with your circumstances; I was out with COVID for two weeks and he was super reasonable in helping me find time to make up my work and exams. Overall, don't trust these super negative reviews on here, I had a great time in Dr. Manning's class and I'm not any kind of math nerd, I was just there to pass the class and move on with my degree.

Matthew Welsh
MATH240

Expecting a C
Anonymous
09/25/2022

Decent professor who hand-writes lecture notes during class and uploads them online so you don't have to attend lectures if you don't want to.

Matthew Welsh
MATH240

Anonymous
09/21/2022

Matthew Welsh is a living legend. He is extremely chill and takes his time to explain concepts. He is extremely accommodating and truly adjusts to feedback from the class. The semester has been easy going so far as the workload is manageable and he makes sure to be reasonable with what he expects from his students.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
09/08/2022

Very thorough lectures, he makes things very easy to understand. Exams are fair and homework can be tricky but not too bad.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a D
Anonymous
08/08/2022

Terrence was not a bad professor. However, he don't respond to the emails. Also, he don't give homework at all, by which some people won't learn and won't have enough problems.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
06/02/2022

Knows his stuff and you will learn a lot if you take him. However... his exams are MUCH more difficult than every other professor, and he refuses to curve with exam averages of 65%. Not accommodating at all, and is slightly egotistical when you interact with him. Take any other professor if you care about your grade and want a kind professor. Also releases the study guide key midnight BEFORE the morning of the exam because I guess he likes making his student's lives more difficult.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/25/2022

Terence is overall a good lecturer. Linear algebra can be hard for some people to grasp and sometimes he went through material fast, but he would go back and answer questions if you asked. His exams weren't that hard and he held review sessions on youtube and gave us practice exams too. He will never respond to his email though so you're better off going to your TA or Terence's office hours

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/21/2022

I have mixed feelings because I felt like I preferred my experience in math141 over Math240 simply because the exams in 240 had so many easy places to lose points. If you study ahead, his classes are very useful, but sometimes not as much if you didn’t. The textbook was so good for the class and he went directly off of it which helped. He also had easy hw and matlab projects but the timings felt rushed

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/21/2022

A super chill down to earth guy! His exams include questions that are VERY similar to questions he gives you in lectures or homework, and overall his other assignments were straightforward and very doable. His grading policies are incredibly lenient, and if I'm being honest, you get what you get for a grade, especially given his generosity with grading. Linear Algebra is quite the new subject for anyone with experience with math from before, and I will say terence will teach it to you well if you're willing and apt to learn :).

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/20/2022

Highly underrated professor. I learned very well in this class just from the lectures, even though he tells you to read the book and do the homework I was able to get an A with only lectures. His exams are far from difficult, the person below me mentioned a difficult question with a fraction but the next class after you could tell he felt bad, he made an error when making the exam and because the numbers didn't work out how he thought they would he grade extremely leniently on that question. I'm really not sure why he's so lowly rated, after seeing these reviews and then taking the class I was surprised what a great professor Nathan was. Unrelated, but he even plays Elden Ring, so he's very based as well!

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/19/2022

Extremely chill professor. I love this man so much. There is very little homework, but the homework there is is very reasonable and fairly easy so long as you know what you're doing. There are some people who call out in class which can get a tad annoying, but all the lectures are recorded on his YouTube channel; so any time you want to skip and watch the lectures you can. You honestly wouldn't miss too much, but I do overall recommend going to the lectures. The practice exams are fairly close to the real exam, but don't go memorizing them specifically as they don't cover every topic in the testable section and he makes sure to put some of these topics on these tests. The only reason I didn't get an A in this class is completely MY fault as I didn't properly prepare for the exam. Terence is a GOD professor.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/18/2022

Manning is a great teacher but he is veery strict about all his examinations even though they are very tough compared to other professor's exam. No matter what is the average of the exam he will not curve it and at the end of the semester his curving will be bare minimum. If you want to really learn linear algebra in-depth take him. But if you want a A in the class I'd suggest some other professor. He knows the topic really well and will go out of his way to teach but at the same time to get a good grade in his class is tough!

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Anonymous
05/17/2022

He is an outstanding lecturer. His exams can be difficult, especially one that was arguably downright unfair, but he apologized for it afterward so it's all good in the end. He is an underrated instructor, if you consider yourself good at math or you're willing to put in the work don't be afraid to take Math240 with Manning.

Terence Long
MATH240

Anonymous
05/16/2022

He's a really good lecturer but I don't think he's ever answered anyone's emails, which can get annoying if you have a quick question/concern. Some of his exams were a little difficult but they were mostly on par with what we learned. The only thing I really struggled with was the T/F sections because they were solely based on theorems and memorization and applying them, and I'm not very good with that, especially since there are hundreds in the book.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Anonymous
05/14/2022

Lectures are interesting and help you understand the topic very easily, take him if his class has a spot.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Anonymous
05/11/2022

Manning is genuinely passionate about the subject, and it is very obvious that he's incredibly knowledgeable in the topic of linear algebra. Also usually a very nice guy, but that's about where the positives for this dude's class end. I'm going to preface this review by saying I had Hatice Sahinoglu for Math141 (look her up if you've never had her), so I'm absolutely not exaggerating when I say this man is so much worse in almost every way. Firstly, his entire course is structured terribly. Taken directly from his canvas page/syllabus, he expects you to 1) read and take notes on the subject to be covered before class for a half hour at least, 2) come to class and take detailed notes, and 3) do all of the homework problems for every lecture. While 2 and 3 are very reasonable requests, there is absolutely no excuse for telling students to learn the curriculum outside of lecture BEFORE he even goes over it. We pay an incredibly large amount of money to learn from experienced, knowledgeable professors at a flagship state university, and Manning's inability to cover the entire curriculum in class is not even close to a relevant excuse to requiring his students to learn the content from a BOOK before lectures to simply pass the class. Moving on from his general course structure, many students find his lectures themselves to be incredibly unhelpful. Manning moves VERY fast, mainly resulting from a promise he makes to his students that he will never be more than 10 minutes off from his course schedule. Everyone finds the chapter very easy? Too bad, you're gonna be spending a full 50 minutes on it. Insanely difficult topic that nobody understands (aka most of the class)? Sucks to suck, you're gonna be moving on after just one lecture. He very clearly prioritizes being on schedule over ensuring his students actually understand the subject, which he cleverly disguises by asking students "Everybody good?" after covering a main idea. He then glances around the room, and if he sees a SINGLE thumbs up he will move on immediately. His lectures are also incredibly theoretical, and I can barely remember a single time he has provided a solid, concrete example of a topic. There were multiple occasions where students asked "Can you give an example?", and his response would just be a confused look, clearly thinking "Why would you even need an example of this?" when many students clearly did. Even when he agreed to do an example, he'd go off on a 20 minute proof of a theorem that's far beyond the scope of the class, and then never actually specify whether or not we would be tested on it. Discussion sections will be your best friend for actual example problems, since Manning either has the inability to make them, or simply doesn't care about his students enough to do so. Truly the final nail in the coffin for this guy is the exams. As if this class couldn't possibly get any worse, his exams are BEYOND difficult, and Manning clearly enjoys the idea that his exams are regarded as way harder than other professors. As an example, on our third and final exam of the class, we were asked to orthogonalize a basis for a vector space. Since anyone reading this likely doesn't know what that means, just know that it involves fairly tedious computations that get exponentially more difficult throughout the problem if fractions are involved. Of course, in typical Manning style, he gives us a fraction of 14/13 very early in the problem. My final answer (which got full credit)? A vector with massive numbers, subtracted by the fraction 208/6578. His exams prioritize giving problems that extend the topics in class by an amount that makes them barely recognizable. Any problem that you happen to know how to solve is almost guaranteed to require computations that make it impossible to complete within the time limit. Although he does provide practice exams before every exam, for whatever reason he is completely against providing answer keys to them, and the entire class had to practically beg him before he finally agreed. As other reviews mention, his "answer keys" to these practice exams are barely more helpful than the problems themselves. Most of them simply state "put it into MATLAB", and in one problem where students were asked to compute the null space, simply stated "do the null space thing" (I'm not kidding, that's actually what it said). For our third exam, he put out the answer key 2 HOURS before the exam started, and was accompanied by a simple canvas message essentially stating "sorry, my bad". Manning also doesn't curve (even when the exam averages are in the 60s), and doesn't drop any exam grades. For anyone that made it this far, here's my recommendation to you: It's just not worth it. Manning has single-handedly plummeted my GPA, and nearly made it impossible for me to pursue my intended major. Pick ANYONE else, and if there's no other option, just wait another semester. You have to have a strong background in linear algebra and/or theoretical math and proofs to do well with Manning, or put in an INSANE amount of hours outside of class, which is entirely unacceptable for an introduction to linear algebra class.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/09/2022

You get what you expect in Professor Long's class. He's a laid-back, cut-the-BS Professor who teaches you what you need to know. The exams are easy and the HW is light and reasonable. He gave a small curve at the end, which was nice. MATH240 is not the hardest class, and Long keeps it that way. Long is also pretty understanding if you have to coordinate things with him. Long is simply an all-around solid Professor who will get you through Linear Algebra. Good luck.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/07/2022

Very deceiving - he gently/heavily hints at exams being very similar to practice exams that he gives you, and then the actual exam is the practice exam ramped up if you ever have an issue, I swear on my life that he put a fake email in the syllabus, and will never ever never ever respond to anything if you don't directly go to him. He has all his lectures on youtube though, and they are extremely helpful and match what he actually does in lecture, if you ever decide to go. Also, he has absolutely no authority over the class. I physically could not attend lecture anytime after the second week because of how annoying people were in the class with calling out. Also, I know linear algebra comes pretty easily/quickly to some people, and Terence understands that, but if it doesn't come to you quickly, you'll go crazy. I felt like an idiot several times throughout the semester from him saying things like "you can clearly see this...", "this is trivial...", or he just won't explain somethings sometimes because he views everything as trivial, you know, since he is an entire professor and has been studying the same stuff for years straight............... Content wise, he'll give you everything you need, and the homeworks/matlabs were easy. Sanity wise, i feel insane

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
05/05/2022

He expects you to speak in linear algebra at the end of his course. So get ready to learn a new math language. His exams are really tough and how questions are formatted is confusing. You might know the answer but the way questions ask you makes you forget everything you know. He usually asks some weird questions that you have never seen in exams that are worth more than half of the exam so even if you knew everything else that 1 question will make you get 50 percent. The positive reviews here are only there because he is a cool and likable person and makes some jokes but I am not taking this course to like the professor I am taking it to pass it and learn something.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/04/2022

Great professor. Explains things extremely clearly. Take him if you can.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Anonymous
04/29/2022

Manning seems like a great guy, but it's a completely different story when it comes to him as a professor. He very clearly understands the material, but he goes through it at such a rapid pace and in such abstract terms that it makes it difficult to follow along in class. His exams are also insanely difficult. On Manning's second midterm, the average was a 65. For reference, the second exam average for Long (another professor, highly recommend you take him instead) was an 80. My friends in Long showed me their practice exam and it was miles easier than any of the questions we had on our practice exam. Manning is also highly averse to posting answer keys to his practice exams. We had to practically beg him to do it for the first exam, and he still only released it the night before the exam. This, at least, was better than what he did on the third exam, where he literally released the answer key solution 2 hours BEFORE the test. At least the final is supposed to be easier because of all the exams that Manning throws at you. Overall, the Nathan Manning Linear Algebra Experience™ is not something that I would recommend embarking on. The only pros are that he's more than happy to help out during office hours and that the final is considerably easier since other professors put their input into the exam as well.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Anonymous
04/29/2022

Manning is a terrible professor for linear algebra and you would be much better off taking the course with literally anyone else. For starters, his lectures are unusually abstract and fast paced. Rather than using concrete examples, he wastes too much time going over proofs and expects that his students understand them right off the bat. A vast majority students fail to understand what Manning is trying to explain and end up spending a significant amount of time outside of class to understand the linear algebra concepts. He also becomes somewhat passive aggressive when students don't understand what he is explaining. The main issue with Manning is his exam difficulty. Exams are either extremely conceptual or require ridiculous amounts of computation. Linear algebra is not a hard topic, but Manning takes exceptional pride in making his exams more challenging than usual. While other professors (such as Terence or Wisely) tend to keep the arithmetic and concepts needed for exams on the low, Manning's exams are so computationally demanding or theoretical that you won't have enough time to finish your exam in the given 50 minutes, meaning many questions will be left only partially answered. The exam practices he gives are barely related to the real exams, and he doesn't provide answer keys to the practice exams until THE DAY of the real exam (answer keys DIDN'T EVEN CONTAN ANSWERS, they merely said to use MATLAB to find the computation, and when they contained numerical answers, they often contained errors). When using Manning's practice exams as a study guide, I found some of the questions to be very difficult and time-consuming, but when I take a look at practice exams from Wisely and Long, I am able to solve them mentally in the blink of an eye. Averages on the exams are typically between 60-70%, which is much lower than what other professors have which is around mid to high 70%'s. In summary, if Manning is your only option, waitlist for another professor or take 240 a different semester. You will save yourself a lot of stress and time if you do so, otherwise prepare to have your mental health and gpa plummet down the drain.

Dmitrii Gudin
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/08/2022

Fantastic professor, very friendly, wants students to succeed. When I took linear algebra over the summer of 2021, he made the content very easy to understand and didn't overload assignments in the short time frame of the class. I highly recommend him for 240 and any other class he might be teaching.

Pablo Cedillos
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
03/13/2022

One of the best TA in UMD

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/25/2021

Wiseley is a great professor and really nice guy. The lectures were straight to the point and easy to understand. He did a lot of first giving the definition of whatever new thing we were learning about, and then going through examples. His exams are fair and easy if you do the suggested exercises for the sections being covered. We had weekly quizzes during discussion section which was a little annoying but still useful for reviewing and making sure you were on top of the new content. He's really great at answering your questions during office hours and is not condescending about it at all (unlike some other profs). Right before the final he held a 3 hour review session on Zoom with practice questions. If you can, take him!!!!

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Anonymous
12/22/2021

He does his best.

Thibaut Castan
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/21/2021

I took this class Fall 2018. I basically self taught myself all the concepts from the textbook (which is amazing). The discussions were pretty helpful (although there were weekly quizzes), but I didn't feel like I got much out of lecture. He has a very thick french accent and writes in cursive, which can be difficult at times, but overall he seemed approachable. Yashinski taught a few of the other sections this semester, and from what I've heard he's a great professor.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/21/2021

Allan is an amazing professor. However, like any math class, your ability to do well in his class and understand the lectures heavily depends on if you practice what you learned during lecture daily. Do this, and going to class won't feel like a bore but a really enjoyable experience. The notes you write down during are also really good for understanding the material, if you were unable to focus during class. In addition, he is extremely helpful during office hours and will make sure you have a thorough understanding of the concept you struggled with.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/18/2021

Great guy, very down to Earth. Lectures were pretty good but took me a couple rewinds to really get it down. He tends to skip over some of the basics of somethings that he assumes you would catch onto, but if you're like me then it'll probably take you a little bit to figure out. Overall, great class and definitely would take Wong again.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/18/2021

Wiseley was one of the best math professors I've ever had. He went really fast in lecture but given all the material we had to cover, he tried his best to explain it in intuitive way. Getting an A in his class is totally possible. I made the mistake of slacking off on the final. Study well and you'll ace his exams.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/17/2021

Underrated professor. People didn’t like him online but his in-person lectures are good and you can tell he’s passionate about the subject.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting a B
mewuzhere
12/16/2021

Good professor, not my favorite lecturer. The course was super organized and everything was laid out nicely. The homework and exams were fair. The schedule of the course was clear and followed very closely. However, I found the lectures oftentimes focused heavily on the parts of definitions rather than giving an intuitive understanding. Although there were many times that intuition was given, it felt backwards. A long-winded definition usually came first and I found this overwhelming. Overall this was a decent course. I would not necessarily recommend Allan but I would certainly not avoid his course. I would not be unhappy taking another course with him.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/16/2021

Professor Yashinski is the goat for this class. He's able to easily present the material in a digestible fashion, and the textbook is relatively easy to follow along. I usually studied along with the textbook, but make sure to also go through his lecture notes because there can be some random facts that can show up on the exams. He also has lecture videos (provided for my year) which gave even more information if you miss a lecture. The homeworks are a breeze and the tests are very similar to the past tests he gave as well. You'll do well if you practice the exams. He's usually also the course chair for this course so the final is also not too hard because you'll be used to the type of questions he will put on a test.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/14/2021

As basically everyone else has said, Yashinski is an amazing professor. The only reason I am expecting a B+ is my own inability to take a test without making stupid arithmetic errors (or suddenly forgetting the concept behind a 10 point question). Content is explained amazingly and except for some weird theory-related topics, it clicked pretty much instantly for me. The only grades in the class are 6-question weekly online assignments, 4 MATLAB projects, and the exams. The online assignments are great for making sure you actually understand material as you go.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/13/2021

Unlike what you would expect from his PlanetTerp and RateMyProfessor reviews, Manning is a very good professor for linear algebra: his structure for the course accommodates different learning approaches / styles, his lectures and additional materials were very effective at gradually building an understanding of the subject which is markedly more abstract than calculus, and his office hours were very accessible and helpful. Pros: + Lectures are well structured, very accommodating to questions on lecture material during lecture or office hours + Lectures were optional in person and asynchronous lecture videos were always an option, however in person lectures were very engaging and well tailored to students' needs + Office hours also provided a very versatile option for learning material at your own pace, if you are having trouble with content he's happy to help you through it, and if you are interested in learning concepts ahead of time you can always ask about more advanced concepts, and his explanations here are very useful. + The textbook and 3Blue1Brown videos were very useful in providing additional computational / visual examples and exercises for the lecture material, for you to fill in the gaps between lectures. + Quizzes (graded) and homework (optional) are very useful for reinforcing the content. Cons: - The most significant issue with the course is the exam difficulty, though coming to the end of the semester this can also be somewhat of a benefit if you put in enough work, is the exam difficulty. Manning's exams are notoriously difficult, but by comparison it very much prepares you to crush the final.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/09/2021

Content was all very well-explained, though I mostly just watch the videos. Exams felt super fair and if you did the homework you should be more than adequately prepared. Required homework load was pretty light, though there are optional homework problems you can do for practice. MATLAB projects were actually really good review and generally pretty cool. Would highly recommend.

Wiseley Wong
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/07/2021

Wong was an amazing professor and clearly cares about teaching. His lectures are logical and easy to follow. I genuinely enjoyed 240 with him.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting a C
Anonymous
12/06/2021

Solid lecturer, tests follow from practice exams and aren't too bad. Have a graded online assignment due every Monday night which is only grade beside exams. Would recommend.

Dmitrii Gudin
MATH240

Anonymous
07/24/2021

A great lecturer. I had him for linear algebra in the summer course and he made the material so easy to understand. Though some of the topics were quite difficult to grasp conceptually, his explanations solved that problem. He is a really great teacher and you can tell that he cares about his students and what he is teaching.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Anonymous
06/29/2021

Manning is a bad professor for linear algebra. I took this course in Spring 2021, and there were several issues with this course. One issue was that nothing in the course was easily accessible. You had to ask or email for almost everything, including things like previous midterms because they never stayed published on ELMS. While this wasn't a huge issue, it was tedious and time consuming. Additionally, previous quizzes could sometimes not be given back to students at all depending on your TA. Answers and answer keys for quizzes or exams were also never released or given to students. Other issues about accessibility included the fact that some critical course policies were never written down and published on ELMS. Things like 'how much the curve will be' or 'what material will be on this week's quiz' were questions whose answers were confusing and never clearly explained and always had to be asked about in office hours instead of Manning making an announcement. All of this made it very difficult to study and learn from mistakes and improve on them or understand the course structure in general. Another issue was the lectures. Manning's lectures were often much longer than they needed to be and filled with confusing terms and vocabulary. He actively stayed away from using examples to illustrate key ideas and instead used ever changing linear algebra specific vocabulary to explain things that could've been done much more simply. This makes lectures almost useless because of the difficulty caused by trying to understand what Manning is talking about. My biggest issue with this course was the tests. Manning purposefully designs his tests to take at least 10 minutes longer than the allotted time. This meant that there was at least one question on the test which was impossible to answer properly, or parts of it had to be left blank. This happened on all of his midterms. You almost have to approach it more like a standardized test like an AP test or the SAT or ACT because it requires a strategy on how to manage your time and answer questions in a way that might not be completely correct but will maximize your points. Every course has this to some extent but I've never seen a need for testing strategy as much as for Manning. Manning also does not curve much, if at all despite pretty low test averages (60-70%). This semester he curved 1% or less. Overall I don't think Manning is a terrible professor, but a bad professor for linear algebra. Linear algebra isn't a terribly hard course, and if you take it with another professor or at another university even, you would find this to be true. But Manning makes linear algebra much more difficult than it should be with the way he abstractly explains things and his course policies and structure. Positives about Manning are that he was very personable, easy to like, and his final was pretty fair compared to his other tests. My advice is waitlist for another professor, even if their sections are full because there is a good chance you'll get in, and if you don't, wait another semester, it's not worth it. If you somehow have to take Manning, use the textbook and do the homework because it was the thing that helped the most, more than watching all the lectures.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/20/2021

I took this course in Spring 2021 So looking at some of these review, I guess this review will be a bit of a hot take. While I do have some criticisms of Manning, I generally believe that he's a pretty good teacher. Pros: + His asynchronous videos are detailed enough so that you get enough content out of them, but concise enough that they don't take up too much time. + Manning was more than happy to answer most questions that students had during office hours + Exam question difficulty and partial credit is fair. Not generous, mind you, but I believe that the majority of questions asked were completely in the realm of possibility. + Weekly quizzes offer a simple way to slightly boost your grade. They are also not that hard, and serve as a great assessment of what you know, and what you should study prior to the midterm. Cons: - I do agree with most reviews here that exams (mostly talking about midterms here rather than quizzes or the final) are very hard. However, I believe that most of this can be attributed to exam time rather than exam questions. For all 3 of the midterms, I found myself thinking that if I had just 10 more minutes, I could have aced the exam. Luckily, the final does not have this problem (5 problems in 50 minutes for midterms vs 8 problems in 120 minutes for the final). So for the midterms, just make sure that you not only understand the concepts, but also that you can solve problems quickly. - Jumping off the last point, one thing that causes the midterm time crunch is the sheer amount of computations that are required to be done. This became a large problem during the 3rd midterm, but was also an issue during the other two midterms. While I understand that this is a Linear Algebra class and computations for row reductions are necessary, the amount of fractional computations that can pop up can be insane. I feel like this issue could be solved quickly if we were allowed access to basic calculators for the exam.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting a C
Anonymous
05/12/2021

Stefan is a pretty good teacher. I think his exams were also well-designed. Never any trick questions. If you did the homework, you can go into the exams fairly confident. And there were no quizzes in discussion sections or anything, so you can safely skip them. The only thing that bugged me a bit is that he switched from synchronous to asynchronous lectures a week into the semester. I prefer synchronous lectures, but it's not that big a deal because Stefan was active on Piazza, so you could still get questions answered there.

Jacob Erickson
MATH240

Anonymous
04/21/2021

One of the most condescending TA's I have ever had to deal with. Repeatedly sends strongly worded emails at their students belittling them for making errors on exams. Instead of working through a problem so that students understand, degrades students' work and tells them to "write better answers next time." I hope they never EVER get to teach an actual class because it will be a trainwreck.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/21/2021

Allan is one of the best professors for MATH240. He explains concepts well and his exams are very fair. Homework is optional but helps you prepare for the quizzes and exams. Expect similar questions from quizzes to exams. Sometimes homework has a few harder questions but usually these are to challenge yourself and never appeared on exams. If you have to take MATH240 take it with Yashinski.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
03/29/2021

Ignore the 1 star review below. 50 minutes is pretty much the standard time most math exams are, even online. His exams are very similar to homeworks, so if you don't do the homeworks, you obviously won't do well on exams. Otherwise, Allan is a god-tier professor.

Stefan Doboszczak
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
03/10/2021

Amazing professor. Explains things very well, answers questions in a helpful way, and tests are extremely fair.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/16/2021

Yashinski's online class was probably the best online math class I've ever taken and will take. His lectures were extremely organized and he explained tough sections well. Homework was suggested, not turned in for a grade, but I doubt you could pass without doing it. Quizzes were same as the homework problems but with different numbers. Exams were similar to past semesters but about 2x the difficulty. I'd say studying the older exams would be your best bet. I personally have a hard time paying attention to lecture videos so I stopped watching them halfway through the semester and switched to just reading the textbook. The textbook for this course is amazing so if you learn well from a book and like math, you'll have an easy time.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A-
CrazeddRabbi
01/13/2021

Seemed nice, and held office hours for an hour every day, so definitely a plus there. However, his lectures (asynchronous) weren't great. They sometimes run long which was annoying, but the real problem was that after the first unit he stopped using examples as often. Even when he did examples, they were often still very theoretical instead of numerical, so if you didn't understand the concepts the examples really didn't help you at all, and would often just make you more confused. He would also frequently make mistakes in his videos, and he would catch most of them after a minute or two, but some slipped by - again, normally wouldn't be a huge problem, but if it's one of his few numerical examples (where most of the mistakes happen) and you're already struggling to understand, him making and uncaught mistake will just confuse you even further. Finally, his quizzes and exams were insanely difficult. I got Bs and Cs for most of them. Luckily, there was a standard final exam given to all sections of MATH240 regardless of the instructor. When I was taking the old finals in the testbank as practice, I was surprised at how much easier they were. Whereas most exams I would spend the whole time only to get ~80, I got a 96 on the final with ~40 minutes to spare AFTER checking my work. For another perspective on how ridiculously hard the quizzes and exams were, up until the final exam, my grades within MATH240 and MATH310 were always within less than one percentage point of each other - and considering that MATH310 is an upper-level weed-out class for math majors with a "C" average, that really, really, really should not have been the case.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/12/2021

Had him in Fall 2019. He is simply put, one of the best professors I've ever had. He is clear and engaging during lecture, and it is remarkable how he makes such a complex topic simple to understand. Homeworks are not required, but are strongly recommended for your own success on exams, which were very fair. If you see Allan teaching a class, TAKE IT!

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/11/2021

Excellent lecturer, his videos are very clear with great examples. Exams were also not too difficult.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
01/11/2021

Awesome professor, would definitely recommend. He's pretty understanding, explains concepts well, and has reasonable tests/quizzes.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Anonymous
01/08/2021

The exams Manning gives are very difficult, and I just found that it was very abstract. Don't take him if you aren't trying to challenge yourself. He is nice overall and seems to be a good lecturer, but sometimes I think he just assumes we know a lot more than we really do.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/21/2020

Very good lectures. Some of the quizzes and exams were a bit more difficult than I was expecting, but overall it wasn't too bad. My main criticism is that some of the MATLAB assignments took forever to grade (one assignment from late September was still not graded by the week of finals), but this seems to be an issue with the TAs than with him.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A
tybug
12/20/2020

Great lecturer, great person, and funny to boot. The biggest complaint I heard from my classmates was that the exams were too theoretical / abstract. He split our exams into an open-notes takehome portion and a closed-notes in-class portion, and only the takehome was abstract. I don't disagree that the takehomes were more abstract than people are used to, but frankly, Manning is trying to drill some rigor into the students. If you want rigor, Manning is the professor to take. If you don't, he is probably one to avoid.

Eoin Mackall
MATH240

Anonymous
12/18/2020

Really chill, laid-back dude. He designed the class really well for an online environment. There were 5 midterms and they were all take-home, open-notes, and week-long, which relieved a lot of stress of online learning. Weekly homework was 10-15 question Canvas quizzes, but you really should be doing more. He is able to explain concepts well during lecture and is pretty good at drawing/handwriting. For improvement, more of the textbook problems should be assigned for homework.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
12/10/2020

If math isn't your thing, avoid him. I admittedly have never excelled in math courses, but I've always gotten by. He makes linear algebra seem like some foreign language. He is a very chill and hip guy, but as a professor he's as low grade as they come. The exams are seriously overwhelming, and he gives you practically no time to finish them. Don't anticipate a curve. If he is your only option, wait 'til the next semester. Heed my warnings.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/09/2020

I felt he handled online teaching amazingly well. Lectures were asynchronous (this semester) with each one broken down into separate parts. He closely follows the content from the textbook and presents it in a very clear manner. The organization is great and he really knows his stuff. Homework and discussions were not mandatory, except for ~weekly quizzes which were held at the end of discussions. Lowest two quiz scores are dropped. We got plenty of time to do the MATLAB projects and "take-home" style exams.

Eoin Mackall
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/05/2020

really good lecturer - got into the theory side of things a lot but explained them well enough for anyone to get it; answered questions with really detailed answers, plus quizzes had unlimited attempts + times & you had a week to do all the midterms; chill guy would definitely recommend

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/17/2020

One of the most caring, funny teachers I’ve ever had. Very apparent he really cares about the students and makes the course material very interesting. It’s not the easiest course material but if you put in the work you’ll get an A

Archana Khurana
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
04/18/2020

I've struggled in other math classes up until this one, but she really takes the time needed to have everyone understand the topics and parts that build up to a new topic. Haven't needed to but I would feel very comfortable going to her if an issue came up as well

Mestiyage Gunatilleka
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/15/2020

I took MATH240 with Danul in Fall 2019. His lectures are incredibly dry; he basically just reads off the textbook while writing the definition word-for-word extremely slowly. Having a good TA can really help you actually learn and master the material. I stopped going to lectures halfway through the semester and it didn't affect my grade at all. The textbook is very helpful, practice problems from the book regularly and you'll be set. The exams are almost exactly like the practice exams.

Mestiyage Gunatilleka
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
02/07/2020

Bad lecturer with poor explanation skills. He only copies definitions from the textbook

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
12/24/2019

Good lecturer, exams were too hard and poorly managed. Class average was 20 points lower than the rest of the profesors in our semester

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
12/21/2019

Alan is a really nice teacher but lin alg can be really boring. If you sit in the back, it may be hard to hear him or see what he is writing on the chalkboard so sit as close as you can!! This was one of my mistakes. Honestly I thought this class would be my easy A but I was wrong. Once you fall off, you really fall off since every lesson is based off the previous. (It was hard for me to be on top of doing practice problems for this class b/c I was focused on CMSC216 and CMSC250). This class is not challenging but that does not mean that it is not a lot of work. Doing the recommended practice problems really help for the weekly quizzes and definitely do the practice exams!! I learned the lessons better by going to discussion!! My TA (Chula) was really good at reteaching it in a more simplified way and I learned more from going to discussion than lecture.

Nathan Manning
MATH240

Expecting a D+
Anonymous
12/16/2019

Extremely disrespectful. I attended office hours every week, and he didn't help with any of the material whatsoever

Danul Gunatilleka
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/16/2019

I really don't know what's up with the reviews..his lectures are atrocious and simply going to a lecture at the beginning of the school year, and then going again at the end, you will see how only about 1/4 of the students still go. He literally rewrites concepts from the textbooks but with less details. However, he's a really nice guy who is understanding. He really is trying my best in my opinion. I think he'll get better over time (hopefully), and I wish him the best of luck

Danul Gunatilleka
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/12/2019

Review below really says it all

Mestiyage Gunatilleka
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/04/2019

Danul is a great person, but as a lecturer isn't very engaging. Most of the semester I have spent learning the course material on my own because I don't get too much out of his lectures. If you have questions for him he is always good with answering them.

Mestiyage Gunatilleka
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/02/2019

Stopped going to lectures because he literally just writes off the textbook and explains it in a way that leaves you more confused most of the time. Seems like a great guy but he does not prepare you well at all. Basically you can take him and self study the class and go to discussions, you probably will still do well. Just don't expect to learn from lectures.

Danul Gunatilleka
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
11/19/2019

He is a bad lecturer who seems to only be able to read out of the book and always struggles to express himself whenever he deviates. He also has a tendency to pause in-between many of his words as if he expects the class to finish his sentences. He also makes many errors when writing down problems. I don't know if it was his fault but my TA also seemed under-prepared. The only pro is his quizzes are pretty easy and the TA basically give you the questions earlier in the week. The exams, while vague and confusing, are usually pretty similar to the practice exam. You just gotta learn from youtube/textbook. (MIT OpenCourseWare and 3Blue1Brown are good)

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Anonymous
09/05/2019

Yashinski is quite organized in presenting mathematical theorems and then doing practice problems to help us understand what they look like in application. This is a huge plus compared to the other lecturers. He also avoids that fatal flaw with math professors/lecturers where they teach one thing, and then the whole exam is much harder than the practice problems or there's some derivations that you didn't learn in class. If you're looking for success in math, as tough as it is, he is your... second best bet. Nobody can really beat Justin Wyss-Gallifrent in teaching math at UMD.

Samuel Bloom
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/29/2019

Sam is one of the greatest math teachers I met and is the best type of professor I can imagine. Sam gave great lectures, which are rigorous and clear. Sam gave fair quizzes and exams, he never made questions unclear, and 99% of exam materials are covered in lectures, and others can be found in the textbook.

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/01/2019

Funny, easy, good lectures

Terence Long
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/16/2019

Funny and easier than other professors

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/06/2019

Really good lecturer, kinda funny. Exams are pretty easy as long as you study.

Noah Chrein
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/11/2018

AMAZING TA. I have nothing else to say about that. He was such a good TA and probably taught better than the professor. He is organized and clear about the concepts he is discussing. Very friendly and approachable. A capable teaching assistant and I hope he becomes a professor one day.

Allan Yashinski
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/11/2018

Great professor. Funny and engaging, explains concepts very well and is fair with grading and exam questions. I wish midterms had more time but what can you do? I feel like I really understood linear algebra from the way he taught it. I know his style isn't best for everyone, but his style was perfect for me.

Alex Blumenthal
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/11/2018

I enjoyed 240 with Alex. Very good at explaining concepts and his lectures are easy to follow. Tests weren't too challenging, as long as you understand and do the homework/quizzes you'll be fine. Only gripes I have about the class was that he never provided any practice tests for the exam. Not a big deal though since his exams were pretty close to the homework. He also doesn't drop any quizzes, which makes it a bit less forgiving but the quizzes are also similar to the hw.

Alex Blumenthal
MATH240

Anonymous
12/11/2018

Really friendly, knowledgable instructor. He frequently checked in with the class to make sure they understood the material, made himself available for students having trouble in the course. I would recommend taking any course with him!

Alex Blumenthal
MATH240

Expecting an A
lizi1410
12/11/2018

I really enjoyed taking MATH240 with Alex. He was a great professor and was very organized with his lectures. He was really passionate about what he was teaching, and that made it a lot easier to stay interested. He didn't post past exams or anything, but if you do the recommended homeworks, study quizzes, and do Yashinski's past exams you will be completely fine. Overall, I would definitely take him again if I could. Highly recommended!

Thibaut Castan
MATH240

Expecting an F
Anonymous
11/19/2018

He french

Ryan Hunter
MATH240

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/17/2018

Easy to understand, stays after class to answer questions, responds to emails. Overall, he is a really great professor and wants all his students to understand the concepts well. However, his tests are hard and challenge you conceptually. Our class average on the tests have always been high 60's and even though he gives us practice material he often asks much more difficult questions on the test. I learned a lot from him and he makes sure to set aside time in class where u can ask him questions about the test, but the course was challenging regardless. He also decided to help out a few students at the end by bumping that up 1% which was really nice of him. Great professor, challenging tests.

Joseph Iverson
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/13/2017

Great teacher. Posts fill-in lecture notes so it's easier to follow along with his instruction. Very good at explaining the concepts, especially if you're a visual thinker- he draws a lot of pictures. Would highly recommend.

Raluca Rosca
MATH240

Anonymous
12/17/2015

Absolutely the worst teaching experience I’ve had in my life. Dr. Rosca’s research better be damn good, because her teaching could not be worse. She excels at leaving students confused, upset, and totally lost. You could get an A without ever attending lecture, and by the same token you can attend every lecture and still fail if the material confuses you, as it did me. Avoid at all costs.

Raluca Rosca
MATH240

Anonymous
01/12/2015

The actual class isn't that hard, in my opinion. However, I think Rosca could have done a better job with engaging the class. She reads off PowerPoints for most of her lectures, which I thought was a bit obscure. Some of the material that was a bit confusing wasn't taught very well by her, so I had to rely on YouTube to teach me some of the concepts. She's very nice at office hours though, so go to those if you need additional one-to-one help. Although not terrible, you should probably see if you can get a different professor for Linear Algebra.

Raluca Rosca
MATH240

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/23/2014

She's pretty mediocre as an instructor. She does have the slides that have a good deal of the most important info in the book displayed for you, so it's a good way to guide your notes. Bring the book with you to class so you can write in notes if you fall behind the lecture. She's got an accent(surprise, surprise) and has a drab monotone, and isn't particularly good at communicating material, but she can help you in office hours. A good TA will help tremendously, but one with yet another accent, that moves through material very quickly, like mine, will leave you reeling for your book to study yourself. It's not a bad idea, anyway, since just about everything you need to know in the course is in it, and all the homework exercises are in it. I think this is in every 240 section, but watch out for the MATLAB projects. If you go in with no MATLAB experience and little to no CompSci experience, prepare for long nights of figuring things out. If you've never used MATLAB before, maybe try MATH206 or play around with it before you take this course. One more thing: 100 points are for quizzes in discussion based on homework(12 total, 2 dropped, 10 points each), 100 for four MATLAB projects(graded out of 25), 300 for three 100 point midterms, and 200 for the final, for 700 total. One nice thing she did is if you do better on the final than on your lowest midterm (going by percentages), then 1/2 of the points you earn on the final will replace your lowest midterm, in addition to your final grade out of 200. Great for a final-exam recovery if one of your exams sucked. In summary, she's not that good of a teacher, but she does a good job setting up the course to help you succeed if you put in the work. I couldn't avoid Rosca, as she taught every 240 section this semester, but shop around and see if there's someone better. If not, at least she's not so bad that it would worth putting off a required course that only she teaches that particular semester.

Raluca Rosca
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/22/2014

Dr. Rosca was an all around good professor. Her midterms were fair and her final was easy. She also replaces your lowest midterm with your percentage from your final if higher and drops two of the weekly quizzes. Many people do not show up to class since she teaches out of the book and uses Powerpoints also on Elms, but she was a decent lecturer. Rosca had a bad reputation from being hard the previous semester and especially hardly curving, but this semester her grades were overall higher.

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
08/05/2013

Bar none the WORST PROFESSOR IVE EVER HAD. If you are not a math major DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. If you are a CS major deciding whether to take linear or calc 3 and boyle is your only choice..take calc 3. I'm not sure if it was just my semester but every practice test we were given was VERY different from the actual exam. It was actually quite depressing as me and my friends actually studied the practice exams and would know how to do each computation problem on the exams (and homeworks) and then his exams would turn out to be 30% t/f, 20% proofs (which are from the chapters), 20% easy problems, and 30% random bullshit he just made up while creating it. The class averages on each exam (except the first exam which was the only exam that actually stuck true to the practice exams) were around 50% and he couldn't understand why. Simply put: he does not teach the material, he just goes over random proofs that you will never have to know and then attempts to teach the material (which he ends up failing at doing). Since he fails at teaching the material you will have to resort to paying very close attention to discussion along with doing the homework and reading the chapters. I did all 3 of those things and still ended up with a C+. The only reason why I gave him 2 stars was because he was very understanding when I told him I wouldn't be able to make the final exam 6 hours prior (due to illness) and let me take the alternate exam the day after.

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Expecting an A
kingpinchimp
05/20/2013

I was not a very big fan of his teaching at all. He took a very long time to explain anything, and even after I couldn't really understand what he was going for. The lectures weren't very helpful at all, so a lot of times I brought my textbook and just listened to him in case he mentioned anything not in the book. I guess I could DO linear algebra at the end of the course, but I did not UNDERSTAND linear algebra or what I was actually doing. Another complaint I had was the excessive True/False on tests. Unless you memorized everything he has ever said word for word (and more) they are very difficult, and make up literally about 30% of the entire exam. There obviously is no partial credit for these, so on every exam it is really easy to get 10-20 points slashed off right off the bat just for not memorizing some simple and often irrelevant fact.

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/15/2013

I got a B-, and realistically that's on me. I was hoping for a little help from the curve to get the dreaded 2.7 GPA, but no such luck(which is an awful system by the way, why would a professor ever bring this upon someones GPA), but i digress. Boyle isn't the worst professor I've ever taken, but I stopped going to his lecture because he has a tendency to beat a dead horse and I was falling asleep in his class. Discussion and self study helped me well enough, and I aced nearly all the quizzes. My bigger issue lies with how the test-homework format is so different. For homework, you'll be given large amounts of numerical problems to work out, and a couple of theory questions as the last couple for questions. DON'T skip these!!!!! The exams are LOADED with theory questions!!!!!! Know the theory, it is crucial!!!!!!!

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Anonymous
05/06/2013

Boyle made the material a lot more confusing than linear algebra should be. I had to learn everything from discussion, since lecture only confused the few people that still showed up. And what's more, he loves true or false. So much so that it became 36% of our exams. And it's not easy true or false, it's bullshit logic errors that can somehow make something that doesn't make any sense true, which by the way he doesn't go over in class. In short, don't try to take this class with him if you can. The exams aren't fair, lecture is confusing, and he is overall a jackass to anyone that's not a math major.

Antoine Mellet
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/23/2012

Not amazing, but definitely good enough. Stuck to the book 100%, which gives students who are not math-saavy to hear two different perspectives on the material, and gives students who ARE math-saavy the freedom to just skip class and read the book, which is great. Exams were very easy and very straightforward, no curveballs whatsoever. Has a very thick accent but you'll get over it after about 2 class periods. There is a quiz before every class period, but if you take the time to actually open your textbook, there is no reason why you should not end up with a near-perfect score in the end.

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Anonymous
05/15/2012

Dr. Boyle is a genuinely sweet guy that knows what he's doing. That fact that he often lectured without notes shows how knowledgeable he is in his field. During lecture, it can get a bit confusing because he isn't the best at presenting the material in a way thats easy for someone that's not a math major to understand. Lecture can get a bit boring, especially if you don't follow is logic. He does try to engage the class and ask questions. His exams are completely reasonable because many of the problems come from old exams. Having said that, it's really easy to lose points on proofs and true/false questions if you don't know the material well. Quizes depend on your TA - mostly based off homework, easy points. Four MATLABs, easy points. Final is not so easy.

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/06/2012

I liked Boyle; he wasn't a boring professor, and he tried to keep the class engaged by going around and asking people questions about the material during lectures. The content wasn't that difficult, but he doesn't always explain the concepts that well. Then he puts concept based questions on the test that are worth a lot of points with no partial credit. Over all though, I learned a lot and would definitely recommend taking this class with Boyle.

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
04/06/2012

Boyle is the only teacher whose lectures make the material more confusing. I actually learned more for the first few months by reading the book for half an hour than by going to class. About halfway through the semester he realized he could be slightly entertaining so he would occassionally throw in a joke which did make the class non-worthless.

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Expecting an A+
autonym
01/12/2012

If you're a math major or at least comfortable following logic throughout lecture, he's great. He is good at engaging the class, not out of touch like many. And he appreciates enthusiasm, is responsive to emails and answers extra questions after class. I have no complaints about Boyle. He does like his T/F, and sometimes asks them during class to keep you on your toes. He wants you to know the concepts well enough to be able to confidently apply logic to them; that's all. As for his handwriting, it's fine, don't listen to that guy. You try writing "diagonalizable" 5 times in chalk.

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/05/2012

Was not the biggest fan of Boyle. Took 240 with him and I'm pretty sure I understood 3 of the lectures or something. He would be much better if he had a written plan of what he was going to talk about/write on the board and followed it exactly. I've always been pretty good at math, I'm a math major and have never gotten less than an A in a math class. Scraped by with an A in this one by like half a percent. He's a nice guy and is willing to answer questions during lecture. He definitely knows math well, just not great at teaching it. I pretty much learned out of the book for this class. If you have to take him, you'll be fine if you read the book before or after lecture and take notes on that. I still suggest going to lecture because he loves to test on proofs and true or false questions, many of which are taken from his lectures. The tests are very similar to his other ones on testbank, so study those. VERY important: if your TA gives hard quizzes, switch TA's. He does not curve by TA, and the TA's make their own quizzes so that can really screw you over. Highest grade in my section was like 90 or something, and highest grade in other sections was 97 or 98. Overall, if he's your best option go ahead and take him, but he's not the greatest.

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Expecting a B
Nathan Mendelsohn
12/19/2011

He definitely knows the material REALLY well, but he didn't do a very good job explaining it. It was quite hard to pay attention for more than 10 or 15 minutes. Also, the tests seemed much harder than they should have been given that he only ended up curving the final.

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/21/2011

he is a great professor. he prefer to test his student on definitions, which is good for students. b/c some of the teachers just show students how to solve the question, as the result, students can give formula and solve the question, but they have no idea why it's work. before the class he always give us true and false question. be careful on those question, it may on your test. every week, it will have quiz,I think different TA has different quiz. homework is easy, make sure to solve them. there are so many true and false questions in the test, thus, to do the old test will really helpful, especially, the question on true and false! Matlab is not so bad, very easy, it should not take so much time on those problems. He is the great one, and very kind, if you have question, just ask him, don't be afraid. good luck

McBlaine Boyle
MATH240

Expecting a B
Kevin Garcia
04/25/2011

As others have noted, his lectures are very proof-based. If you're a math major interested in pure mathematics, take any course he's teaching. He's an above average professor that is very knowledgeable in the subject. One drawback is that his handwriting tends to be rather sloppy, so adjusting may be an issue. He rarely lectures with notes, so there many instances of long pauses as he tries to work out the next few sentences. His exams have a lot of True/False questions, which can be a double-edged sword. Make sure to know properties of proofs and definitions of terms. 240 isn't a difficult subject in general, as long as you do the HW problems. It's one of those courses that you'll kick yourself for not getting an A in. Overall, if Justin W-G or Grillakis are teaching 240, I'd take it with them (in that order) before Boyle.

Matei Machedon
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous
04/06/2011

If you have a TA named Safa, switch out immediately. He grades homework very randomly (takes random points off for not having "neater handwriting", when both he and the professor write in hieroglyphics). The class overall is not too terrible, but there was no curve and I got a B because of the TA's grading based on neatness and quantity of the work you show as opposed to the correctness. If you turn in 10 pages of work, you get a perfect score. If you turn in 2 pages, but get the right answer, you lose points for "not showing enough work"

Matei Machedon
MATH240

Anonymous
12/16/2010

Excellent professor. Lectures are good. He does a lot of examples. And exams are very easy. If you attend all his lectures and do all the hw, there's no reason for you to not get an A.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH240

Expecting a B
plmqaz
10/27/2010

I would give this dude a 10/5 if I could, he's that great. Literally could answer any question anyone had immediately. Has such an all-encompassing handle on the material he's able to teach it to you in his sleep. He is a phenomenal teacher and I am so glad I took his course, just to see what a good teacher is like!

Antoine Mellet
MATH240

Expecting an A
fiddlerkrt
03/01/2010

Can't say I was thrilled with his teaching style, but he is decent. The class is pretty easy overall. Just be sure to do the homework and read the book for the online quizzes.

Antoine Mellet
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/09/2009

I loved his class and teaching style. He is very honest to the syllabus and covered everything in good detail. I would sometimes his lectures could get a bit monotonous, but i had a great TA,so if i wasn't paying attention in lecture, i would make it up in discussion. I think three quizzes a week and a homework every week is a bit too much, but if u don't read book regularly, this course material can be pretty hard. so in a way, all the exercises were helpful, albeit a bit painful. Mellet is strongly recommended. He wants students to learn and will help you in any way.

Antoine Mellet
MATH240

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/20/2009

Great teacher, though he did not stray from the book at all, which may have limited his overall usefulness. Daily quizzes annoying. He has a noticeable accent, but I find it fun to listen to, not detrimental to my understanding at all. He is also very approachable.

Antoine Mellet
MATH240

Expecting an A+
jdresa
05/20/2009

Decent professor, somewhat hard to understand and teaches straight from Lay's syllabus. Pretty easy class overall though.

Antoine Mellet
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/20/2009

I didnt find Dr. Mellet's style of teaching very helpful, and his thick french accent made it worse. He taught straight from the book. His exams weren't too hard, and overall he's a nice guy. It also depends on what TA you get. Overall it wasnt too difficult to get an A as long as you do the homework and understand the material.

Antoine Mellet
MATH240

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/14/2009

He is such a charming professor. Love his soft smile and French accent. Actually this course is pretty easy. You can just study for it by reading the textbook. But going to his class is a really nice thing.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/12/2008

Best teacher ever! He explains everything thoroughly and makes a lot of jokes which makes lecture helpful and enjoyable. He doesn't curve but he explains everything so well you won't need a curve anyway. Definitely take him for any and every math class you can!

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH240

Expecting an A-
xinio64
07/28/2008

One of the best math professors at UMD. He did a wonderful job explaining the material to us and was more the willing to help us whenever he could. Like other people said, write down the stuff he writes on the board. It's enough info to study with. The textbook you use is crap anyway, so don't rely on it. We didn't even have to address him formally, he just told us to call him "Justin". He's so cool. I wish he could teach all of my classes. The material for MATH240 is still quite difficult, however. You have to pay attention and do the assigned homework. But Justin will help you as much as he can. TAKE HIS CLASS WHENEVER POSSIBLE.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH240

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/20/2008

Amazing professor. Is very approachable and teaches in a very relaxed and fun style. Always welcomes questions in class and attendance at office hours. He posts sample exams for each exam in the course. They're similar to the actual exams, but not verbatim. Analyze the sample exam questions and try to think of ways of re-phrasing the questions as some of the actual exam questions can be a bit tricky. Write down everything he says in lecture and you'll never need to open the book except to do homework problems. Studied right off of my class notes. I would definitely recommend taking a math course with him.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH240

Anonymous
05/19/2008

By far, the greatest math teacher I've ever had. Very clear and straight forward, easy to understand. He is also very kind and approachable and he prepares you well for exams. People do well on the exams not because they're easy, but because everyone actually learns the material. I completely agree with one of the comments below....if you are a girl, you will want to marry him.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH240

Expecting a B
pluralfacade
05/15/2008

Best. Teacher. Ever. He makes math interesting and fairly understandable. Just like someone else said, you can copy down what he writes on the board verbatim and that will be more than enough material to study from.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH240

Expecting an A
dk11
04/24/2008

Best Math teacher ever. His lectures are awesome. He has a great sense of humor which makes the lectures so much fun. He puts up 2 sample exams for each exam which is really helpful. And the MATLAB assignments are pretty easy too. Overall a great professor and an easy class .

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH240

Anonymous
04/22/2008

Go to the Lectures and just write down everything he writes even if you aren't paying attention because you will be able to read the notes and understand exactly how to do everything. Make sure you look at the homework every once and a while because he will explain the concepts so well that you will understand the problems in class but then when it gets to a quiz you might not remember. He also makes MATLAB simple and easy, you should have no problem with matlab even if you hate it and if you do, email him and most likely he will give you a hint.

Thomas Haines
MATH240

Expecting a B
Anonymous95
04/15/2008

He is a very smart professor and will help with any problems. He does proofs about a third of the time and practice problems the other two thirds. He does curve at the end which is why I got a B. I would say if you are good or fair with math to take him. If math is a poor subject for you, look for someone else.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH240

Expecting a B
yayourumd
12/18/2007

Justin was by far the best math professor I've ever had. He teaches math in a way that people who aren't actually geniuses can understand it. He was the only good experience I've had with the math department, adn was basically just amazing. He was phenomenal and awesome in every way shape and form and you should all go out of your way to take his class. He also had a great sense of humor which helped a lot. And to the person who said he has BO, I have no clue what he's talking about. I had to go to him for help and talk tohim after class a lot and never had an issue. I'm guessing that the anonymous person was anonymous because the BO is actually theirs and were trying to cover it up!!

Reviews for MATH240