MATH403 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
James Conway MATH403 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/19/2024	Professor Conway was great for MATH403. This class was very interesting and challenging, and professor Conway was very supportive of our learning. Multiple grading options were provided for this class, with the one that gave you the best score determining your grade. The standard grading option was 20% HW, 50% midterm exams (25% each), 30% final exam. Pros: - Very good lecturer: Went through all the details of theorems and gave plenty of examples. I never felt anything was unclear. - Good homework: The HW problems were relevant and challenging. There were 9 HW assignments in total but I always felt there was plenty of time to complete them. Lowest two HW grades are dropped. - Fair exams: The exams were all pretty fair. All the material in exams was covered in lecture. While they were pretty hard, it was representative of the overall difficulty of the course itself. The exams were graded relatively quickly as well. - Posts notes and lectures on ELMS: All of the content that the professor covers is on ELMS. If you miss something in lecture, you can always rewatch it online. - Personable and friendly: Very willing to help and answer any type of question. Clearly very invested in the students and the course content. Listens to student feedback and adapts. Cons: - Nothing comes to mind. Overall, I highly recommend Professor Conway for MATH403.
Amin Gholampour MATH403 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2023	Amin is overall a very strong teacher. He knows a lot about his content, and most of his explanations and proofs are not terrible to follow (they are hard because the course is hard, but he explains it well and makes it as easy to understand as a course like this possibly could be). He really likes when students give answers or ask questions, and I do think his enjoyment of the content makes the class more enjoyable. He is also super helpful in office hours - the homework gets super tough, but if you make an appointment with him he will clear up any questions you have. His grading structure placed a big emphasis on homework - which personally I liked, because it means your grade is far more dependent on the work you do consistently each week, and you can get help with it, instead of having your entire grade boil down to how well you do on a few timed exams. The grading structure with midterms and finals also ensures that if either your midterm average or your final exam score is high enough, the other will also be very high. So overall the class was hard, and he does fall into a classic college level math teacher pattern of talking at the board for the entire class, but I thought he was a good teacher with friendly policies.
Christian Zickert MATH403 Expecting a P Anonymous 10/09/2023	Homework is basically useless, like doing addition on a Calculus class you don't learn anything. Due to that exams feel random in the questions. His examples are weird and unintuitive, which doesn't help considering you don't really practice on them. Blazes through things and with his appalling writing if you take extensive notes the class is gonna be awful. Could probably be a good class if he gave relevant homework allowing you to understand what areas are lacking, what ideas are more important instead of making students wing it.
Christian Zickert MATH403 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/11/2023	Honest to god I think he is not a great professor. It's clear he's passionate, but he assumes you know the material and read the book before his lectures. It's frequent that he makes mistakes, it doesn't teach you everything in a reasonable manner, and he is very fast. If you're already knowledgeable, you will find his classes simple and you will find it easy to build rapport with him. In that sense, he might be the BEST professor to go for. On the other hand, if you are like me - dumb but wanting to learn - you'll struggle.
Christian Zickert MATH403 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/04/2023	Zickert is definitely passionate about math, as everyone else has already stated. With that said, I genuinely feel like this professor's lectures are a bit hard to understand. It feels very difficult to get a good grade without putting an unreasonable amount of effort. Would recommend taking another professor if your GPA is a concern, he grades pretty darn harsh and his midterms are quite difficult (although, in all fairness, the class itself is pretty tough so it might be my skill issue speaking).
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH403 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/24/2022	very good curve but so many homework sets you have to learn 20 chapters of material, so sometimes you will have 2 homework sets due a week he drops homeworks though so it's fine i guess
Amin Gholampour MATH403 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/20/2022	Took 403 in Spring 2022 with Amin. The class poses an interesting dichotomy - he's a really good teacher, and his explanations of the concepts are clear and very helpful. However, the homeworks and exams are extraordinarily difficult. It took hours and hours to do each homework assignment, to the point that I was spending more time doing 403 homework each week than time I spent working on every other class combined. I would highly recommend taking Amin as a professor, just maybe not for 403 as it's already hard enough of a class on its own.
Christian Zickert MATH403 Anonymous 11/08/2022	You can tell Zickert is extremely passionate about math and he will elegantly field any question asked during a lecture or office hours. That being said, his handwriting is pretty bad and his lectures are usually (not always) just a worse presentation of the corresponding sections in the book. Zickert is one of those professors that think difficult concepts are trivial and doesn't often try to engage students with the material. In my experience, he's a pretty harsh grader and will take a lot of points off for tiny mistakes. I wouldn't say Zickert is a bad professor, but he's not a great one. Would definitely recommend trying another professor, but you'll be okay if Zickert is the only choice you have. My recommendation would be to read ahead in the books and take notes beforehand, using his lecture only as a supplement.
Niranjan Ramachandran MATH403 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/19/2022	Dr. Ramachandran is a wonderful professor. He's caring, nice, and it was a very interesting class. He was also quite accommodating if you were out sick. However, crazy exams-- 1st average C (reasonable, this exam was fine), 2nd average F, final average D. The last two exams seemed significantly harder than his older exams he showed us. I really felt like I understood things in office hours just to end up failing questions about the topic on the exams. The exams just were not like the homework or sometimes even his quiz questions. And I studied a lot for these exams-- at least 20 hours if not more for the final, which I actually got a D on. But, homework is heavily weighted in his class, so if you have a good study group and go to office hours often, you can make up for the exam grades. I made sure to spend a lot of time on the homework because of how much it counted. Overall I'd recommend him, but be prepared to have your confidence shaken. It is of note that he gave a lot of extra credit (I got at least 6% in EC) and also curved by at least 4%-- I got bumped from a final grade of a B to an A-.
Amin Gholampour MATH403 Expecting an A fiftyseven 05/16/2022	Cannot recommend Amin enough, he's an amazing professor. He teaches the content very-well, giving examples of applications of every theorem and lemma as well as proving each one with techniques that often come in handy later for your own usage. All of this is also kept within his copy of the notes so you can refer back to anything you didn't fully get or want to review from class. He's very responsive to questions and even if you don't get it after asking, he'll explain again in whatever way necessary. You can tell he has a lot of enthusiasm for the subject and it really shows in the way he teaches it. Homework was weekly, difficult but prepared you very well and really helped you understand the content. Deadlines were super chill regarding late work. He also dropped the lowest exam grade and then curved at the end. Amin made one of the hardest if not the hardest class I've taken into one of the most enjoyable ones.
Amin Gholampour MATH403 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2022	Amin is a competent lecturer with a good amount of responsiveness/attention and his assignments/exams were mostly fair. For our class, we had only weekly homeworks (lowest 2 dropped) and 2 midterms (lowest one dropped). No quizzes nor extra assignments, which was very respectful for our time. Some work could be really tedious (single HW problems taking hours was usual, expect to take multiple hours weekly to review content to make sure you understand it). That's to be expected given that this is one of the hardest classes in this department, but he did allow work to come in late and to ask him for help, he responds quickly via email and is usually available for office hours or just after class if you can ask him then. It was also convenient of him to have all of his notes online, which he would clarify in class or go over in more detail if anyone asked him. Once some people started getting lower grades on exams, he included extra credit parts in the exams which gave even more leniency for getting a higher grade. He also grades very quickly in this class so we could quickly discuss what we thought was and wasn't fair. Overall, he was a professor who knew how to instruct and had good control over how much work he assigned and gave many opportunities to do well in what is one of the most infamous math classes. TL;DR he is a solid professor, and it's a good idea to take a course with him.
Niranjan Ramachandran MATH403 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/01/2021	One of the greatest professors I have ever had. Teaches with an infectious enthusiasm, entertains questions, and makes his classes exciting.
Roohollah Ebrahimian MATH403 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/22/2021	Dr. Ebrahimian is a great lecturer and professor, especially for 403. Abstract Algebra is his research area so he is very knowledgeable on the subject and could answer any questions during lecture. This grading methods are also easy to follow and simple: drops 2-3 homeworks, 2-3 quizzes, and also lets you replace a bad exam with your final exam grade if you do better on it.
Roohollah Ebrahimian MATH403 Anonymous 05/21/2021	He is an awesome teacher! I really enjoyed his lectures. I definitely didn't find the class easy but the exams and quizzes were fair.
Amin Gholampour MATH403 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/16/2021	Amin was a good teacher, but his notes were very hard to read. By the end of the semester, there was a 100+ page PDF of notes from the semester, all handwritten, which made it hard to look for exactly what you needed at times. Exams were open note and you had more than just class time to do them (7 hours for exams, 12 for the final) which was nice because you didn't need all of it, but you had it if you needed. The class is very focused on proofs, and covers a lot of material. You could drop one exam and one of the weekly homeworks, too.
Roohollah Ebrahimian MATH403 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/14/2021	Dr. Ebrahimian is a good, organized lecturer. He also very much enjoys the process of problem-solving, and he is willing to field any questions. He posts all the lecture notes, and he has a nice summary note collection in pdf format with further examples and problems. He has been pretty reasonable, although a bit of a traditionalist in ways. His class is more engaging than most 403 courses in a few ways: 1.) It covers somewhat more material (e.g., Sylow theorems, solvability, group presentations, which are not generally covered); 2.) To that end, he sometimes left material out of lectures to notes; 3.) He has weekly quizzes. Beyond the usual benefits of attending class, he also tends to draw exam and quiz problems from examples seen in class once, or in the extra examples/problems in his notes, or from the homework. In some cases, this has a slight problem insofar as it can mean two students might have equal overall understanding of the material tested by a particular question, but one of them, say, looked to the examples in the notes and say nearly the same question worked out, so they can do it basically immediately, whereas the other has to struggle through it and so spend less time on other problems. Of course, this is always a factor, but it seems somewhat distinguished here, so being studious is especially good in this class! Overall, a great professor and an important, interesting class for mathematics majors. The difficulty is probably 5/5 for most students, but it is also rewarding. The structure is essentially traditional with lecture, weekly p-sets, weekly quizzes, two midterms, and one final. I believe two quizzes and p-sets are dropped, and your lowest exam grade can be supplanted by your final, but otherwise, little or no curving.
Allan Yashinski MATH403 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/15/2021	Great lecturer, really knows how to communicate complicated ideas. I expected this class to be harder, but as long as you keep up with the practice problems and homework it was pretty straightforward. I got super stressed at the end due to taking more classes than I could handle along with an internship and started slacking in 403, got a 54 on the final but if I didn't, I could've easily done a lot better, maybe gotten an A.
Patrick Brosnan MATH403 Anonymous 01/04/2021	Brosnan managed to switch to an online format with little to no hassle and he cares a lot about his students and their performance. The notes were quite organized and easy to follow as well. The only reason he's 4 stars out of 5 is because he does this thing where he goes through a proof and in some parts says the result is obvious when the jump to a conclusion is not so clear.
Allan Yashinski MATH403 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2020	Awesome professor. Great, clear lectures. Difficulty is fair; pretty much what the material demands. But keep up with the lectures and do practice problems he assigns and you'll be well-prepared. He gives great, in-depth responses to any questions you ask. You can tell he really puts effort into the course and cares about it being taught well.
Amin Gholampour MATH403 Expecting a P Anonymous 09/06/2020	This course is really difficuly and we had huge curve every exam since the averages were always really low. He is willing to explain everything as long as you ask. We had 3 midterms (the lowest one was droped) and homework every week.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH403 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/15/2020	lots of hw sets every week. Cant understand why he has good reviews. The worst instructor at umd That ive ever met.
Roohollah Ebrahimian MATH403 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/05/2020	Prof. Ebrahimian is a good professor. His grading is clear and his exams are not so hard.
Roohollah Ebrahimian MATH403 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2019	Dr. Ebrahimian is a good professor. He explains things in an easy way.
Roohollah Ebrahimian MATH403 Expecting a D Anonymous 12/20/2019	If you take this class with any other remotely difficult or time-consuming classes, you are doomed. He has homework due every class and weekly quizzes. As well, he will go very quickly through the material and if you take time to ask questions, he will just skip some material and say he will go back to it later (which he won’t). However, I believe I would have had a much better time in this class had it not been for the rest of my schedule also being rigorous. He is very friendly and tries his best to help everyone succeed, but only if you approach him. His grading is unforgiving but some of his policies help mitigate that (only if you do well enough in most of the course). Overall, a rough class that I wish I was more prepared for, but Ebrahimian is a good professor if you have too much time on your hands.
Nathan Manning MATH403 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/10/2019	Tough as nails but he knows the material inside and out. Obviously passionate about algebra. Proofs are well motivated and he is very good at understanding questions you may have during lecture. Many times after class ended, he would stick around to give advice on both hard and soft problems that arise in the math major. Would highly recommend.
Patrick Brosnan MATH403 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/07/2019	Super chilled prof, thinking of him makes me giggle. I learned so much from him! What's really cool about his teaching style is that he's pretty personal about the stuffs he teaches, so the emphasis on the material is heavily flavored with an algebraist's perspective. The whole class was keen and fun and backed by solid motivations. Wish we had a longer semester to cover more. If you're taking classes with him, please take good care of him. Go to class and envision his brilliancy.
Patrick Brosnan MATH403 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/26/2019	An awesome professor. Although MATH403 is a hard class, Patrick made the content enjoyable and easy to understand. He is super helpful during office hours and is looking out for his students.
Nathan Manning MATH403 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/12/2019	His lectures are really good. Makes it clear his expectations of the students are in order to succeed in this course (get an A or more). By the end of the first and second midterm it is easy to tell which students didn't follow these guidelines. The class is difficult, but not soul-crushingly so. I would guess that 2 hours a day every day reading the book and thinking about the exercises should be enough for an A. Most people do much, much less than this. He is very helpful in office hours and wants to see his students succeed (provided they are working their hardest).
Nathan Manning MATH403 Anonymous 04/11/2019	Fantastic lecturer. Fair grader. Be warned: he does not pull punches when it comes to exams and is not a fan of curving. If you plan on going to grad school for math, I definitely recommend Manning.
James Schafer MATH403 Expecting a C- Anonymous 11/26/2018	Not sure how to put it politely... Schafer is fucking terrible. He seems to be pretty good at what he does, but his personal style is simply not conducive to learning. He is an aggressive classroom tyrant and stifles discussion - does not clarify things and talks in a seemingly blunt and antagonizing way. Sitting in his lecture is very stressful. His sloppy handwriting does not help either. He would jot down whatever is on his mind on some blank spot on the blackboard so at the end it's usually all over the place so it's simply not possible to make out his notes after the class ends. The material is not boring but I had a very hard time following. You have to put in a lot of hours after school since the goal of this course is to force you to absorb Hernstein. I looked at other school's syllabus, group theory and ring theory are usually taught as a one year sequence. Do yourself a favor, avoid James Schafer if you can.
Xuhua He MATH403 Anonymous 05/11/2018	Explains things in a very easy to understand manner. His proofs, even the long ones, are much more easy to follow than with most professors. He explains what he's doing. Harsh grader though in my opinion.
Roohollah Ebrahimian MATH403 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/24/2017	Ebrahimian is a very effective teacher. The best thing about his class is that he engages students and lets students finish proofs. If you want to learn material well, take his class. However, he makes the grading a bit harder than is really necessary, and has HW due every single class.
James Schafer MATH403 Anonymous 11/29/2012	I thought I would do well in this class, but I ended up hating Schafer's irreverent style. Also, Schafer is not rigorous, despite what others have said. His explanations are often imprecise. Professor Schafer's teaching style is very aggressive, and I felt uncomfortable asking for clarification, as the professor tends to get exasperated with students. In regards to Professor Schafer's lectures themselves, I found them difficult to understand-- not because I'm unaccustomed to mathematical thought or rigor, but because his lecturing was often unclear. The worst was that he doesn't provide much perspective on the material, which made it seem kind of pointless. The semester was basically a mad, stressful rush to absorb the material in Herstein as fast as possible, without much reflection or analysis. I don't think my analytical or problem solving skills developed at all, and I don't plan to become an Algebraist, so this class was essentially useless to me. Also, Schafer is not brilliant. Has he even published? He has no website, and I can't find any of his papers online.
James Schafer MATH403 Expecting a W Anonymous 10/15/2011	Since I withdrew from the course about halfway through the semester, I normally would not review the professor except I don't want other math majors to make the same mistake I did. For the record, this is the first course I ever dropped with a W. I agree with the other reviews that Professor Schafer is indeed a very brilliant man, and he lectures more coherently than many other math professors I've had. HOWEVER, he is not a good professor unless you are already naturally brilliant at math. Like most professors in the department, it is clear that he holds the frustrating point of view that math should only be for those to whom it comes naturally, and that those who are not born math geniuses shouldn't even really be in the field. I am generally an A student in math, but it is not a subject that just comes easily to me. I study a LOT to get the grades that I do. His obvious favoritism for those who seemed to understand the material instantaneously was frustrating to say the least. Also, I unfortunately had a class scheduled during his office hours, so I e-mailed him to try and schedule an alternate time to meet. He set up a time with me, but then never showed up. Furthermore, after writing down a bunch of barely legible nonsense on the chalkboard, he would then make a statement like "this is quite easy, you just have to think about it," which is not a helpful statement when it actually ISN'T easy at all. In short, if you are someone who learns math as opposed to someone who just knows math, Schafer is not the right guy for you.
Joel Cohen MATH403 Anonymous 05/11/2011	It is difficult to describe why Dr. Cohen is such a horrible math professor. He goes really really fast and skips tons and tons of steps to the point where he becomes incomprehensible. To make matters worse, his handwriting is awful. He is unprepared for lectures. Several times he has thrown terms into his lectures that we'd never heard of before, and then two classes later he would explain what they are. I strongly recommend not taking Cohen. Math403 has been the most challenging course I have taken as an undergraduate, and he makes it infinitely more difficult. I am graduating with Latin honors, so I am not dumb, and I have dealt with some pretty awful professors, but this guy is the absolute worst. I guarantee you will regret taking him.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH403 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/23/2009	Abstract Algebra was probably the most difficult course I have taken so far in college, but it was all worth it because I learned an incredible amount thanks to Justin's awesome teaching skills! I had him for 246 last semester, so I decided to give this class a try because he was teaching it. 403 was a very tough course for me, but I'm sure I would have failed the class if any other professor had taught it. Justin lectures is such a straightforward, easy-to-follow manner and explains everything he writes of the chalkboard. He provides plenty of examples so that everyone can comprehend the meaning of theorems, definitions, and proofs he writes on the board. Unlike most of the professors in the math department, Justin actually cares about his students and doesn't brush them off. He responds to emails very quickly and has numerous office hours available if you need extra help, since many of us did need it. The exams were pretty hard, but straightforward nonetheless, with averages/medians usually in the 50s. He does give an appropriate curve so if you think you're failing, don't worry, all hope is not lost!
Joel Cohen MATH403 Anonymous 04/14/2009	Dr. Cohen is not that bad, but for me, 403 was a challenging course. The exams were hard because you had to recall a lot of the theorems from chapters that might not have been covered recently. Going to the math dept. tutor, Dr. Bhatia, helped a lot. If you do take this class, make sure you are comfortable with proofs and algebraic concepts in general.
James Schafer MATH403 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2007	Schafer is a really cool guy and an entertaining professor... even though he looks like a homeless person. Several students in my class went on to take 404 and then 432 with him, regardless of their grades in any of these classes. Several students also dropped out of his Math340 class. Schafer is completely incapable of hand-waving; he loves to prove things, and if you can appreciate mathematics done rigorously you'll appreciate him. Of course, if you're taking a class like 340 or 406 with him, it's likely his approach is more intense than you're prepared to deal with, but if you can stand up to the challenge you may grow a lot as a mathematician. He understands that the material he teaches is hard and how much effort it takes to learn it and he is encouraging. Many students benefit from his office hours, and he's happy to help out. He also will not let you get away with not learning -- he assigns a lot of homework. Many think his tests are hard; it's probably just a consequence of the material itself being hard, and having Schafer means no safety bubbles. Some other professors are sloppier and slower than he is, so having someone like Schafer who can hammer out details but still keep you on your toes can be a breath of fresh air. He is a really cool person, but if you don't like to prove things or if you're not willing to put a lot of energy into learning math, then Schafer is not for you.
Joel Cohen MATH403 Expecting a B almostdone 12/05/2007	This is very theoretical and challenging course. It is mostly challenging because Professor Cohen does a poor job explaining concepts. Even if you ask him a question the response is still pretty unclear. I started off terribly in this class. Fortunately somewhere in the middle it all clicked and made sense but this professor is definitely not recommended. However the concepts in math403 are actually not complicated once you put the effort into it.

James Conway
MATH403

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/19/2024

Professor Conway was great for MATH403. This class was very interesting and challenging, and professor Conway was very supportive of our learning. Multiple grading options were provided for this class, with the one that gave you the best score determining your grade. The standard grading option was 20% HW, 50% midterm exams (25% each), 30% final exam. Pros: - Very good lecturer: Went through all the details of theorems and gave plenty of examples. I never felt anything was unclear. - Good homework: The HW problems were relevant and challenging. There were 9 HW assignments in total but I always felt there was plenty of time to complete them. Lowest two HW grades are dropped. - Fair exams: The exams were all pretty fair. All the material in exams was covered in lecture. While they were pretty hard, it was representative of the overall difficulty of the course itself. The exams were graded relatively quickly as well. - Posts notes and lectures on ELMS: All of the content that the professor covers is on ELMS. If you miss something in lecture, you can always rewatch it online. - Personable and friendly: Very willing to help and answer any type of question. Clearly very invested in the students and the course content. Listens to student feedback and adapts. Cons: - Nothing comes to mind. Overall, I highly recommend Professor Conway for MATH403.

Amin Gholampour
MATH403

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/11/2023

Amin is overall a very strong teacher. He knows a lot about his content, and most of his explanations and proofs are not terrible to follow (they are hard because the course is hard, but he explains it well and makes it as easy to understand as a course like this possibly could be). He really likes when students give answers or ask questions, and I do think his enjoyment of the content makes the class more enjoyable. He is also super helpful in office hours - the homework gets super tough, but if you make an appointment with him he will clear up any questions you have. His grading structure placed a big emphasis on homework - which personally I liked, because it means your grade is far more dependent on the work you do consistently each week, and you can get help with it, instead of having your entire grade boil down to how well you do on a few timed exams. The grading structure with midterms and finals also ensures that if either your midterm average or your final exam score is high enough, the other will also be very high. So overall the class was hard, and he does fall into a classic college level math teacher pattern of talking at the board for the entire class, but I thought he was a good teacher with friendly policies.

Christian Zickert
MATH403

Expecting a P
Anonymous
10/09/2023

Homework is basically useless, like doing addition on a Calculus class you don't learn anything. Due to that exams feel random in the questions. His examples are weird and unintuitive, which doesn't help considering you don't really practice on them. Blazes through things and with his appalling writing if you take extensive notes the class is gonna be awful. Could probably be a good class if he gave relevant homework allowing you to understand what areas are lacking, what ideas are more important instead of making students wing it.

Christian Zickert
MATH403

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/11/2023

Honest to god I think he is not a great professor. It's clear he's passionate, but he assumes you know the material and read the book before his lectures. It's frequent that he makes mistakes, it doesn't teach you everything in a reasonable manner, and he is very fast. If you're already knowledgeable, you will find his classes simple and you will find it easy to build rapport with him. In that sense, he might be the BEST professor to go for. On the other hand, if you are like me - dumb but wanting to learn - you'll struggle.

Christian Zickert
MATH403

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/04/2023

Zickert is definitely passionate about math, as everyone else has already stated. With that said, I genuinely feel like this professor's lectures are a bit hard to understand. It feels very difficult to get a good grade without putting an unreasonable amount of effort. Would recommend taking another professor if your GPA is a concern, he grades pretty darn harsh and his midterms are quite difficult (although, in all fairness, the class itself is pretty tough so it might be my skill issue speaking).

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH403

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/24/2022

very good curve but so many homework sets you have to learn 20 chapters of material, so sometimes you will have 2 homework sets due a week he drops homeworks though so it's fine i guess

Amin Gholampour
MATH403

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/20/2022

Took 403 in Spring 2022 with Amin. The class poses an interesting dichotomy - he's a *really* good teacher, and his explanations of the concepts are clear and very helpful. However, the homeworks and exams are extraordinarily difficult. It took hours and hours to do each homework assignment, to the point that I was spending more time doing 403 homework each week than time I spent working on every other class combined. I would highly recommend taking Amin as a professor, just maybe not for 403 as it's already hard enough of a class on its own.

Christian Zickert
MATH403

Anonymous
11/08/2022

You can tell Zickert is extremely passionate about math and he will elegantly field any question asked during a lecture or office hours. That being said, his handwriting is pretty bad and his lectures are usually (not always) just a worse presentation of the corresponding sections in the book. Zickert is one of those professors that think difficult concepts are trivial and doesn't often try to engage students with the material. In my experience, he's a pretty harsh grader and will take a lot of points off for tiny mistakes. I wouldn't say Zickert is a bad professor, but he's not a great one. Would definitely recommend trying another professor, but you'll be okay if Zickert is the only choice you have. My recommendation would be to read ahead in the books and take notes beforehand, using his lecture only as a supplement.

Niranjan Ramachandran
MATH403

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/19/2022

Dr. Ramachandran is a wonderful professor. He's caring, nice, and it was a very interesting class. He was also quite accommodating if you were out sick. However, crazy exams-- 1st average C (reasonable, this exam was fine), 2nd average F, final average D. The last two exams seemed significantly harder than his older exams he showed us. I really felt like I understood things in office hours just to end up failing questions about the topic on the exams. The exams just were not like the homework or sometimes even his quiz questions. And I studied a lot for these exams-- at least 20 hours if not more for the final, which I actually got a D on. But, homework is heavily weighted in his class, so if you have a good study group and go to office hours often, you can make up for the exam grades. I made sure to spend a lot of time on the homework because of how much it counted. Overall I'd recommend him, but be prepared to have your confidence shaken. It is of note that he gave a lot of extra credit (I got at least 6% in EC) and also curved by at least 4%-- I got bumped from a final grade of a B to an A-.

Amin Gholampour
MATH403

Expecting an A
fiftyseven
05/16/2022

Cannot recommend Amin enough, he's an amazing professor. He teaches the content very-well, giving examples of applications of every theorem and lemma as well as proving each one with techniques that often come in handy later for your own usage. All of this is also kept within his copy of the notes so you can refer back to anything you didn't fully get or want to review from class. He's very responsive to questions and even if you don't get it after asking, he'll explain again in whatever way necessary. You can tell he has a lot of enthusiasm for the subject and it really shows in the way he teaches it. Homework was weekly, difficult but prepared you very well and really helped you understand the content. Deadlines were super chill regarding late work. He also dropped the lowest exam grade and then curved at the end. Amin made one of the hardest if not the hardest class I've taken into one of the most enjoyable ones.

Amin Gholampour
MATH403

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/16/2022

Amin is a competent lecturer with a good amount of responsiveness/attention and his assignments/exams were mostly fair. For our class, we had only weekly homeworks (lowest 2 dropped) and 2 midterms (lowest one dropped). No quizzes nor extra assignments, which was very respectful for our time. Some work could be really tedious (single HW problems taking hours was usual, expect to take multiple hours weekly to review content to make sure you understand it). That's to be expected given that this is one of the hardest classes in this department, but he did allow work to come in late and to ask him for help, he responds quickly via email and is usually available for office hours or just after class if you can ask him then. It was also convenient of him to have all of his notes online, which he would clarify in class or go over in more detail if anyone asked him. Once some people started getting lower grades on exams, he included extra credit parts in the exams which gave even more leniency for getting a higher grade. He also grades very quickly in this class so we could quickly discuss what we thought was and wasn't fair. Overall, he was a professor who knew how to instruct and had good control over how much work he assigned and gave many opportunities to do well in what is one of the most infamous math classes. TL;DR he is a solid professor, and it's a good idea to take a course with him.

Niranjan Ramachandran
MATH403

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/01/2021

One of the greatest professors I have ever had. Teaches with an infectious enthusiasm, entertains questions, and makes his classes exciting.

Roohollah Ebrahimian
MATH403

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
06/22/2021

Dr. Ebrahimian is a great lecturer and professor, especially for 403. Abstract Algebra is his research area so he is very knowledgeable on the subject and could answer any questions during lecture. This grading methods are also easy to follow and simple: drops 2-3 homeworks, 2-3 quizzes, and also lets you replace a bad exam with your final exam grade if you do better on it.

Roohollah Ebrahimian
MATH403

Anonymous
05/21/2021

He is an awesome teacher! I really enjoyed his lectures. I definitely didn't find the class easy but the exams and quizzes were fair.

Amin Gholampour
MATH403

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/16/2021

Amin was a good teacher, but his notes were very hard to read. By the end of the semester, there was a 100+ page PDF of notes from the semester, all handwritten, which made it hard to look for exactly what you needed at times. Exams were open note and you had more than just class time to do them (7 hours for exams, 12 for the final) which was nice because you didn't need all of it, but you had it if you needed. The class is very focused on proofs, and covers a lot of material. You could drop one exam and one of the weekly homeworks, too.

Roohollah Ebrahimian
MATH403

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/14/2021

Dr. Ebrahimian is a good, organized lecturer. He also very much enjoys the process of problem-solving, and he is willing to field any questions. He posts all the lecture notes, and he has a nice summary note collection in pdf format with further examples and problems. He has been pretty reasonable, although a bit of a traditionalist in ways. His class is more engaging than most 403 courses in a few ways: 1.) It covers somewhat more material (e.g., Sylow theorems, solvability, group presentations, which are not generally covered); 2.) To that end, he sometimes left material out of lectures to notes; 3.) He has weekly quizzes. Beyond the usual benefits of attending class, he also tends to draw exam and quiz problems from examples seen in class once, or in the extra examples/problems in his notes, or from the homework. In some cases, this has a slight problem insofar as it can mean two students might have equal overall understanding of the material tested by a particular question, but one of them, say, looked to the examples in the notes and say nearly the same question worked out, so they can do it basically immediately, whereas the other has to struggle through it and so spend less time on other problems. Of course, this is always a factor, but it seems somewhat distinguished here, so being studious is especially good in this class! Overall, a great professor and an important, interesting class for mathematics majors. The difficulty is probably 5/5 for most students, but it is also rewarding. The structure is essentially traditional with lecture, weekly p-sets, weekly quizzes, two midterms, and one final. I believe two quizzes and p-sets are dropped, and your lowest exam grade can be supplanted by your final, but otherwise, little or no curving.

Allan Yashinski
MATH403

Expecting a B
Anonymous
01/15/2021

Great lecturer, really knows how to communicate complicated ideas. I expected this class to be harder, but as long as you keep up with the practice problems and homework it was pretty straightforward. I got super stressed at the end due to taking more classes than I could handle along with an internship and started slacking in 403, got a 54 on the final but if I didn't, I could've easily done a lot better, maybe gotten an A.

Patrick Brosnan
MATH403

Anonymous
01/04/2021

Brosnan managed to switch to an online format with little to no hassle and he cares a lot about his students and their performance. The notes were quite organized and easy to follow as well. The only reason he's 4 stars out of 5 is because he does this thing where he goes through a proof and in some parts says the result is obvious when the jump to a conclusion is not so clear.

Allan Yashinski
MATH403

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/11/2020

Awesome professor. Great, clear lectures. Difficulty is fair; pretty much what the material demands. But keep up with the lectures and do practice problems he assigns and you'll be well-prepared. He gives great, in-depth responses to any questions you ask. You can tell he really puts effort into the course and cares about it being taught well.

Amin Gholampour
MATH403

Expecting a P
Anonymous
09/06/2020

This course is really difficuly and we had huge curve every exam since the averages were always really low. He is willing to explain everything as long as you ask. We had 3 midterms (the lowest one was droped) and homework every week.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH403

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/15/2020

lots of hw sets every week. Cant understand why he has good reviews. The worst instructor at umd That ive ever met.

Roohollah Ebrahimian
MATH403

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
02/05/2020

Prof. Ebrahimian is a good professor. His grading is clear and his exams are not so hard.

Roohollah Ebrahimian
MATH403

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/24/2019

Dr. Ebrahimian is a good professor. He explains things in an easy way.

Roohollah Ebrahimian
MATH403

Expecting a D
Anonymous
12/20/2019

If you take this class with any other remotely difficult or time-consuming classes, you are doomed. He has homework due every class and weekly quizzes. As well, he will go very quickly through the material and if you take time to ask questions, he will just skip some material and say he will go back to it later (which he won’t). However, I believe I would have had a much better time in this class had it not been for the rest of my schedule also being rigorous. He is very friendly and tries his best to help everyone succeed, but only if you approach him. His grading is unforgiving but some of his policies help mitigate that (only if you do well enough in most of the course). Overall, a rough class that I wish I was more prepared for, but Ebrahimian is a good professor if you have too much time on your hands.

Nathan Manning
MATH403

Expecting an A
Anonymous
10/10/2019

Tough as nails but he knows the material inside and out. Obviously passionate about algebra. Proofs are well motivated and he is very good at understanding questions you may have during lecture. Many times after class ended, he would stick around to give advice on both hard and soft problems that arise in the math major. Would highly recommend.

Patrick Brosnan
MATH403

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/07/2019

Super chilled prof, thinking of him makes me giggle. I learned so much from him! What's really cool about his teaching style is that he's pretty personal about the stuffs he teaches, so the emphasis on the material is heavily flavored with an algebraist's perspective. The whole class was keen and fun and backed by solid motivations. Wish we had a longer semester to cover more. If you're taking classes with him, please take good care of him. Go to class and envision his brilliancy.

Patrick Brosnan
MATH403

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/26/2019

An awesome professor. Although MATH403 is a hard class, Patrick made the content enjoyable and easy to understand. He is super helpful during office hours and is looking out for his students.

Nathan Manning
MATH403

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/12/2019

His lectures are really good. Makes it clear his expectations of the students are in order to succeed in this course (get an A or more). By the end of the first and second midterm it is easy to tell which students didn't follow these guidelines. The class is difficult, but not soul-crushingly so. I would guess that 2 hours a day every day reading the book and thinking about the exercises should be enough for an A. Most people do much, much less than this. He is very helpful in office hours and wants to see his students succeed (provided they are working their hardest).

Nathan Manning
MATH403

Anonymous
04/11/2019

Fantastic lecturer. Fair grader. Be warned: he does not pull punches when it comes to exams and is not a fan of curving. If you plan on going to grad school for math, I definitely recommend Manning.

James Schafer
MATH403

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
11/26/2018

Not sure how to put it politely... Schafer is fucking terrible. He seems to be pretty good at what he does, but his personal style is simply not conducive to learning. He is an aggressive classroom tyrant and stifles discussion - does not clarify things and talks in a seemingly blunt and antagonizing way. Sitting in his lecture is very stressful. His sloppy handwriting does not help either. He would jot down whatever is on his mind on some blank spot on the blackboard so at the end it's usually all over the place so it's simply not possible to make out his notes after the class ends. The material is not boring but I had a very hard time following. You have to put in a lot of hours after school since the goal of this course is to force you to absorb Hernstein. I looked at other school's syllabus, group theory and ring theory are usually taught as a one year sequence. Do yourself a favor, avoid James Schafer if you can.

Xuhua He
MATH403

Anonymous
05/11/2018

Explains things in a very easy to understand manner. His proofs, even the long ones, are much more easy to follow than with most professors. He explains what he's doing. Harsh grader though in my opinion.

Roohollah Ebrahimian
MATH403

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/24/2017

Ebrahimian is a very effective teacher. The best thing about his class is that he engages students and lets students finish proofs. If you want to learn material well, take his class. However, he makes the grading a bit harder than is really necessary, and has HW due every single class.

James Schafer
MATH403

Anonymous
11/29/2012

I thought I would do well in this class, but I ended up hating Schafer's irreverent style. Also, Schafer is not rigorous, despite what others have said. His explanations are often imprecise. Professor Schafer's teaching style is very aggressive, and I felt uncomfortable asking for clarification, as the professor tends to get exasperated with students. In regards to Professor Schafer's lectures themselves, I found them difficult to understand-- not because I'm unaccustomed to mathematical thought or rigor, but because his lecturing was often unclear. The worst was that he doesn't provide much perspective on the material, which made it seem kind of pointless. The semester was basically a mad, stressful rush to absorb the material in Herstein as fast as possible, without much reflection or analysis. I don't think my analytical or problem solving skills developed at all, and I don't plan to become an Algebraist, so this class was essentially useless to me. Also, Schafer is not brilliant. Has he even published? He has no website, and I can't find any of his papers online.

James Schafer
MATH403

Expecting a W
Anonymous
10/15/2011

Since I withdrew from the course about halfway through the semester, I normally would not review the professor except I don't want other math majors to make the same mistake I did. For the record, this is the first course I ever dropped with a W. I agree with the other reviews that Professor Schafer is indeed a very brilliant man, and he lectures more coherently than many other math professors I've had. HOWEVER, he is not a good professor unless you are already naturally brilliant at math. Like most professors in the department, it is clear that he holds the frustrating point of view that math should only be for those to whom it comes naturally, and that those who are not born math geniuses shouldn't even really be in the field. I am generally an A student in math, but it is not a subject that just comes easily to me. I study a LOT to get the grades that I do. His obvious favoritism for those who seemed to understand the material instantaneously was frustrating to say the least. Also, I unfortunately had a class scheduled during his office hours, so I e-mailed him to try and schedule an alternate time to meet. He set up a time with me, but then never showed up. Furthermore, after writing down a bunch of barely legible nonsense on the chalkboard, he would then make a statement like "this is quite easy, you just have to think about it," which is not a helpful statement when it actually ISN'T easy at all. In short, if you are someone who learns math as opposed to someone who just knows math, Schafer is not the right guy for you.

Joel Cohen
MATH403

Anonymous
05/11/2011

It is difficult to describe why Dr. Cohen is such a horrible math professor. He goes really really fast and skips tons and tons of steps to the point where he becomes incomprehensible. To make matters worse, his handwriting is awful. He is unprepared for lectures. Several times he has thrown terms into his lectures that we'd never heard of before, and then two classes later he would explain what they are. I strongly recommend not taking Cohen. Math403 has been the most challenging course I have taken as an undergraduate, and he makes it infinitely more difficult. I am graduating with Latin honors, so I am not dumb, and I have dealt with some pretty awful professors, but this guy is the absolute worst. I guarantee you will regret taking him.

Justin Wyss-Gallifent
MATH403

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/23/2009

Abstract Algebra was probably the most difficult course I have taken so far in college, but it was all worth it because I learned an incredible amount thanks to Justin's awesome teaching skills! I had him for 246 last semester, so I decided to give this class a try because he was teaching it. 403 was a very tough course for me, but I'm sure I would have failed the class if any other professor had taught it. Justin lectures is such a straightforward, easy-to-follow manner and explains everything he writes of the chalkboard. He provides plenty of examples so that everyone can comprehend the meaning of theorems, definitions, and proofs he writes on the board. Unlike most of the professors in the math department, Justin actually cares about his students and doesn't brush them off. He responds to emails very quickly and has numerous office hours available if you need extra help, since many of us did need it. The exams were pretty hard, but straightforward nonetheless, with averages/medians usually in the 50s. He does give an appropriate curve so if you think you're failing, don't worry, all hope is not lost!

Joel Cohen
MATH403

Anonymous
04/14/2009

Dr. Cohen is not that bad, but for me, 403 was a challenging course. The exams were hard because you had to recall a lot of the theorems from chapters that might not have been covered recently. Going to the math dept. tutor, Dr. Bhatia, helped a lot. If you do take this class, make sure you are comfortable with proofs and algebraic concepts in general.

James Schafer
MATH403

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/26/2007

Schafer is a really cool guy and an entertaining professor... even though he looks like a homeless person. Several students in my class went on to take 404 and then 432 with him, regardless of their grades in any of these classes. Several students also dropped out of his Math340 class. Schafer is completely incapable of hand-waving; he loves to prove things, and if you can appreciate mathematics done rigorously you'll appreciate him. Of course, if you're taking a class like 340 or 406 with him, it's likely his approach is more intense than you're prepared to deal with, but if you can stand up to the challenge you may grow a lot as a mathematician. He understands that the material he teaches is hard and how much effort it takes to learn it and he is encouraging. Many students benefit from his office hours, and he's happy to help out. He also will not let you get away with not learning -- he assigns a lot of homework. Many think his tests are hard; it's probably just a consequence of the material itself being hard, and having Schafer means no safety bubbles. Some other professors are sloppier and slower than he is, so having someone like Schafer who can hammer out details but still keep you on your toes can be a breath of fresh air. He is a really cool person, but if you don't like to prove things or if you're not willing to put a lot of energy into learning math, then Schafer is not for you.

Joel Cohen
MATH403

Expecting a B
almostdone
12/05/2007

This is very theoretical and challenging course. It is mostly challenging because Professor Cohen does a poor job explaining concepts. Even if you ask him a question the response is still pretty unclear. I started off terribly in this class. Fortunately somewhere in the middle it all clicked and made sense but this professor is definitely not recommended. However the concepts in math403 are actually not complicated once you put the effort into it.

Reviews for MATH403