Clarke Safsten

This professor has taught: MATH140H, MATH241, MATH246, MATH246H, MATH310, MATH410

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Clarke Safsten MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2024	Extremely coherent lectures. He does tend to front-load the material a lot and save the rest of the time for examples, which worked well for me, but just make sure you come to class on time and pay close attention. The weekly homeworks are required and can be time-consuming, but they’re worth the effort as the exam problems are of similar difficulty. Discussions include weekly group worksheets, which are harder than exams but graded on completion, as well as biweekly quizzes of reasonable difficulty, with the lowest two quiz scores dropped. The only critique I have is that the fact that there were no notes, practice exams, or solutions posted for anything, combined with homeworks and quizzes often being graded after the relevant exam, made it hard to gauge our understanding of the material before exams. The other positive aspects about this class made up for this, though. I’d give 4.5 stars if I could.
Clarke Safsten MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/07/2024	Fantastic teacher. Explains content in a way that makes sense, ties each section together, and clearly enjoys his subject. He made Multivariable Calc very digestible and practical in a way that I think has stuck with me. Midterms focus on understanding general ideas and often don't require very much calculation, so as long as you understand the content you should be fine. Homework, worksheets, and quizzes are all good at preparing you for midterms/final. In class, the notes he writes on the board are concise and make sense. I would highly recommend him as a professor.
Clarke Safsten MATH246H Expecting a B Anonymous 12/06/2024	Good teacher. He explains the content well, and writes stuff down on the chalk board in a way where I can really understand my notes when I look back at them later. Take him if you can. My only knocks are there isn't a lot of prep material for the exams, I only look at my notes to prepare, also he can be a little unfriendly.
Clarke Safsten MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/05/2024	Safsten is amazing. He explains concepts very clearly in lecture and makes the most difficult concepts not seem so bad. The midterms are more than fair and are very manageable. The worksheets in discussion are harder than the problems on the midterm so if you understand the worksheets, you'll do fine on the midterms. I highly recommend him and would 100% take him again.
Clarke Safsten MATH241 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/04/2024	Explains the material nicely and midterms are reasonable. Classwork is very doable for a 4 credit class. Alex N, my TA, was the goat and helped me understand the material. I can tell Professor Safsten loves what he does fs.
Clarke Safsten MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/15/2024	Would recommend Safsten to anyone interested in taking any class he offers. Amazing teacher, explains concepts in a way that is easy to digest, is easy to understand, and his exams are reasonable. Makes a difficult class easy.
Clarke Safsten MATH246H Expecting an A Anonymous 05/12/2024	Safsten is a wonderful teacher. I would definitely take him again as a professor. He is able to explain complicated concepts in simple ways without losing any information. His exams are fair, and he gives you enough resources to succeed. The homework and quizzes prepare you well throughout the semester, so you don't feel like you have such a huge load you have to study for the final. He is a flexible teacher and is always willing to answer questions you may have. He makes class engaging, and he explains the applications of the concepts well. Rather than just learning the equations straightforwardly and breezing through applications of it, he makes sure you understand it. The information he teaches is very digestible. Honestly, if you do the homeworks you are pretty much set for this class. While the homework may seem a bit tedious at first, it is a great review for the quizzes, exams, and final for this class. Highly recommend him as a professor.
Clarke Safsten MATH246H Expecting an A Anonymous 05/12/2024	He was such an amazing professor! I highly recommend Safsten for any course you can take with him. He is cheerful and passionate about the material and will have plenty of fun things to talk about in class. He also does a great job at breaking down the content to make it understandable, is super open with office hours and questions, and is super accommodating in terms of meeting you. His homeworks and quizzes are very straightforward and simple as long as you pay attention in class, and he will work directly with you on any problems that you have questions on. He also grades very fairly on exams, and is very flexible about making up an missed exams. He's very personable and cares about his students, and you will not feel left behind in this class as long as you reach out to him. He really values his students and is great about making an intimidating subject feel comprehendible. It's clear he wants his students to succeed, and he is great at helping you get there.
Clarke Safsten MATH246H Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/10/2024	I spent a couple of classes in Herrera and Von Petersdorff before switching into Safsten, and he is leagues better than any other diffeq professor. His exams are fair, and he runs review classes where he overviews exactly what you need to know before each exam. He also is extremely helpful in office hours, and he schedules extra office hours upon request. He is definitely one of the best professors I have had at UMD.
Clarke Safsten MATH140H Expecting an A Anonymous 01/26/2024	Safsten is a pretty good professor. He wants his students to succeed and will put time into talking out a problem with you during office hours. He may seem a little hard at first but is pretty nice when grading and almost never takes full points off unless the approach for the question was completely off.
Clarke Safsten MATH140H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2023	I highly recommend taking Prof. Safsten for any math course. He was generous, kind, funny, and always smiled throughout the semester. He is very understanding when it comes to missing the online homework assignments; he will grant extensions simply asking him. Additionally, Prof. Safsten explained the fundamental contents of Calculus I thoroughly. He teaches the class following the assigned chapters in the textbook. You can find the schedule of chapters in the syllabus he provides. Since this was an H-course, there were some topics that the course skipped over, however, these topics were not covered in the Final, so no need to fret. All four midterms consisted of topics covered in class using the required textbook. He was a gracious grader; you can expect little points to be taken off if there were any algebraic errors leading to your final answer. In addition, you can challenge any grade you believe is unfair or miscalculated. The quizzes that Prof. Safsten would hand out were completely fair. They usually consist of two questions that require no more than 10 minutes. The quizzes usually cover the topics covered for that week. He automatically drops the lowest grade on one of these quizzes for your calculated grade. One thing that I was not a fan of throughout the course was the graded discussion sheets. Prof. Safsten does not grade these discussion sheets as he hands them off to a TA to be graded. I was not aware of who the TA was, but there were instances where the TA would remove up to 1 or 2 points out of a 10-point worksheet. You can probably ask him to regrade the worksheets. Excellent teacher. I highly recommend Prof. Safsten for students seeking out a generous teacher in the math department.
Clarke Safsten Anonymous 12/21/2023	Professor Safsten was an excellent calc 140 instructor who not only made the material easily digestible, but also incorporated real life applications and explanations. He also grades pretty forgiving and his tests are very reasonable.