MATH310 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Kendall Williams MATH310 Anonymous 10/21/2024	He just reads out of the textbook when teaching in class; it would be nice to see some of my tuition dollars at work as opposed to being redirected to a textbook that I downloaded for free. He teaches noticeably different material than other MATH310 teachers and assigns homework assignments that are very long and often due the day of the test. He's a very nice guy, and he answers all your questions. MATH310 is seemingly hard to teach and hard to learn for many, so keep that in mind. For a class this difficult, though, it seems necessary for the students to have a teacher that is a bit more dedicated to this course.
Sean Gruber MATH310 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 10/18/2024	never took his class but still fucking loved him
Renjie Feng MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/24/2024	a good lecturer, although sometimes the English is hard to understand. but the lectures are well prepared.
Sean Gruber MATH310 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 09/24/2024	One of the best professors ever! All his exams were weighted the same which took a lot of pressure off performing super well on the final like for most math classes. He was super flexible with homework and quizzes (ie extending hw due dates and going over the concepts more with us if he felt like we didn't spend enough time on them, and letting the entire class redo a quiz because everyone did bad on it) (also out of the weekly(ish) quizzes, about half were group quizzes—so we got to collaborate on them). He really worked to help us make sure we understood the more complex topics and was always willing to explain it!
Sean Gruber MATH310 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/15/2024	Dr. G is one of the best professors I've had so far! He's very kind and cares a lot about his students succeeding in class. All of the exams (including the final) were 15% each so the final wasn't weighted as much! Also, he goes over a couple of homework questions in class in case some students are struggling on the hws. He provides a lot of help during office hours and is very patient with explaining complex concepts. Overall, I would highly recommend taking Dr. G!
Sean Gruber MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/12/2024	Very good teacher, but more importantly, genuinely cares about his students. Final is only worth 15% of your grade so it won’t screw you over completely. Patient and willing to explain things as many times as needed to make sure you understand. Sent out an email before finals to check up on everyone and remind us that we’re more than a letter grade. Genuinely a good guy and an awesome teacher.
Sean Gruber MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2024	Dr. G is the best 310 professor without a doubt. He is an amazing and caring professor who wants everyone to succeed in his class and in future classes. His exams were fair and the quizzes and homework helped a ton. Part of what makes him a great professor is he has a PhD in Math Education, so he understands the concepts very well and understands how to teach students. My only complaint is I cannot take him for every class.
Sean Gruber MATH310 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/22/2024	Dr. G is, as his name implies, a G. He actually teaches things, which is nice, and he's a relatively lenient grader.
Sean Gruber MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2024	Super! Class is organized and insightful, he explains concepts so well. He posts google doc notes so u can easily catch up even if u miss a class. He cares about each and every student. Just take whatever class he teaches --- this is never wrong!!!
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/05/2024	tl;dr: one of my favorite professors and courses, but it's hard AND time consuming for most. prepares you really well though. median scores: Groupwork: 95.63% Homework: 87.96% Quizzes: 66.26% Exam 1: 80.38% Exam 2: 63.00% Exam 3: 63.50% Final: 73.25% Grade Median: ~75.52% (aligns with PlanetTerp grade data) Lectures: Energetic professor with really engaging lectures. Pretty necessary unless you're going to office hours to make up for what you missed, since the textbook isn't enough to go straight into the homework. Structure is introducing the topic, giving you the important definitions, and then walking through as many examples as possible, step by step, until time runs out. The examples are usually proofs that are already in the textbook or going to be on the homework, but sometimes it's a really hard proof (that you'll never have to recreate or remember) that introduces the topic at a high level to you. Homework: A few questions are similar to the ones walked through in class, but it's never as easy as just switching up the numbers in your answer. For the rest, you need the notes and textbook with you. The questions scale up in difficulty and build off each other, so it's not like you have to stare blankly at a question until a full proof pops in your head. Grading is mostly off attempting/completing every question, with 3 of them randomly selected to get graded on accuracy. (you should be going to office hours at least once a week before the deadline to get your homework checked over) Quiz and exam questions are modified homework questions, or something close enough that doing the homework would prepare you to solve it within the time limit. It won't always be a graded question that's selected for exams, so you really have to complete and understand the entire HW to be prepared for them. Quizzes: 10 minutes long and happen the lecture after the homework was due (so 2 days). Structure is one definition and one proof or just one proof. Exams: A lot for 50 minutes, but still doable imo. The second you get stuck, you should probably move on to rack up as much partial credit. At the start of exam review days, Kate tells you the weight of each question, what section it covers, and its format -- true/false, working with definitions, or a full proof. Grading: Partial credit is big, if you couldn't get the algebra down or connect the dots on one last part, you'd still get like 70-80% of the points on that question. You lose a small number of points for not including minor justifications like "because f is a function" or "because f is continuous". It's necessary you include them/understand why, but a little annoying since those points can add up to like 3-5% on exams when you're stressed and pressed for time. Other: - one homework, one quiz, and one groupwork dropped - lectures recorded on request - spent 6-10 hours per week, peaking at the start of proofs (week 2) and again at the MATH410 content (the last third) - the final is cumulative but really just Exam 3.5 - if you took CMSC250, basic proofs, set theory and relations/functions are the main overlap, but i don't remember if 250 went as deep as this for relations and functions - hints to groupwork posted after they're due - there's a day-by-day "reading calendar" on canvas that suggests what sections of the textbook to read and what homework questions you should try to have completed i think the course being so dense means it sticks with you heavy, cause this was the final I studied for the least
Jose Rigoberto Enrique Zelada Cifuentes MATH310 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/26/2024	Rigoberto was a really nice professor who gave very clear and helpful lectures. He is also lenient with homework deadlines and late work and will help out anyone who puts in an effort, and probably those who don't as well.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Anonymous 01/23/2024	I agree with the review below, but I would give more stars to Professor Halperin himself -- he's great, and it was truly an honor to have him as a teacher in one of his last semesters at UMD before retirement. His class is well paced and doable if you go to office hours. The perk of taking 310 with him is that it's the only class he is teaching, so his office hours are very accessible. The course material is also accessible through the text that he wrote himself. However, I think I speak for most students when I say I am not a fan of Laurel, who was the grader for this class. She took off an unnecessary amount of homework points that were unreasonable, because when students and I went to office hours, even Dr. Halperin said himself that our proofs were correct. Thank goodness the professor graded the exams.
Jose Rigoberto Enrique Zelada Cifuentes MATH310 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/18/2024	Super clear lecturer and provided very helpful notes. Helpful to students and a nice guy as well. Tests were not overly difficult. I just didn't study as hard as I should have for the final so I ended with a B+, but if you put in the work in this class you will be fine with Rigo.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/15/2024	Highly recommend taking Kate for 310. She's super nice and her lectures are extremely clear. Just start your homeworks as early as possible since they do admittedly take a while and go to office hours/email her as often as possible. The homeworks are only partially graded and 2 out of 10 points of each one are based on completion. It might feel weird to have so many questions and only have some of them graded but trust me when I say it works better that way. If you're anything like me, then unless you're a genius or you already know how to write proofs, you really need the basically forced practice or you'll probably fail or at least not get a very good grade, since I know for sure I wouldn't have done nearly as many problems if they weren't required. Definitely make sure to memorize and understand your definitions or you'll get cooked by the timers. Other than that, quizzes and exams are extremely fair and are more or less just slight variations on homework/quiz/groupwork questions.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2023	This class was the easiest course I've ever taken at UMD. Exam questions were taken from the textbook, so as long as you prepared for it, you would get high grades. The grading scheme was generous too. However, his teaching style was hard to follow and understand what he was explaining in the lectures.
Jose Rigoberto Enrique Zelada Cifuentes MATH310 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/15/2023	Good professor. Lectures were pretty good for this class, although they did get confusing at times. Homeworks weren't bad at all and often saved the grade. Quizzes were somewhat hard, however, he did provide answers or the quiz questions ahead of time if the topic was particularly difficult. Exams were difficult to say the least. Make sure you study a lot and know your definitions! Overall, nice professor and does try to help the students as much as he can. Would take him for 310. The transition from computational math to 310 is hard, but just keep practicing and eventually things will come into place.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting an A anonymous1 12/13/2023	One of my favorite professors of all time. You must go to office hours if you need help because there is no TA, but Prof Truman is so sweet, approachable, and funny. She makes the content as easy as possible, and if you genuinely try she will genuinely help. Definitely start homework well in advance, all of the exam questions come from homework, group work, or lecture/quiz questions, so it exams are pretty fair. If you are not afraid of hard work, the class will go well. As for Professor Truman, she is a really nice person and a caring professor.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/12/2023	It's not often that a professor is THIS middle-of-the-road. He was fine. Not too easy, not too hard, not too fast, not too slow, etc etc. He was acceptable but not exceptional on almost every axis. The main two exceptions were that he was super available in terms of office hours, and the homework grader we got was really bad (hopefully that was just this semester). Plus, all the test questions come from the textbook, which is nice (though maybe not quite as nice as it initially seems). Would recommend, but not strongly.
Steven Chadwick MATH310 Expecting a C Anonymous 08/24/2023	Professor Chadwick is a awesome. His lectures make sense and if they don't he'll answer any questions in a way that will make sense for you. He's also super helpful during office hours if you have any homework or general questions. In addition, his exams and due dates are very reasonable, you won't find any question on exams that you haven't already covered in class prior to the exam.
Steven Chadwick MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/14/2023	Professor Chadwick is an incredibly nice teacher who takes time to answer questions, and he goes at a reasonable pace. I had him online, and he regularly stops to take questions from the chat, and is very helpful during office hours, even extending time to let everyone ask questions. Math310 is hard but he makes sure to break everything down and provides us with outside resources, and the regular practice problems really help. The in class practice sets count for the grade but he goes over them at the end of every class so it's an easy way to boost your percentage. The environment was also very relaxed and he lets us joke around and build a nice community of weird math nerds. In general, it's very clear that he loves math and is very kind towards the students. Definitely recommend if you're taking Math310 or any other departmental class!
Kendall Williams MATH310 Expecting a D Anonymous 05/20/2023	Do not take with this professor. Low grade no curve, literally more than half of the students dropped.
James Conway MATH310 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/19/2023	Professor Conway is a great teacher! He makes the homework’s a little bit tougher so that you can do well on the exams, and he does a great job of breaking down hard proofs and concepts into a framework to do similar proofs(like exam questions). There are no trick questions. It’s a lot of work, but definitely a top tier professor
James Conway MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/05/2023	I absolutely loved Conway. He is really good at breaking down proofs and making things easy to understand. He goes at a nice pace in his lectures, fast enough you don't fall asleep but slow enough to understand what he is talking about. He cracks some jokes in class, and creates a very collaborative feeling in his class. He is super responsive and incredibly helpful. His exams were very fair, sometimes taking problems straight from the homework. The homeworks are hell, but if you really work on them and try to get it you barely need to study for the exams. He actually encourages you to get help with the homework by working with classmates or even going on the internet. That said, starting the homeworks early makes all the difference. The homework is graded pretty strictly (may have had more to do with my TA), but the exams aren't so bad. The worst homework and quiz is dropped. He's also just like... a reasonable guy. He once wrote the due date for a homework is midnight on Canvas, but on Gradescope it was actually due at 9:30 am that day. Some professors would say tough luck, but when it was brought up in class he corrected the problem and let everybody turn it in on the later time. I also heard from classmates that he was really good with accommodating different issues students may have. This is a hard class and it involves a lot of work, but he made it very manageable. I highly highly recommend him for 310.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Anonymous 01/12/2023	Professor Halperin is an extremely nice guy who cares about his students. The class at first is hard to understand but over time it gets better. Every exam is from the textbook which is really nice. In class it is sometimes hard to understand what is going on. Many people skip class and you can but I recommend you go since many times he goes over hw answers.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/03/2023	Took this class with Kate first and I can tell you its night and day, kate's class will make you put in at least 30 hours each week whereas for this class you really only need to put 5 hours a week
Steve Halperin MATH310 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/03/2023	Easy professor, take this class with him for no struggling.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/03/2023	Easy ass professor.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/03/2023	Homework is the same problems as the exams, IDENTICAL. He even offers extra credit on each exam by dropping a question and making it extra credit.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/03/2023	This class is so easy with him, free A. Exams are literally the homework.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Anonymous 12/15/2022	Like others have said, exam questions are directly from the homeworks (so you should definitely do them) but his lectures can sometimes be very confusing. He is always available in his office though to go over hw problems and concepts from class.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 05/25/2022	I'm not a fan of Truman. Homework assignments took hours and weren't similar to any of the problems we covered in class. The averages for the exams were all around 50%. I would go for a different professor when taking 310.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting a C- Anonymous 05/17/2022	I'm only getting a C because I bombed my first midterm. The homework feels like a lot of work because it's due right when you finish learning the material that is covered in the homework and you're not able to solve it easily just yet. But I promise when you look back at the homework questions to study for the final, you'll realize how easy it is to solve them and laugh at yourself for spending so much time than necessary. It took me a lot of self-studying to fully understand how to write proofs, but once you understand everything the material becomes fun. Dr Truman is a great professor, she'll do anything to help you understand the material, so don't worry too much !
Steve Halperin MATH310 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/16/2022	Great professor to take for a pretty terrible grade distribution of a class. His tests are LITERALLY the same questions as the homework so there should be no reason why you should not get a 100% if not better on each exam(there is extra credit in each exam). This class is mostly self learning the techniques of proofing so if you want a free A and also a pretty decent understanding of mathematical proofing, this is your guy.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting a P Anonymous 03/09/2022	I took this course in 2020 Spring. I like Dr. Truman and she is nice. But the course experience is really bad, Midterm 1 was too difficult and the average is 59. The materials are not Math theorems, you just recite the proof and write it down. I don't like it at all. I got 70+ as the final grade.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/23/2021	I really liked Dr. Truman, She's super nice and approachable. Even if you ask her a "dumb" question, she doesn't react like it's dumb, and often jokes like "oh, we all forget algebra here and there." I would recommend her, but her class definitely has a hard workload so plan accordingly. You know how every semester you have that "one" class that takes up most of your time? This is that class. I don't think it matters if you have other hard courses, this one will dominate your time. Also, get a copy of "the Book of Proof" by Richard Hammack, it's free and WAY better than the crappy textbook this course uses. How to succeed in her class: start homework the day the topics are covered. The homework is long and hard because she wants you to spend time on it. You can't do it in one day, I promise. A good week was an 8 hour long homework, worse was maybe 16 hours, but it did take a bit for me to understand some stuff so I may be on the longer side. When doing the homework, write all the relevant definitions and theorems down on a notecard and only reference that for homework. You'll memorize it, eventually. Go to office hours and ask every single question you could possibly think of. My exam grades had an upward trend once I started going to every single office hours (D first exam, C- second exam, A+ on 3rd exam and B+ on final). Email her any questions you have, she really doesn't mind. Exams are almost identical to homework, even in the online environment. The best way to prepare for these are to redo the homework and check with her to make sure you did proofs correctly. Only select homework problems are graded, so if 1, 3, and 9 are graded, you have no idea if you did 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 right or not. She's not going to put anything harder than the homework on an exam or quiz. Quizzes also have almost identical homework content, but the question is often disguised a bit-- if you really know and understand the homework, you'll realize it's the same question. The hardest weeks in this class are week 2 and week 10. Week 2 is when you're thrown into proof writing with a very long homework and only about 5 days to do it. Week 10 is when you start the advanced calculus (math 410) content. That was pretty hard for me, but eventually it all clicked after spending a lot of time in office hours and watching various YouTube videos. Exam 3 content is nothing worse than the respective homework, in fact I found it to be some of the easiest questions from the homework, but it may vary semester to semester. I think if you do all of the above, you'll do well in her course. Take it with other light courses so you can spend adequate time on the content. I think if you enjoy the content, it's actually a kind of fun class. Proofs are really cool once you get the basic intuition for it :)
Ruiwen Shu MATH310 Anonymous 05/13/2021	Shu is an extremely organized and overall a great professor. MATH310 is a notoriously difficult class with a high Fail/W rate. However, Shu presented the material in a way that was easily digestible. He would start off by stating theorems or general concepts and providing examples. He would then do proofs and explained the thought process behind writing them very well. I only have 2 complaints for the class. My first complaint is that towards the end of the class he would skip steps during proofs because he felt they were easy and didn't require an explanation. My final complaint is that he would not provide practice exams. However, regardless of these two complaints the notes from class are sufficient for completing the homework, and exam questions were representative of homework problems and problems from the notes. Overall great professor definitely take him for MATH310 if you have the option.
Ruiwen Shu MATH310 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/30/2021	Shu is a great professor. He is so straightforward and teaches with examples which is the way I learn best in math. His homeworks are assigned from the textbook, and his exams are very fair. He is well organized and keeps to the relevant information for the course. For what is supposed to be a tough transition into advanced math, he hasn't had me confused or lost in any of his lectures, he just knows the material so well. Would definitely recommend taking him.
Rodrigo Trevino MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/09/2021	Took his MATH310 section in Fall 2020 and honestly, he was a really good professor. He explained the concepts well and made an effort to help us if we didn't understand, as well as being pretty approachable with regards to grades and other items.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting a B CrazeddRabbi 01/13/2021	Probably the best instructor for MATH310. She would assign quick 5-10 minute videos containing definitions to watch before class when needed (not that often), otherwise we only had to attend live lecture. Most, if not all, of live lecture time was dedicated to student understanding of concepts and the homework. She would have two or three examples, but would build in time for students to ask questions or allow them to interject their own questions instead of the prepared examples. She was also really responsive and helpful on Piazza - you'd often get a response within 10 minutes, regardless of the time or day. Only reason that this a 4 and not 5 star review is the time allotted for quizzes and especially exams felt unrealistic since we were supposed to stop ~10 minutes earlier to scan and submit. CLASS TIPS (Regardless of teacher): 1. Start the HW early! She doesn't give you a week to do it because she's nice (which she is), she does it because it takes a week(or at least a weekend) to do it! Seriously. Except for the first HW, I would consider it a godsend to finish a HW in six hours or less. 2. When studying for an exam, I recommend writing all the terms and definitions you learned that unit on two sheets of paper. That way you have everything you need to look at when studying in one place. Also very good when cramming. Also, it's obvious but bears saying, study by doing problems! Specifically, the problems you got wrong or had trouble with on HW and quizzes. 3. Start doing math at least thirty minutes prior to an exam. That way when it starts you're already in "math mode". 4. (This one might be more Truman and/or online-specific, but is still useful). Finally, you should be in a blitzkrieg mindset during this exam. You really do not have time for mistakes. If you read a problem and after thirty seconds still don't know how to approach it, SKIP IT.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka MATH310 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/12/2021	He's not as bad as people make it seem. Maybe not the greatest choice for a lower level math class with a rigid curriculum, but if you take him for 310, he's fine. Also, his exams are more than fair and he curves the class.
Nathan Manning MATH310 Expecting a C- Anonymous 01/12/2021	Manning makes the material more difficult that it has to be, he speaks in a condescending ish tone to students, in a way that made me feel uncomfortable going to office hours much and asking for help. I wouldn’t recommend him overall. This was the first class I have barely passed.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka MATH310 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/09/2020	This guy kinda just reads from the textbook, but if you come to him about specific questions he is quite helpful.
Nathan Manning MATH310 Expecting a W Anonymous 10/29/2020	Nice guy, but good luck understanding the material. He does not curve either. Not very clear and assumes a lot of knowledge among students that many don't understand
Nathan Manning MATH310 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 09/16/2020	Pros: - Generally nice guy - Great Lecturer - Will drill a very solid understanding of Mathematical Proof into your head Cons: - At times was very condescending towards some of my classmates, didn't really like the environment it set up in some of the lectures (hence generally nice) - VERY heavy courseload (can be both great and negative) - Tough exams with absolutely no curve. Overall: If you are not taking a heavy courseload for a semester and you need to take 310, take it with him. You'll have a ton of challenging work during his class, but it will set up a very solid foundation for higher level classes and will pay off in the long run. If you have to take a heavy courseload, and need to take 310 (like I had to) then I can't recommend. His 310 course was way too overwhelming with the courseload I already had.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/15/2020	Professor Truman is energetic and really cares about her class but unfortunately, that means having a lot of work and assignments. I took this class because I am pursuing a math minor and this class was more work than my major requirement courses. She does not post homework, exam, group work, or quiz solutions. The only time you can get an idea of what the solution may be is if you go to office hours or email her with an attempt to the question in which she will give you tips on how to get to the solution but never tell you the solution itself. She would give a quiz a day after the homework was due meaning we wouldn't get our graded homework back in time to study for the quiz and see what mistakes we were making. Since there were no homework solutions posted, there were many ocassions where people would do poorly on the homework and the quiz because we didn't get feedback on time. You can tell she cares about students really learning the concepts because this is an important class for MATH410 but that meant getting a lot of work in and outside of class. I personally think this class was too much work for what it is worth and multiple people dropped from our class before our second midterm (some of them dropping the course for a second time). We also did not have enough time to complete our midterms with more than half of the class not fully completing the exams.
Kendall Williams MATH310 Anonymous 10/29/2019	Definitely, he is not a good professor. His tests are hard and he doesn't curve.
Jeffrey Adams MATH310 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/14/2019	i would give him more stars but sometimes when he writes proofs he doesn't completely organize the steps that well. otherwise, he is very fair with grading on tests. if you have a general idea of what you're doing on a test problem you'll get at least 50-75% credit for that problem. he's nice and respectful and understands situations where you have to turn in homework late. 3 stars seems low but if you put the effort in this class with him you should do fine.
Nathan Manning MATH310 Anonymous 05/11/2018	Really enthusiastic and dedicated to teaching. Fun to talk to.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/14/2017	Pretty mediocre professor. He doesn't have much respect for his students, the textbook he wrote is convoluted and any issues that come up out of the student's control is the student's fault.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/18/2016	I mostly agree with the other reviews. Kate is very energetic and knowledgeable. She is normally very clear with her explanations (written and spoken). With just those things, she's already better than most of the other math teachers I've had at UMD which were terrible at communicating course material. What's scary is how much of the two textbooks she has memorized including questions and question numbers. However, the class was too much work (for me at least). If anyone is to blame, it's the math department's (ludicrously?) high standards. If she didn't jam as much in as possible, then students wouldn't be prepared for Math410. But, because there was so much material, she could hardly give us a brief explanation and short example for each topic. So now after finishing the class, I feel like a Jack of all trades but master of none, and spending so little time on each topic means I'll probably forget almost everything (except broad topics) over the summer. If there was less material, I could have mastered more of it, and it would likely stick longer. But I guess for a cursory preview/review of a bunch of math topics, Math310 served its purpose. It's funny how I put more way effort into my math classes (including Math310) than my 4xx level comp sci classes, and I get a B in math and A in comp sci (without even having to take the final in comp sci). It's hard to say if comp sci is a bit too easy or if math is a bit too hard, but I'm leaning towards math being too hard. It's great that Kate (and the other math teachers) drop a bunch of assignments and nudge grades so the class averages work out, but I'd rather they curve things around student performance than what percentage of the content they can cram into their brains and regurgitate onto paper in an hour. For example, comp sci classes might set the B/C cutoff at the median for the class, and have the other grades based on standard deviations from the median. (median - 2(std dev) = D, median - 1(std dev) = C, median = B, median + 1(std dev) = A). That means you have to do well compared to your classmates which is mostly independent of how well the teacher is at preparing the students for tests. If the teacher's style doesn't fit with how the students learn (on average), then students can still do well compared to each other. With the math department's system, if the teacher's style doesn't fit with how the students learn on average, then the students won't know all of the material, so they will do poorly on average. So for math, a student can put in way more effort than others and get a better grade than most of them and still get a bad grade in the class if the class average was low (or a B when they put in a ton of effort). Dropping and nudging scores helps, but it can still leave students that put in a ton of effort with a less-than-ideal grade. This problem wasn't as severe with Kate's Math310, but I wish she did something to curve tests with low averages, or did an overhaul to compare students vs each other instead of vs the textbook. In general, I spent nearly all of every Saturday working on Math310 homework and several hours throughout the week on the other assignments. This felt overwhelming, but it didn't even feel like enough practice for all the content. So, if you have to rush and sacrifice quality for quantity to pack material into a class, is there too much material? Does the math department want its 3xx classes to be more work than other majors' 4xx classes? (Not to mention Math1xx and 2xx tend to feel like 3xx or 4xx classes). And the icing on the cake is that taking CMSC250 places you out of Math310, but Math310 is unarguably much more difficult. That was a lot of complaining, but at least Kate tried her best and was better than other math teachers. (Hmm, what a useful metric comparing people against their peers is).
Richard Rast MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/04/2016	The lectures are great! He knows the material very well and explains them in a pretty clear way! Love him! I would recommend him to anyone with little proof experience.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Anonymous 12/18/2015	In short, he is a great professor. The class is definitely challenging, but he makes it as fair as possible by drawing exam questions only from previous homeworks. He's always willing to answer questions, even if it's the answer to an upcoming homework problem. Definitely go to office hours and have lots of questions. His lectures themselves are not that useful, but really that's because proofs is something I think you just have to learn through practice.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Expecting an A cblumenf 11/05/2014	310 is a difficult course to teach since it's different than any other Math course students have taken. He teaches by doing examples, which isn't always a lot of help, but he makes up for it by answering any questions during class or office hours. The test questions are all taken from the homeworks and the tests are graded on a curve which makes them manageable/easy.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/05/2014	I don't know how you guys are bringing yourselves to give her high ratings. This class is an asinine waste of time and money; the last 30-40 percent of it is basically math410 REALLY poorly explained and rushed at a ridiculous pace. The rest of the class is really easy material and studying various proof techniques, which is actually fairly useful. She has really lost most of the class at this point with the 410 stuff. She assigns ungodly long homework assignments, and then she uses class time to go over the answers. This is great and all, but it leaves her with little time to explain the material for the subsequent hw assignments. My grades are suffering miserably because of the 410 rush, so I'm planning on getting a C at this point. I would say pick up a book like Daniel Vellman's "how to prove it", or the book for the class by Zhang, read over it, learn proof techniques, and avoid this stupid class all-together. I'm trying not to get discouraged from 410 because I really want to know it, but she's doing a very fine job of making me lose my interest in the subject.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Anonymous 05/15/2013	His teaching is not nearly as bad as the other reviews make it seem. I think it's just that the content can be difficult to grasp if you aren't used to writing proofs. If you spend a lot of time and make sure to fully understand what he is saying, the exams are not awful and his grading is very generous. He teaches through doing rather than by example, which can be very, very frustrating at first when nothing makes sense, but eventually you'll get the hang of it. I learned a lot in his class!
Steve Halperin MATH310 Anonymous 04/24/2013	His teaching style is horrible. His method of instructing is by telling the class to try as many problems as possible without actually teaching them how to prove anything. At one point, all of us failed an assignment and verbatim, he stated that "[he] deduced that it was entirely [our] fault." At one point he was asked to solve one of our test problems on the blackboard and he was unable to do it. I used to be a math major, but I dropped it because of this class. Nice guy, but avoid him at all costs.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Anonymous 01/31/2013	Halperin made efforts to be friendly to students, but was a horrendous teacher. Never in my career as an undergraduate have I such a terrible learning experience. When presented with problems from the exam, he was unable to solve some of then. Yet, on this same exam, he claimed that it was OUR fault for not learning the material- yet every single person failed this same test. Avoid Steven Halperin at all costs.
Steve Halperin MATH310 Anonymous 12/17/2012	This class was an absolute train-wreck. Steve Halperin is a cool guy, but his ability to teach and prepare you for his tests is more or less like giving students butter knives when there is a gun fight. Absolutely horrible teaching ability + his cryptic book makes 310 an absolute atrocity of a class. And this is not from some one who is bitter... I actually scored really high on all the homeworks and midterms; this was just a high stress class that makes you go insane at times.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/01/2011	As has been said, Dr. Truman is great. Very conscious of students' needs. Exams are easy. Homeworks can be a bit daunting at times and only having <1hr office hours once per week doesn't help. However, I found the class to be a bit of a waste of time. Roughly 80% of the course is easy. I'd say the other 20% is manageable at worst. The only reason I'm getting a B is because I missed one of the exams. If you're confident with your mathematical skill, I'd say either take 307 during the summer with her or don't take it at all.
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/30/2010	Dr. Truman is a very energetic and knowledgeable instructor. She is also an academic adviser, so if you take class with her she will know your strengths and really know what kind of schedule you can handle. Teaching wise she knows what she is doing and she makes herself available via email if you ever need extra help. 310 was a pretty easy class up until the last section when we started calculus proofs. She is definitely one of the best 310 instructors at CP, I am going to try and get her to teach me 406
Kathryn Truman MATH310 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/03/2009	Kate was one of the best math instructors i have ever had. She went over anything and everything that was on tests. Tests were straight forward and about 90% of test questions were hw's. she gives 15 free points before exams with "group quizzes." If you stay on top of hw's you will completely fine and get an A

Kendall Williams
MATH310

Anonymous
10/21/2024

He just reads out of the textbook when teaching in class; it would be nice to see some of my tuition dollars at work as opposed to being redirected to a textbook that I downloaded for free. He teaches noticeably different material than other MATH310 teachers and assigns homework assignments that are very long and often due the day of the test. He's a very nice guy, and he answers all your questions. MATH310 is seemingly hard to teach and hard to learn for many, so keep that in mind. For a class this difficult, though, it seems necessary for the students to have a teacher that is a bit more dedicated to this course.

Sean Gruber
MATH310

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
10/18/2024

never took his class but still fucking loved him

Renjie Feng
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/24/2024

a good lecturer, although sometimes the English is hard to understand. but the lectures are well prepared.

Sean Gruber
MATH310

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
09/24/2024

One of the best professors ever! All his exams were weighted the same which took a lot of pressure off performing super well on the final like for most math classes. He was super flexible with homework and quizzes (ie extending hw due dates and going over the concepts more with us if he felt like we didn't spend enough time on them, and letting the entire class redo a quiz because everyone did bad on it) (also out of the weekly(ish) quizzes, about half were group quizzes—so we got to collaborate on them). He really worked to help us make sure we understood the more complex topics and was always willing to explain it!

Sean Gruber
MATH310

Expecting a B
Anonymous
08/15/2024

Dr. G is one of the best professors I've had so far! He's very kind and cares a lot about his students succeeding in class. All of the exams (including the final) were 15% each so the final wasn't weighted as much! Also, he goes over a couple of homework questions in class in case some students are struggling on the hws. He provides a lot of help during office hours and is very patient with explaining complex concepts. Overall, I would highly recommend taking Dr. G!

Sean Gruber
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/12/2024

Very good teacher, but more importantly, genuinely cares about his students. Final is only worth 15% of your grade so it won’t screw you over completely. Patient and willing to explain things as many times as needed to make sure you understand. Sent out an email before finals to check up on everyone and remind us that we’re more than a letter grade. Genuinely a good guy and an awesome teacher.

Sean Gruber
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/22/2024

Dr. G is the best 310 professor without a doubt. He is an amazing and caring professor who wants everyone to succeed in his class and in future classes. His exams were fair and the quizzes and homework helped a ton. Part of what makes him a great professor is he has a PhD in Math Education, so he understands the concepts very well and understands how to teach students. My only complaint is I cannot take him for every class.

Sean Gruber
MATH310

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/22/2024

Dr. G is, as his name implies, a G. He actually teaches things, which is nice, and he's a relatively lenient grader.

Sean Gruber
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/21/2024

Super! Class is organized and insightful, he explains concepts so well. He posts google doc notes so u can easily catch up even if u miss a class. He cares about each and every student. Just take whatever class he teaches --- this is never wrong!!!

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/05/2024

tl;dr: one of my favorite professors and courses, but it's hard AND time consuming for most. prepares you really well though. median scores: Groupwork: 95.63% Homework: 87.96% Quizzes: 66.26% Exam 1: 80.38% Exam 2: 63.00% Exam 3: 63.50% Final: 73.25% Grade Median: ~75.52% (aligns with PlanetTerp grade data) Lectures: Energetic professor with really engaging lectures. Pretty necessary unless you're going to office hours to make up for what you missed, since the textbook isn't enough to go straight into the homework. Structure is introducing the topic, giving you the important definitions, and then walking through as many examples as possible, step by step, until time runs out. The examples are usually proofs that are already in the textbook or going to be on the homework, but sometimes it's a really hard proof (that you'll never have to recreate or remember) that introduces the topic at a high level to you. Homework: A few questions are similar to the ones walked through in class, but it's never as easy as just switching up the numbers in your answer. For the rest, you need the notes and textbook with you. The questions scale up in difficulty and build off each other, so it's not like you have to stare blankly at a question until a full proof pops in your head. Grading is mostly off attempting/completing every question, with 3 of them randomly selected to get graded on accuracy. (you should be going to office hours at least once a week before the deadline to get your homework checked over) Quiz and exam questions are modified homework questions, or something close enough that doing the homework would prepare you to solve it within the time limit. It won't always be a graded question that's selected for exams, so you really have to complete and understand the entire HW to be prepared for them. Quizzes: 10 minutes long and happen the lecture after the homework was due (so 2 days). Structure is one definition and one proof or just one proof. Exams: A lot for 50 minutes, but still doable imo. The second you get stuck, you should probably move on to rack up as much partial credit. At the start of exam review days, Kate tells you the weight of each question, what section it covers, and its format -- true/false, working with definitions, or a full proof. Grading: Partial credit is big, if you couldn't get the algebra down or connect the dots on one last part, you'd still get like 70-80% of the points on that question. You lose a small number of points for not including minor justifications like "because f is a function" or "because f is continuous". It's necessary you include them/understand why, but a little annoying since those points can add up to like 3-5% on exams when you're stressed and pressed for time. Other: - one homework, one quiz, and one groupwork dropped - lectures recorded on request - spent 6-10 hours per week, peaking at the start of proofs (week 2) and again at the MATH410 content (the last third) - the final is cumulative but really just Exam 3.5 - if you took CMSC250, basic proofs, set theory and relations/functions are the main overlap, but i don't remember if 250 went as deep as this for relations and functions - hints to groupwork posted after they're due - there's a day-by-day "reading calendar" on canvas that suggests what sections of the textbook to read and what homework questions you should try to have completed i think the course being so dense means it sticks with you heavy, cause this was the final I studied for the least

Jose Rigoberto Enrique Zelada Cifuentes
MATH310

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
01/26/2024

Rigoberto was a really nice professor who gave very clear and helpful lectures. He is also lenient with homework deadlines and late work and will help out anyone who puts in an effort, and probably those who don't as well.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Anonymous
01/23/2024

I agree with the review below, but I would give more stars to Professor Halperin himself -- he's great, and it was truly an honor to have him as a teacher in one of his last semesters at UMD before retirement. His class is well paced and doable if you go to office hours. The perk of taking 310 with him is that it's the only class he is teaching, so his office hours are very accessible. The course material is also accessible through the text that he wrote himself. However, I think I speak for most students when I say I am not a fan of Laurel, who was the grader for this class. She took off an unnecessary amount of homework points that were unreasonable, because when students and I went to office hours, even Dr. Halperin said himself that our proofs were correct. Thank goodness the professor graded the exams.

Jose Rigoberto Enrique Zelada Cifuentes
MATH310

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
01/18/2024

Super clear lecturer and provided very helpful notes. Helpful to students and a nice guy as well. Tests were not overly difficult. I just didn't study as hard as I should have for the final so I ended with a B+, but if you put in the work in this class you will be fine with Rigo.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/15/2024

Highly recommend taking Kate for 310. She's super nice and her lectures are extremely clear. Just start your homeworks as early as possible since they do admittedly take a while and go to office hours/email her as often as possible. The homeworks are only partially graded and 2 out of 10 points of each one are based on completion. It might feel weird to have so many questions and only have some of them graded but trust me when I say it works better that way. If you're anything like me, then unless you're a genius or you already know how to write proofs, you really need the basically forced practice or you'll probably fail or at least not get a very good grade, since I know for sure I wouldn't have done nearly as many problems if they weren't required. Definitely make sure to memorize and understand your definitions or you'll get cooked by the timers. Other than that, quizzes and exams are extremely fair and are more or less just slight variations on homework/quiz/groupwork questions.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/24/2023

This class was the easiest course I've ever taken at UMD. Exam questions were taken from the textbook, so as long as you prepared for it, you would get high grades. The grading scheme was generous too. However, his teaching style was hard to follow and understand what he was explaining in the lectures.

Jose Rigoberto Enrique Zelada Cifuentes
MATH310

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/15/2023

Good professor. Lectures were pretty good for this class, although they did get confusing at times. Homeworks weren't bad at all and often saved the grade. Quizzes were somewhat hard, however, he did provide answers or the quiz questions ahead of time if the topic was particularly difficult. Exams were difficult to say the least. Make sure you study a lot and know your definitions! Overall, nice professor and does try to help the students as much as he can. Would take him for 310. The transition from computational math to 310 is hard, but just keep practicing and eventually things will come into place.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting an A
anonymous1
12/13/2023

One of my favorite professors of all time. You must go to office hours if you need help because there is no TA, but Prof Truman is so sweet, approachable, and funny. She makes the content as easy as possible, and if you genuinely try she will genuinely help. Definitely start homework well in advance, all of the exam questions come from homework, group work, or lecture/quiz questions, so it exams are pretty fair. If you are not afraid of hard work, the class will go well. As for Professor Truman, she is a really nice person and a caring professor.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/12/2023

It's not often that a professor is THIS middle-of-the-road. He was *fine*. Not too easy, not too hard, not too fast, not too slow, etc etc. He was acceptable but not exceptional on almost every axis. The main two exceptions were that he was super available in terms of office hours, and the homework grader we got was really bad (hopefully that was just this semester). Plus, all the test questions come from the textbook, which is nice (though maybe not quite as nice as it initially seems). Would recommend, but not strongly.

Steven Chadwick
MATH310

Expecting a C
Anonymous
08/24/2023

Professor Chadwick is a awesome. His lectures make sense and if they don't he'll answer any questions in a way that will make sense for you. He's also super helpful during office hours if you have any homework or general questions. In addition, his exams and due dates are very reasonable, you won't find any question on exams that you haven't already covered in class prior to the exam.

Steven Chadwick
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/14/2023

Professor Chadwick is an incredibly nice teacher who takes time to answer questions, and he goes at a reasonable pace. I had him online, and he regularly stops to take questions from the chat, and is very helpful during office hours, even extending time to let everyone ask questions. Math310 is hard but he makes sure to break everything down and provides us with outside resources, and the regular practice problems really help. The in class practice sets count for the grade but he goes over them at the end of every class so it's an easy way to boost your percentage. The environment was also very relaxed and he lets us joke around and build a nice community of weird math nerds. In general, it's very clear that he loves math and is very kind towards the students. Definitely recommend if you're taking Math310 or any other departmental class!

Kendall Williams
MATH310

Expecting a D
Anonymous
05/20/2023

Do not take with this professor. Low grade no curve, literally more than half of the students dropped.

James Conway
MATH310

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/19/2023

Professor Conway is a great teacher! He makes the homework’s a little bit tougher so that you can do well on the exams, and he does a great job of breaking down hard proofs and concepts into a framework to do similar proofs(like exam questions). There are no trick questions. It’s a lot of work, but definitely a top tier professor

James Conway
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/05/2023

I absolutely loved Conway. He is really good at breaking down proofs and making things easy to understand. He goes at a nice pace in his lectures, fast enough you don't fall asleep but slow enough to understand what he is talking about. He cracks some jokes in class, and creates a very collaborative feeling in his class. He is super responsive and incredibly helpful. His exams were very fair, sometimes taking problems straight from the homework. The homeworks are hell, but if you really work on them and try to get it you barely need to study for the exams. He actually encourages you to get help with the homework by working with classmates or even going on the internet. That said, starting the homeworks early makes all the difference. The homework is graded pretty strictly (may have had more to do with my TA), but the exams aren't so bad. The worst homework and quiz is dropped. He's also just like... a reasonable guy. He once wrote the due date for a homework is midnight on Canvas, but on Gradescope it was actually due at 9:30 am that day. Some professors would say tough luck, but when it was brought up in class he corrected the problem and let everybody turn it in on the later time. I also heard from classmates that he was really good with accommodating different issues students may have. This is a hard class and it involves a lot of work, but he made it very manageable. I highly highly recommend him for 310.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Anonymous
01/12/2023

Professor Halperin is an extremely nice guy who cares about his students. The class at first is hard to understand but over time it gets better. Every exam is from the textbook which is really nice. In class it is sometimes hard to understand what is going on. Many people skip class and you can but I recommend you go since many times he goes over hw answers.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/03/2023

Took this class with Kate first and I can tell you its night and day, kate's class will make you put in at least 30 hours each week whereas for this class you really only need to put 5 hours a week

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/03/2023

Easy professor, take this class with him for no struggling.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/03/2023

Easy ass professor.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/03/2023

Homework is the same problems as the exams, IDENTICAL. He even offers extra credit on each exam by dropping a question and making it extra credit.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/03/2023

This class is so easy with him, free A. Exams are literally the homework.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Anonymous
12/15/2022

Like others have said, exam questions are directly from the homeworks (so you should definitely do them) but his lectures can sometimes be very confusing. He is always available in his office though to go over hw problems and concepts from class.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
05/25/2022

I'm not a fan of Truman. Homework assignments took hours and weren't similar to any of the problems we covered in class. The averages for the exams were all around 50%. I would go for a different professor when taking 310.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
05/17/2022

I'm only getting a C because I bombed my first midterm. The homework feels like a lot of work because it's due right when you finish learning the material that is covered in the homework and you're not able to solve it easily just yet. But I promise when you look back at the homework questions to study for the final, you'll realize how easy it is to solve them and laugh at yourself for spending so much time than necessary. It took me a lot of self-studying to fully understand how to write proofs, but once you understand everything the material becomes fun. Dr Truman is a great professor, she'll do anything to help you understand the material, so don't worry too much !

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/16/2022

Great professor to take for a pretty terrible grade distribution of a class. His tests are LITERALLY the same questions as the homework so there should be no reason why you should not get a 100% if not better on each exam(there is extra credit in each exam). This class is mostly self learning the techniques of proofing so if you want a free A and also a pretty decent understanding of mathematical proofing, this is your guy.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting a P
Anonymous
03/09/2022

I took this course in 2020 Spring. I like Dr. Truman and she is nice. But the course experience is really bad, Midterm 1 was too difficult and the average is 59. The materials are not Math theorems, you just recite the proof and write it down. I don't like it at all. I got 70+ as the final grade.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/23/2021

I really liked Dr. Truman, She's super nice and approachable. Even if you ask her a "dumb" question, she doesn't react like it's dumb, and often jokes like "oh, we all forget algebra here and there." I would recommend her, but her class definitely has a hard workload so plan accordingly. You know how every semester you have that "one" class that takes up most of your time? This is that class. I don't think it matters if you have other hard courses, this one will dominate your time. Also, get a copy of "the Book of Proof" by Richard Hammack, it's free and WAY better than the crappy textbook this course uses. How to succeed in her class: start homework the day the topics are covered. The homework is long and hard because she wants you to spend time on it. You can't do it in one day, I promise. A good week was an 8 hour long homework, worse was maybe 16 hours, but it did take a bit for me to understand some stuff so I may be on the longer side. When doing the homework, write all the relevant definitions and theorems down on a notecard and only reference that for homework. You'll memorize it, eventually. Go to office hours and ask every single question you could possibly think of. My exam grades had an upward trend once I started going to every single office hours (D first exam, C- second exam, A+ on 3rd exam and B+ on final). Email her any questions you have, she really doesn't mind. Exams are almost identical to homework, even in the online environment. The best way to prepare for these are to redo the homework and check with her to make sure you did proofs correctly. Only select homework problems are graded, so if 1, 3, and 9 are graded, you have no idea if you did 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 right or not. She's not going to put anything harder than the homework on an exam or quiz. Quizzes also have almost identical homework content, but the question is often disguised a bit-- if you really know and understand the homework, you'll realize it's the same question. The hardest weeks in this class are week 2 and week 10. Week 2 is when you're thrown into proof writing with a very long homework and only about 5 days to do it. Week 10 is when you start the advanced calculus (math 410) content. That was pretty hard for me, but eventually it all clicked after spending a lot of time in office hours and watching various YouTube videos. Exam 3 content is nothing worse than the respective homework, in fact I found it to be some of the easiest questions from the homework, but it may vary semester to semester. I think if you do all of the above, you'll do well in her course. Take it with other light courses so you can spend adequate time on the content. I think if you enjoy the content, it's actually a kind of fun class. Proofs are really cool once you get the basic intuition for it :)

Ruiwen Shu
MATH310

Anonymous
05/13/2021

Shu is an extremely organized and overall a great professor. MATH310 is a notoriously difficult class with a high Fail/W rate. However, Shu presented the material in a way that was easily digestible. He would start off by stating theorems or general concepts and providing examples. He would then do proofs and explained the thought process behind writing them very well. I only have 2 complaints for the class. My first complaint is that towards the end of the class he would skip steps during proofs because he felt they were easy and didn't require an explanation. My final complaint is that he would not provide practice exams. However, regardless of these two complaints the notes from class are sufficient for completing the homework, and exam questions were representative of homework problems and problems from the notes. Overall great professor definitely take him for MATH310 if you have the option.

Ruiwen Shu
MATH310

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
04/30/2021

Shu is a great professor. He is so straightforward and teaches with examples which is the way I learn best in math. His homeworks are assigned from the textbook, and his exams are very fair. He is well organized and keeps to the relevant information for the course. For what is supposed to be a tough transition into advanced math, he hasn't had me confused or lost in any of his lectures, he just knows the material so well. Would definitely recommend taking him.

Rodrigo Trevino
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/09/2021

Took his MATH310 section in Fall 2020 and honestly, he was a really good professor. He explained the concepts well and made an effort to help us if we didn't understand, as well as being pretty approachable with regards to grades and other items.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting a B
CrazeddRabbi
01/13/2021

Probably the best instructor for MATH310. She would assign quick 5-10 minute videos containing definitions to watch before class when needed (not that often), otherwise we only had to attend live lecture. Most, if not all, of live lecture time was dedicated to student understanding of concepts and the homework. She would have two or three examples, but would build in time for students to ask questions or allow them to interject their own questions instead of the prepared examples. She was also really responsive and helpful on Piazza - you'd often get a response within 10 minutes, regardless of the time or day. Only reason that this a 4 and not 5 star review is the time allotted for quizzes and especially exams felt unrealistic since we were supposed to stop ~10 minutes earlier to scan and submit. CLASS TIPS (Regardless of teacher): 1. Start the HW early! She doesn't give you a week to do it because she's nice (which she is), she does it because it takes a week(or at least a weekend) to do it! Seriously. Except for the first HW, I would consider it a godsend to finish a HW in six hours or less. 2. When studying for an exam, I recommend writing all the terms and definitions you learned that unit on two sheets of paper. That way you have everything you need to look at when studying in one place. Also very good when cramming. Also, it's obvious but bears saying, study by doing problems! Specifically, the problems you got wrong or had trouble with on HW and quizzes. 3. Start doing math at least thirty minutes prior to an exam. That way when it starts you're already in "math mode". 4. (This one might be more Truman and/or online-specific, but is still useful). Finally, you should be in a blitzkrieg mindset during this exam. You really do not have time for mistakes. If you read a problem and after thirty seconds still don't know how to approach it, SKIP IT.

Mestiyage Gunatilleka
MATH310

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
01/12/2021

He's not as bad as people make it seem. Maybe not the greatest choice for a lower level math class with a rigid curriculum, but if you take him for 310, he's fine. Also, his exams are more than fair and he curves the class.

Nathan Manning
MATH310

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
01/12/2021

Manning makes the material more difficult that it has to be, he speaks in a condescending ish tone to students, in a way that made me feel uncomfortable going to office hours much and asking for help. I wouldn’t recommend him overall. This was the first class I have barely passed.

Mestiyage Gunatilleka
MATH310

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
11/09/2020

This guy kinda just reads from the textbook, but if you come to him about specific questions he is quite helpful.

Nathan Manning
MATH310

Expecting a W
Anonymous
10/29/2020

Nice guy, but good luck understanding the material. He does not curve either. Not very clear and assumes a lot of knowledge among students that many don't understand

Nathan Manning
MATH310

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
09/16/2020

Pros: - Generally nice guy - Great Lecturer - Will drill a very solid understanding of Mathematical Proof into your head Cons: - At times was very condescending towards some of my classmates, didn't really like the environment it set up in some of the lectures (hence generally nice) - VERY heavy courseload (can be both great and negative) - Tough exams with absolutely no curve. Overall: If you are not taking a heavy courseload for a semester and you need to take 310, take it with him. You'll have a ton of challenging work during his class, but it will set up a very solid foundation for higher level classes and will pay off in the long run. If you have to take a heavy courseload, and need to take 310 (like I had to) then I can't recommend. His 310 course was way too overwhelming with the courseload I already had.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting a C
Anonymous
05/15/2020

Professor Truman is energetic and really cares about her class but unfortunately, that means having a lot of work and assignments. I took this class because I am pursuing a math minor and this class was more work than my major requirement courses. She does not post homework, exam, group work, or quiz solutions. The only time you can get an idea of what the solution may be is if you go to office hours or email her with an attempt to the question in which she will give you tips on how to get to the solution but never tell you the solution itself. She would give a quiz a day after the homework was due meaning we wouldn't get our graded homework back in time to study for the quiz and see what mistakes we were making. Since there were no homework solutions posted, there were many ocassions where people would do poorly on the homework and the quiz because we didn't get feedback on time. You can tell she cares about students really learning the concepts because this is an important class for MATH410 but that meant getting a lot of work in and outside of class. I personally think this class was too much work for what it is worth and multiple people dropped from our class before our second midterm (some of them dropping the course for a second time). We also did not have enough time to complete our midterms with more than half of the class not fully completing the exams.

Kendall Williams
MATH310

Anonymous
10/29/2019

Definitely, he is not a good professor. His tests are hard and he doesn't curve.

Jeffrey Adams
MATH310

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/14/2019

i would give him more stars but sometimes when he writes proofs he doesn't completely organize the steps that well. otherwise, he is very fair with grading on tests. if you have a general idea of what you're doing on a test problem you'll get at least 50-75% credit for that problem. he's nice and respectful and understands situations where you have to turn in homework late. 3 stars seems low but if you put the effort in this class with him you should do fine.

Nathan Manning
MATH310

Anonymous
05/11/2018

Really enthusiastic and dedicated to teaching. Fun to talk to.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/14/2017

Pretty mediocre professor. He doesn't have much respect for his students, the textbook he wrote is convoluted and any issues that come up out of the student's control is the student's fault.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/18/2016

I mostly agree with the other reviews. Kate is very energetic and knowledgeable. She is normally very clear with her explanations (written and spoken). With just those things, she's already better than most of the other math teachers I've had at UMD which were terrible at communicating course material. What's scary is how much of the two textbooks she has memorized including questions and question numbers. However, the class was too much work (for me at least). If anyone is to blame, it's the math department's (ludicrously?) high standards. If she didn't jam as much in as possible, then students wouldn't be prepared for Math410. But, because there was so much material, she could hardly give us a brief explanation and short example for each topic. So now after finishing the class, I feel like a Jack of all trades but master of none, and spending so little time on each topic means I'll probably forget almost everything (except broad topics) over the summer. If there was less material, I could have mastered more of it, and it would likely stick longer. But I guess for a cursory preview/review of a bunch of math topics, Math310 served its purpose. It's funny how I put more way effort into my math classes (including Math310) than my 4xx level comp sci classes, and I get a B in math and A in comp sci (without even having to take the final in comp sci). It's hard to say if comp sci is a bit too easy or if math is a bit too hard, but I'm leaning towards math being too hard. It's great that Kate (and the other math teachers) drop a bunch of assignments and nudge grades so the class averages work out, but I'd rather they curve things around student performance than what percentage of the content they can cram into their brains and regurgitate onto paper in an hour. For example, comp sci classes might set the B/C cutoff at the median for the class, and have the other grades based on standard deviations from the median. (median - 2(std dev) = D, median - 1(std dev) = C, median = B, median + 1(std dev) = A). That means you have to do well compared to your classmates which is mostly independent of how well the teacher is at preparing the students for tests. If the teacher's style doesn't fit with how the students learn (on average), then students can still do well compared to each other. With the math department's system, if the teacher's style doesn't fit with how the students learn on average, then the students won't know all of the material, so they will do poorly on average. So for math, a student can put in way more effort than others and get a better grade than most of them and still get a bad grade in the class if the class average was low (or a B when they put in a ton of effort). Dropping and nudging scores helps, but it can still leave students that put in a ton of effort with a less-than-ideal grade. This problem wasn't as severe with Kate's Math310, but I wish she did something to curve tests with low averages, or did an overhaul to compare students vs each other instead of vs the textbook. In general, I spent nearly all of every Saturday working on Math310 homework and several hours throughout the week on the other assignments. This felt overwhelming, but it didn't even feel like enough practice for all the content. So, if you have to rush and sacrifice quality for quantity to pack material into a class, is there too much material? Does the math department want its 3xx classes to be more work than other majors' 4xx classes? (Not to mention Math1xx and 2xx tend to feel like 3xx or 4xx classes). And the icing on the cake is that taking CMSC250 places you out of Math310, but Math310 is unarguably much more difficult. That was a lot of complaining, but at least Kate tried her best and was better than other math teachers. (Hmm, what a useful metric comparing people against their peers is).

Richard Rast
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/04/2016

The lectures are great! He knows the material very well and explains them in a pretty clear way! Love him! I would recommend him to anyone with little proof experience.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Anonymous
12/18/2015

In short, he is a great professor. The class is definitely challenging, but he makes it as fair as possible by drawing exam questions only from previous homeworks. He's always willing to answer questions, even if it's the answer to an upcoming homework problem. Definitely go to office hours and have lots of questions. His lectures themselves are not that useful, but really that's because proofs is something I think you just have to learn through practice.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Expecting an A
cblumenf
11/05/2014

310 is a difficult course to teach since it's different than any other Math course students have taken. He teaches by doing examples, which isn't always a lot of help, but he makes up for it by answering any questions during class or office hours. The test questions are all taken from the homeworks and the tests are graded on a curve which makes them manageable/easy.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting a C
Anonymous
05/05/2014

I don't know how you guys are bringing yourselves to give her high ratings. This class is an asinine waste of time and money; the last 30-40 percent of it is basically math410 REALLY poorly explained and rushed at a ridiculous pace. The rest of the class is really easy material and studying various proof techniques, which is actually fairly useful. She has really lost most of the class at this point with the 410 stuff. She assigns ungodly long homework assignments, and then she uses class time to go over the answers. This is great and all, but it leaves her with little time to explain the material for the subsequent hw assignments. My grades are suffering miserably because of the 410 rush, so I'm planning on getting a C at this point. I would say pick up a book like Daniel Vellman's "how to prove it", or the book for the class by Zhang, read over it, learn proof techniques, and avoid this stupid class all-together. I'm trying not to get discouraged from 410 because I really want to know it, but she's doing a very fine job of making me lose my interest in the subject.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Anonymous
05/15/2013

His teaching is not nearly as bad as the other reviews make it seem. I think it's just that the content can be difficult to grasp if you aren't used to writing proofs. If you spend a lot of time and make sure to fully understand what he is saying, the exams are not awful and his grading is very generous. He teaches through doing rather than by example, which can be very, very frustrating at first when nothing makes sense, but eventually you'll get the hang of it. I learned a lot in his class!

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Anonymous
04/24/2013

His teaching style is horrible. His method of instructing is by telling the class to try as many problems as possible without actually teaching them how to prove anything. At one point, all of us failed an assignment and verbatim, he stated that "[he] deduced that it was entirely [our] fault." At one point he was asked to solve one of our test problems on the blackboard and he was unable to do it. I used to be a math major, but I dropped it because of this class. Nice guy, but avoid him at all costs.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Anonymous
01/31/2013

Halperin made efforts to be friendly to students, but was a horrendous teacher. Never in my career as an undergraduate have I such a terrible learning experience. When presented with problems from the exam, he was unable to solve some of then. Yet, on this same exam, he claimed that it was OUR fault for not learning the material- yet every single person failed this same test. Avoid Steven Halperin at all costs.

Steve Halperin
MATH310

Anonymous
12/17/2012

This class was an absolute train-wreck. Steve Halperin is a cool guy, but his ability to teach and prepare you for his tests is more or less like giving students butter knives when there is a gun fight. Absolutely horrible teaching ability + his cryptic book makes 310 an absolute atrocity of a class. And this is not from some one who is bitter... I actually scored really high on all the homeworks and midterms; this was just a high stress class that makes you go insane at times.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/01/2011

As has been said, Dr. Truman is great. Very conscious of students' needs. Exams are easy. Homeworks can be a bit daunting at times and only having <1hr office hours once per week doesn't help. However, I found the class to be a bit of a waste of time. Roughly 80% of the course is easy. I'd say the other 20% is manageable at worst. The only reason I'm getting a B is because I missed one of the exams. If you're confident with your mathematical skill, I'd say either take 307 during the summer with her or don't take it at all.

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
04/30/2010

Dr. Truman is a very energetic and knowledgeable instructor. She is also an academic adviser, so if you take class with her she will know your strengths and really know what kind of schedule you can handle. Teaching wise she knows what she is doing and she makes herself available via email if you ever need extra help. 310 was a pretty easy class up until the last section when we started calculus proofs. She is definitely one of the best 310 instructors at CP, I am going to try and get her to teach me 406

Kathryn Truman
MATH310

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/03/2009

Kate was one of the best math instructors i have ever had. She went over anything and everything that was on tests. Tests were straight forward and about 90% of test questions were hw's. she gives 15 free points before exams with "group quizzes." If you stay on top of hw's you will completely fine and get an A

Reviews for MATH310