Charles Levermore

This professor has taught: AMSC420, AMSC460, AMSC667, AMSC698L, AMSC760, AMSC762, CMSC460, HLTH710, MATH246, MATH410, MATH412, MATH416, MATH420

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Charles Levermore MATH410 Anonymous 02/01/2021	Great professor. I’d definitely recommend taking 410 with him, it really improved my ability to do proofs. Levermore knows a lot about math and its history which makes lectures interesting. He also provides super detailed notes. He is very helpful in office hours.
Charles Levermore MATH410 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/26/2021	Very knowledgeable in the field. He breaks up his very math heavy lecture with interesting historical anecdote that puts into perspective the depth of the work well. His homeworks are quite difficult and tedious, but he lectures well and is very available for help.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/19/2020	Yeah, reading the other reviews, and given my previous success in math courses, I thought 246 with Levermore would be tricky, but doable. My god was I wrong. I do not know how his grade data is as good as it is, I worked so damn hard on this class to get the grades I did but I can not imagine so many people going as insane as I did. I probably sound a bit pretentious by now but anyway if you can take this course over the summer with Justin- DO IT. Here's what made this course so frustrating: He teaches more content and some of it he ~customizes~ so if you can't comprehend his lectures or notes, you're basically fucked. I remember googling a term from class and the top results were all his notes. You can learn the basics from Justin's awesome notes, but you will need to learn Levermore's custom/proprietary stuff. The grading policy is pretty good though. I don't think my grievances with this class are due to it being online though. All of the other reviews mention his shitty teaching method of reading through slides/notes. It's terrible. I can't imagine how bad the other prof's are if he's the least of the evils, but if you can take this during the summer or at a different college, do it. I really though I would be fine in this class in spite of the other reviews below, but I was so wrong.
Charles Levermore MATH416 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/29/2020	Levermore is cool - as long as you can endure his snarky attitude. His lecture is fine, but I find the pace a bit slow. That said, this man should be banned from teaching new courses. He couldn't finish writing the homework on time for most of the time of the semester, so we had 5 psets for spring break and 4 psets for final's week. That was just not very reasonable. The exams were take-homes because of the pandemic. While the first exam was long and easy (the format was similar to the hw with the workload doubled), the second one was really tedious (he picked the hardest + longest problem from each hw and compiled them together). That was one of the instances when I look at my solution and wonder how on earth would the instructor have the mental power to read through my solution. He graded things very leniently at the end, I'm not sure if it was because he felt sorry for the way he bombarded us with giant hw packages or he's just lenient. Anyway.. the material is very interesting, I recommend learning some harmonic analysis on your own if you get a chance. The text used was Wickerhauser - alright but not the best for self-study (<- so you can't learn everything by reading the book and not attending lectures).
Charles Levermore MATH246 Anonymous 06/10/2020	What a strange, strange man he is... He presents the content of this course in a very theoretical manner, so if you do not work through practice problems or if you do not generally understand a string of just theory, you may encounter problems. The practice problems on his website are sometimes unclear as to how he reaches his final answer and you'll have to kinda go through it several times to notice which steps he has omitted. Regarding my first comment, he "speaks in fonts." If you don't know what that means then oh boy you're in for an experience. He also frequently used the phrase "licking your chops" when referring to types of ODEs, then proceeded to make some ungodly schlurpschlupschschlurp sounds. He will ask for volunteers that serve literally no purpose. Just an all around odd experience, but certainly something you should endure if nothing else then as a rite of passage into your big boy classes
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting a B- Anonymous 11/11/2019	Literally horrible lecturer, like horrendous. His online notes are extremely difficult to decipher, and you dont learn anything in discussion because he has you doing graded groupwork. Eventually, you'll learn how to decipher his notes, but in all honesty, what a horrible class. The only perk to his class is that he has past exams and quizzes online so you have a pretty good idea of whats going to be thrown your way. Still though, its a shame that the university lets such horrible teachers teach diffeq, a fairly useful class
Charles Levermore MATH246 Anonymous 10/16/2019	Honestly horrible lecturer. Seriously, don't even bother going to class. His online notes are almost in a different language, they extremely complicate fairly trivial topics... but eventually you will get the hang of them and how to decipher them. Still though, horrible class to take, only plus side is that his tests are all fairly similar to past years exams. Literally the only plus to taking diffeq with him
Charles Levermore MATH410 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2018	LECTURES: Very organized, engaging, and useful lectures. He often goes into the history of math during the class, but does so in a beneficial way such that it completely integrated with the course content. He often expects class participation from people (not explicitly graded, but "factored into the final grade"), but is really good about getting students to "think like a mathematician." The class often proved many of the largest theorems in calculus together, which helped with learning the material. I'd give a subscore of 5/5. Truly the best lecturer I had the semester I took the course. ASSIGNMENTS: Levermore makes his assignments incredibly difficult in general. I normally spent ~8-12 hours each week on homework for this class (partially since I didn't know how to prove non-trivial problems before this course), but in general, they were very useful at building confidence before an exam. Levermore is very much a "give hard homeworks, make the test easier" kind of professor, but at the same time, some assignments were just so much harder than any of the tests we took that it was demoralizing at times. Thankfully, the assignments are not worth a large part of the grade overall, so it's alway spossible to half-ass an assignment and have it not do massive damage to your grade. (The 4 lowest homeworks get dropped at the end of the semester) I give a subscore of 4/5 -- Assignments were sometimes just too hard to be useful, and often took too long. EXAMS: Levermore gives 3 exams for his 410 class--two midterms and a final. The exams are largely easy since he recycles most of the questions on the exams from previous homework problems and previous exams in different years. This means that just with proper studying/memorizing, it's possible to get ~80% without understanding the material just by copying answers from previous exams. However, the logistics of exams is frustrating. Our first exam was returned in 3 weeks, which was a bit slow, but our second exam was a different story. We took that exam halfway through the semester, and got the grades back the night before the final, nearly 1.5 months after the test. While the logistics of regular homework assignments was well done (usually given back within a week), the exams were graded directly by Prof. Levermore, which caused significant problems. Subsection score: 3/5 -- For really bad logistical errors made with grading OVERALL THOUGHTS: Definitely one of the hardest, yet most rewarding math classes I've taken here. I'd recommend taking MATH410 with him if you're interested in a challenge, and willing to put large amounts of time understanding the material.
Charles Levermore MATH410 Expecting an A- me 12/16/2017	He knows the topic really well. Lectures follow the class notes very closely, and homeworks are helpful for learning the material. One piece of advice for taking this class: the tests are similar from year to year. He has old tests posted on his website, so you should definitely use those to study.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/11/2016	Make sure you practice with the old exams. If you do, and can understand the online notes, don't bother going to class. Seriously, don't waste your time. Grab yourself a good study group and you'll do fine.
Charles Levermore MATH246 apaskal 10/21/2015	Pros: Very intelligent, clearly knows what he is talking about, seems really nice and friendly, and doesn't give you busywork (except for Matlab, which sucks, but that isn't on him. His grading policy is also specifically designed to give you as fair a grade as possible, and to not screw you if you mess up occasionally. His website is also a tremendous resource. I personally didn't find his notes too helpful, but many did, and his online exams and quizzes are incredibly valuable. Cons: His intelligence gets in the way of his teaching, and he makes things that should be easy in application seem very complicated. I would often read through his notes trying to understand what the heck was going on, then watch a youtube video on it and understand it very clearly, and think "why didn't he just say that?". He understands things on a different level than most students, and that is the level he teaches on, because that is how his mind works. Pure mathematics is not a strength of mine, so this caused me difficulties. He also does cover a lot more material than other people do in general for diff eq, so this makes it harder to find supplementary resources on it. This inability to lecture or explain things clearly has caused big problems for me and many people I know. Synopsis: if you have an easy schedule or were really good at calc2 and calc3, then take him, because you'll get the highest grade from him. Just be prepared to teach yourself, because odds are you'll have a hard time learning from him. If you thought those classes were hard, or you are taking a heavy class load (i'm taking 19 right now and i'm slowly but surely drowning), take someone else who's a better lecturer, or put diff eq off until you have the time to dedicate to it, because, especially with him, it's a ton to digest and master.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2013	Great Professor, hands down the best option for diff eq. Very Nice person who is very dedicated and wants his students to succeed (Not many professors will hold a 2 hour review on a Sunday before an exam). He's average at lecturing and sometimes goes a little too fast, but he is very helpful at office hours and posts the notes online. His website is AMAZING and you can find old exams as well as class notes on his webpage as well, which is extremely helpful. Tests are very fair, yet there are still idiots out there who don't study and do his sample problems/old exams and complain about the difficulty of the exams. He also has a nice "bomb's away policy" and your quizzes get bumped up if you have a higher exam grade. The final was extremely easy, and I'd say Levermore prepared us well for it. The only negative thing I'd say about this class were the matlab's which were a pain in the ass.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A joebiden 12/17/2013	amazing online notes (no need to attend lectures). fair grading scale. Easy tests/quizzes that are the same as past semesters.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/28/2013	It's true that He covers more than other professors, but it's worth to learn then. Because the book may often confuse me. He has the nicest online note. Most people complain that the course is hard, but they are the one who does not do his practice exam and former exams that he post online the exam is almost identical to the previous exams. Sometimes, I fell he goes too fast during the lecture, but overall he is a good math246 professor!
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/25/2012	I liked Levermore. I always felt like he was on the students side by always trying to make things clear in class. As people have mentioned his website is a great resource. There are old quizzes and exams to study from which are extremely helpful. His notes are also quite helpful. A lot of the time though I usually did not understand the theory that he explained before he went into examples which there are plenty of. I usually went to his notes rather than the textbook which is an okay secondary resource. His lectures were okay. I usually felt pretty confused. He is obviously a really smart guy but sometimes his explanations were not the greatest. I also felt like I memorized a lot methods rather than understanding differential equations but who cares.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Anonymous 05/11/2012	Levermore THE GOOD: Levermore is a good professor. He really limits the proofs he does on the class, which is good for engineering students. He is also very dedicated to teaching diffeq. His website is really well designed. It’s obvious he spent a lot of time on his class notes and sample problems for exams (he uses the same ones every year). Exams questions were predictable since he uses a similar format every year. THE BAD: Personally, I found differential equations difficult. This is a class where the curve can work against you if you make lots of careless mistakes. Some of his “shortcut” methods (especially partial fractions and linear algebra stuff) are somewhat cryptic and hard to understand. OVERALL: Good professor, hard exams. If you are looking for an easier A, then take someone else.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/06/2012	I have not taken the final yet so I can't fully describe how well he prepared us. But with that in mind I have to say Levermore is a really good teacher. He seems to understand that most of the people in the class didn't really care about proofs so he seemed to do just enough for this to still qualify as a math class and then spent most of the class doing examples which ultimately helped me a lot. And, as a bonus, it was really easy for me to picture him as a super villain who spends his nights punishing students who don't know math. This served as a great incentive to learn diff eq.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2011	Levermore taught us fairly well, but it seems like he taught us more how to do the problems in the class and less how to do differential equations in general. It doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of good diff eq professors in general, but I would recommend Levermore over others.
Charles Levermore MATH220 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/13/2011	Levermore is a good guy. His lectures are not great, in fact they're quite boring. However, at times he will clarify questions if asked and he seems like he genuinely cares. Go to his office hours and he is more than happy to help. He also has a very generous grading policy. I stopped going to lecture and taught myself out of the book. Easy A.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/25/2011	Levermore is a pro at teaching differential equations. He really knows who the class is made of - primarily scientists and engineers, not mathematicians. His online notes are then particularly useful because he takes the time to write out general formulas that can actually be applied to real-world problems. I am saving his notes for life.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A vnsach 05/22/2011	Great professor and nice guy. He is very reasonable with grades as his policies suggest. Drops a quiz and matlab, replaces quiz grades if you do well on the test and curves generously if you perform well on the final. I probably had around an 85 going into the final but he curved me up to an A since I did well on the final. Most importantly, his website is amazing. I literally went to class for 10 minutes a week just so I could take my quiz and learned everything off class notes and previous quizzes/tests. If you read his online notes intently, you will get an A in the class. He is better than the other teachers from what I have heard and a great choice for differential equations.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2011	Lecture: Levermore was not the greatest lecturer, but from what my friends experienced in other 246 classes he is probably your best bet. Definitely helps to be a math major and know many different math terms and symbols. Handwriting was subpar. You really only need to go to lecture for the last three weeks or so because that is when he goes over phase portraits and right before the second exam when he goes over spring forces because theses are not on his online notes. (He has great online notes that he posts) Website: Seriously best website ever, take him because of his website. MATLAB: Is difficult I can't really grade him for it though, he just assigns it and we have to figure it out (buy the MATLAB book, it does a pretty good job) Grading: 3 Midterms (100points each) 6 MATLAB's one dropped (20 points each) 11 Quizzes (almost every Tuesday during lecture 10 points each) Final (200 points) He also has some crazy grading systems which you can look up here: http://www-users.math.umd.edu/~lvrmr/2010-2011-S/Classes/MATH246/Quizzes.html Hint: look over the past couple years quizzes to study for each quiz (he keeps the answers posted too). And do the practice tests.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2011	Just finished taking him. Probably the best teacher you could ask for for a class like 246. Very engaging, handwriting sometimes hard to read but bearable. Best part: His amazing website. All pertinent announcements go on there, grades averages and distributions, awesome sample problems, and best of all: Online notes! His online notes are great; they could easily be a substitute for going to class, but keep in mind there is a weekly quiz. Exams aren't difficult at all, just look at old exams and the samples problems and you can easily ace the class.
Charles Levermore MATH220 Expecting an A Draconian Legacy 01/04/2011	It's true that Levermore's lectures are difficult to follow and often he will go on tangents in which little will be added to our knowledge of calculus. That having been said, Levermore has a great grading policy, one that is more than fair. I get the impression that he really is not trying to make the students' lives difficult. He seems like a good guy and although he threw out one very difficult test this past semester, that was largely to weed out those who were performing poorly. You will have to teach yourself a considerable amount out of the book if you do not have a calculus background. However, if you have taken calc, this is your guy: no homework and he drops 5 quizzes.
Charles Levermore MATH220 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2010	First of all most of his lectures are introducing formulas...so pointless to go to them. He gives examples with variables(he is very hard to follow). A couple of his exams had ridiculous problems that were much harder than the quizzes (he did have an 8 point curve on one unfair problem). Although I loved the no homework(webassign) it was hard to discipline myself to actually teach myself from the textbook. I managed and ended up with a B. If you have taken calculus before and dont mind teaching yourself from a book this is the class because he has an awesome grading policy. He drops lowest 5 quizes out of 15 and he drops lowest exam if and only if it is 2 letter grades below all the other exams including the final (aka if you get a D on one exam and As and Bs on the rest..he drops the D b/c it is 2 letter grades below the As and Bs). If you dont remember shit or have never taking it then get another teacher and one that can actually teach you!
Charles Levermore MATH220 Anonymous 12/06/2010	Levermore is a bad teacher. His tests are confusing, and he likes to trick his students. He does not teach the material well, and his tests are much harder than the other 220 sections. I took calculus before, and still cant manage to figure out this course. Take math220 with a different teacher! he even laughed in my friends face and told her to do better next time when she expressed that she was nervous about her test grade.
Charles Levermore MATH401 Expecting an A fiddlerkrt 05/24/2010	The class is supposed to be Applications of Linear Algebra, but we haven't learned a single one other than polynomial interpolation for what that is worth. The lectures are useless, the books sucks, and there isn't even a syllabus for the class. It took ten weeks to get the first exam back. The second exam wasn't too difficult but most of the class managed to do poorly since everyone has to learn from the book. The final was pretty easy. Most of the problems came from old tests. The homework for this class is beyond annoying. Although he assigns only 15-16 problems per week, some of these have up to "s" parts, meaning one problem is actually 19 problems. To make matters worse, the matrices increase from size as you go from a to s. Even with a calculator, the homework takes forever. I didn't even bother to do the last problem set since it effectively amounted to 85 problems. I wouldn't advise taking Levermore for this class. He can teach differential equations, but he fails when it comes to teaching Linear Algebra.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A+ jahs389 03/03/2010	Levermore has no accent and very effectively presents what you need to know - you can't ask for more than that. But, he also has a website with all his old exams and quizzes. He does reviews for exams and the actual exams are nearly identical in format to his practice ones, you can't go wrong if you study. Matlab will take up time but that is just the course not him. Between Levermore and my TA, I managed an A+ which is a pretty big turn around from a D I got when I first took Math246.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/02/2010	Ok professor, however just like every other math course at UMD, the structure is terrible. His lectures would leave you left in the dust, got most of my help from the TA during office hours. Not impressed with the way this class is set up. Your grade in this class solely depends on what TA you get. They grade all of the quizes and exams. For the last exam, my TA was not given a solution manual and had to make up her own solutions to the exam and then graded my exam. Don't expect to get any partial credit, it's either right or wrong with this class. I'm so glad that I pay so much in tuition to have my TA teach and grade me.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting an A jcosta12 12/11/2009	At first, I hated this guy. However, once you get used to his teaching method and the extensive information he throws at you at once, he is a really good professor. He has his own methods of teaching things (KEY IDENTITY is his method) and it is by far easier than the other methods. He is the best Differential Equations professor UMD has to offer. His exams are EXACTLY like his sample tests he posts on his website with only slight variations. Do those and you'll be fine. Quizes every tuesday sucks, but if you get a higher grade in an exam, he replaces all the quizes leading up to that exam with your exam grade. This is the reason why I got an A in the class.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Xin 11/25/2009	Not a great professor. He tries to make class entertaining with his jokes and such, but it doesn't compensate for his lack of teaching ability. Don't even bother going to class unless there is a quiz or an exam, you won't learn anything at all. He just writes a bunch of greek symbols and nasty algorithms. Get past exams and quizzes and study those. Also read the book.
Charles Levermore MATH246 guru 10/01/2009	I think he was a good professor. Slightly humorous. His class webpage is possibly the best in terms of utility I have seen from a professor. The exam dates, notes, homeworks, and solutions to quizzes, etc are posted in a very organized, clear fashion.
Charles Levermore MATH246 jumpboyb 09/12/2009	So-So. His lectures often left you saying "WTF?" He will force you into learning the greek alphabet if you do not know it yet along with drawing some other random symbols. Not too many examples in the lecture however. The homeworks, old quizzes, and practice test will make sure you are ready to get an A or B in the class as the material really isn't hard for the most part. Easier than Calc 2 for sure. Go to his office hours and he does a slightly better job of explaining things to you that he went over in lecture. He is also very approachable and does not have a accent you can't understand
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/19/2009	He can't teach. He spends 75 minutes writing gibberish on the board that no one can understand. Even the book does a better job of explaining the material than he does. At some point during the semester you realize that you can't learn from him and you might as well skip his class and go to lunch instead.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/18/2009	I was expecting to get a B in the class but was pleased to find out that I got an A-. Although he isn't the greatest teacher in the world, the only advice i can give is to do his sample questions for his exams and the final. They are EXACTLY like his exams just with different numbers. Also, for any math class, when preparing for a final exam, go to UMD's testbank and do past exams. There was a question that was taken verbatim off last years test. Do his sample questions and past exams and you will have no problem getting at least a B
Charles Levermore MATH246 jmartin1 05/18/2009	he was so-so as a professor. I personally found him to be very confusing at times and not very clear. however, the book for the class was awful, and for someone like me who uses textbooks as references, this made the class even harder for me.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/01/2009	One of the worst professors I have ever had. Rarely uses examples to explain and lectures get confusing with the vast number of symbols and variables he uses. My TA's were excellent and more effectively explained 2 lectures worth of material in 50 minutes that he was able to do. Avoid taking his Math246 class.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting a B stanleyj 12/08/2008	He is difficult to understand and tends to strictly teach theory rather than doing examples. Also, his lectures get rather confusing due to the abstract variables, bold letters etc. His tests can be too long vs the time that is given to take them.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Anonymous 12/04/2008	His lecture is clear and great! You have to par attention though because sometimes he teaches his own methods which are easier than the stuff in the textbook.
Charles Levermore MATH246 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/01/2008	worst professor ever. he is a genius, thats for sure, but he can not teach at all. i have not taken calc 3 yet which is supposed to make it easier but either way... he teaches class like he is reading from a book, which book, i havent a clue, because it sure isnt the one that is assigned to us. he has his own methods for solving things which are not in the book (or any others for that matter) which are not at all intuitive and effectively take up class time, as they are all useless. (to me at the very least). he rarely does examples to illustrate the concepts that he presents to us, and the examples he does use are not very good and are only of the simplest cases. his hand writing is very difficult to read, and his board is very rarely cleaned making it even harder to read the notes. finally, he refuses to accept any excuse for missing an exam. even if your mom dies, he does not care.