Joel Cohen

This professor has taught: MATH130, MATH131, MATH136, MATH220, MATH402, MATH406, MATH432, MATH730, MATH734

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Joel Cohen MATH130 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/19/2015	This man is SOOOOO nice! I wish he was my grandpa! With that being said he isn't the best lecturer. His lectures are pretty boring and no one shows up but his exams are fair. His final however was exceptionally hard
Joel Cohen MATH131 Expecting an A nseacoco 05/14/2014	I loved this class! So easy! A lot of people will tell you he is horrible at lecturing in this class, and they are correct, but he also doesn't use clickers which means that you literally don't have to show up to lecture unless there is a test. His practice exams look exactly like the actual exam and you can easily learn all the material from the textbook. It saves your time, gets you a good grade, and you can sleep in. I went to this lecture maybe 5 times all semester and I have a 95% going into the final. Just make sure to show up to all your discussions and do the practice problems in the textbook!
Joel Cohen MATH131 Expecting an A milk 05/22/2013	Very nice teacher and always willing to answer questions, but his teaching style was all over the place. Explained every single concept in a way that went way over everyone's heads. He had a habit of naming the actual concept/formula AFTER five minutes of explaining it and giving examples, which made everything all the more confusing. Horrible handwriting, tons of mistakes and backtracking, lectures were a complete waste of time and no one went (you really don't have to, it makes no difference). That being said, it wasn't that hard to pull an A - I read the textbook but I learned from the TAs (who were AMAZING). The TAs knew no one went to lecture so they took time at the beginning of every discussion section to go over exactly what you needed to know in a way that was a million times clearer than Cohen's lectures. The TAs also held review sessions right before each test that were super helpful. Cohen gives very reasonable/straightforward tests, there wasn't anything tricky about them. As long as you're willing to learn from the textbook and TAs, you'll be okay. If you're looking for good lecturing, take someone else.
Joel Cohen MATH130 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2012	This professor is a very nice man, but one of the WORST teachers I have had in my entire life. His lectures are all over the place and make no sense what so ever. He makes the simplest topic extremely complex and confusing. It doesnt help that he makes numerous mistakes on the board when doing a problem. I honestly can say I have no idea whether he just made a mistake on the board or just being confusing as usual. He LOVES to use the quadratic formula on exams which is kinda annoying
Joel Cohen MATH130 Expecting an A- kenjudge 12/12/2012	Mr. Cohen is an awful math teacher. Overall, I feel as though his class does not help anyone who has not taken calculus before. It is extremely unorganized and will spend the majority of the class on material that you will never need to know. I did well because I have taken Calc before and went to every discussion. When I went to lecture though I found myself in the front row not paying attention or learning a weird way of doing things that I have never learned before and overall just having me leave very confused. Take someone else! I do not have a problem with his personality but TAKE SOMEONE ELSE!
Joel Cohen MATH220 Expecting an A dreamparticles 12/01/2011	Basically, the only way you'll survive this course with a decent grade is if you're proficient at learning from a textbook or if you've already taken a Calculus class in high school. I took up to Calc 2 in high school, so this was all just review for me. His lectures are unorganized. No one can follow them or even read his hand-writing. He tends to do work on the board and thinks aloud as he does it, which just serves to confuse everyone even more. His tests are somewhat unreasonable, but they are doable; the ones he has posted in Test Bank are excellent references because it's basically the same questions with a few minor changes. His T.A. is awesome though, and really helps to clarify everything. He really is a nice guy, and brilliant; he's just not suited for teaching people.
Joel Cohen MATH402 Expecting a C Anonymous 10/06/2011	I tend to look the other way when I see negative reviews on a prof., but the negative response for Cohen is accurate. He is a nice guy, cares for his students, and will help in office hours, but that is where the positive comments stop. Homeworks are on par with what you expect from 400 level courses, challenging and balanced. His exams are insane. We just got back exam one and the average is probably in the 30s (10-15% of the class got above a 60). He gives you a makeup problems worth another 20-25 points (also really difficult), but this would still leave test averages about 20 points south (best case) of where they should be. His writing is illegible and he moves too fast. I write everything he does, but he will go off to a different topic on another part of the board and screw up my notes. I look back at everything I noted on and it usually makes little to no sense. The book is your teacher. I won't know how to study for the next test. Exam 1 was way off of test bank exams for this class (could do those fairly easily). Take someone else if you can.
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.
Joel Cohen MATH406 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 05/20/2010	Although he's a really nice guy and very amiable, he's not a very good math professor. He clearly cares about his students and tries hard to address questions and concerns, but he seemed to never be able to find ways to clearly explain concepts in the class. He simply walks through proof after esoteric proof, then assigns homework which the student is forced to figure out on their own. Overall, I would recommend taking any other professor for a math class if you have the option.
Joel Cohen MATH406 Anonymous 05/19/2010	He's a pretty nice guy, definitely approachable, and fairly understanding when it comes to extensions. HOWEVER, to be perfectly honest, he is not a good teacher. He rushes through proofs and skips a lot of steps, he rushes through examples and (once again) skips a lot of steps, and all in all, he simply doesn't explain what he's doing. He pretty much takes his lectures directly from the book, and doesn't know how to break things down into a more comprehensible format. If you ask him to explain something, he will stop and try to explain, but he usually just says the same thing he did before, meaning that asking him for help is ultimately not very useful. The exams are fine but you come out of the class feeling more like you memorized a bunch of tricks and rules rather than actually learning number theory well. Homework is useful and usually similar to the questions on the exam. If you REALLY want to learn number theory, I would recommend taking the class with someone else.
Joel Cohen MATH406 Expecting a C- satz24 02/13/2010	He's not a bad guy. In fact, if you can't get your homework in on-time, you can you email him for an extension. However, he is a crappy teacher. He does the examples that are found in the book. These examples are only helpful for a couple problems, then you get stuck. He doesn't give any insight or information other than the book. He brings the book to class, and reads it to you.
Joel Cohen MATH340 Expecting a C Anonymous 04/29/2009	Cohen was a horrible teacher. He never came to lecture with a set lesson plan and changed weights and eliminated grade-boosters during the semester. His tests and quizzes tested on things that you had never seen in class, but class was useless and you couldn't follow any of his work.
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.
Joel Cohen MATH406 Expecting an A fuzzyLogic 12/28/2008	Hard to follow during the first half of the course. His lectures follow the course of the text but he will take the time in class to explain any confusions you have. Second half was better as you picked up enough of the number theory background to follow some of the proofs.
Joel Cohen MATH340 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2008	Cohen was one of the worst teachers I have ever had. His lectures didn't make sense, his tests were overly confusing and difficult, he constantly changed the way he weighted stuff (the weight of the final increased by like 10% over the course of the semester), and we didn't get through a lot of the material. It was much more useful to skip class and read the book then to go to his class.
Joel Cohen MATH406 Expecting an A samolang 08/25/2008	The class was pretty easy, the test content was always well covered in class/homework, and he kept the lectures somewhat entertaining.
Joel Cohen MATH406 Expecting a B Crispus Attucks 04/23/2008	MATH406 with Prof. Cohen is the only course I've ever been in where you can burst out loud "I have no idea what's going on!" and everything will be explained to you again patiently. In contrast to the other reviews, I find his lectures very clear. If you're really on your stuff with math you will do fine with him.
Joel Cohen MATH220 Expecting an A vlee89 01/08/2008	class was easy in the beginning but got harder in the end. if you have him, i would recommend reading the book and going to discussion. the TA was better at teaching than him. exams are a little difficult and take more effort in studying. some questions on the final are tricky and require some thinking.
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.