Victor Yakovenko

This professor has taught: PHYS270, PHYS313, PHYS402, PHYS411, PHYS412, PHYS413, PHYS601, PHYS613, PHYS622, PHYS623, PHYS625, PHYS626

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Victor Yakovenko PHYS313 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2024	Pros: -Yakovenko is usually chill; there is no participation grade, so he doesn't care if you show up to class or not. Additionally, you can submit assignments after the due date, as long as the TA hasn't tried to grade your assignment (I don't know what succeeds if that happens; just submit them on time and you'll be fine anyway). The TA usually took a few days to grade my assignments, so there was a nice amount of leeway. However, this may not be the case with your TA. -Decent at teaching; his explanations are pretty good, though they do follow the textbook (Griffith's Introduction to Electrodynamics, 5th edition for this semester) very closely, so that's kind of expected (though it's also a good thing). However, if you don't go to class, the notes he uploads can be hard to follow (he doesn't upload recordings or anything, just the notes). -He goes over many of the homework problems in class before they are due, so that makes them easier to complete and understand. It's not uncommon for him to give a full solution. -He even gives the number of questions on each exam, the point values, and what each question will be about, before each exam. He will sometimes even explain the situation for one of the problems without giving away the questions themselves. This is incredibly informative; you can literally predict all parts of a question sometimes, and then just copy and paste your answer for the exam if the questions are what you predicted. -There are a good amount of HW problems that are just problems from the textbook, so if you get stuck, you can just find the solution manual online. -The exams are completely open-everything. I don't think you can talk to other people, but you can use the textbook, phones, laptops, calculators (though those won't help you), so you could probably text people if you wanted. -You can submit exams either on paper or online. -Exam problems contain useful hints, and are similar in nature (i.e. type of question) to the HWs. -The 1st and 3rd exams were very fair. Cons: -There were a couple rare instances where people were quietly talking (not loud enough to cause any sort of disruption at all; not sure how he even noticed), and he unreasonably got quite annoyed/mad at that. -He's very strict about grade cutoffs. If you're even .01 below an A, he probably wouldn't give it to you. -The 2nd exam was unreasonable, in my opinion. There were only 2 questions as opposed to 3 on the 1st and 3rd exams, but both questions were long, and the exam overall ended up being longer (given the time) than the other 2 exams. Additionally, for the 1st problem, he made us apply Fourier's Trick (which you can find in the textbook, chapter 3 I think) for a case that, as far as I know, was never gone over in the textbook or any of the HWs, which is when the charge density is a discontinuous piecewise function, i.e. it isn't always proportional to the same Legendre polynomials. -The grading can sometimes be unfair; that depends on the TA for the most part, but Yakovenko did grade the final exam and I've heard he did grade some things unfairly. I haven't personally experienced that with Yakovenko though, just the TA. Additional course info/advice: -Grade is 50% HW, 50% exams (of which there are 3). -For this semester, grade cutoffs were: A+ >= 94% A >= 90% and < 94% A- >= 87% and < 90% B+ >= 84% and < 87% B >= 79% and < 84% B- >= 75% and < 79% C + >= 71% and < 75% C >= 65% and < 71% C- >= 60% and < 65% D+ >= 50% and < 60% D >= 40% and < 50% D- >= 30% and < 40% F < 30% I found these reasonable, given the ease of the 1st and 3rd exams and HWs being 50% of the grade. -At the very beginning of the semester someone asked if he curved. He responded by saying he always gets asked this question, but no one gives him a definition of what a curve is. He then explained that at the end of the semester, there will be an "adjustment", which I can reasonably assume is just determining grade cutoffs, especially since he announced the cutoffs after grading the final exam. So, it's likely that there is a curve. -I'd recommend going to lecture to gain more info on HW and exam problems than what he writes on his notes. -Reading the textbook is really useful because the class closely follows the textbook. -Make sure you completely understand how Fourier's Trick works, so that you can apply it properly in any case. -Since the point values of the exam questions are given beforehand, use that knowledge to estimate how much time you should use on each question. -This course is basically a calc 3 version of PHYS272. If you're really good at both, you'll be solid for this course. However the first part of the class involved the Levi-Civita symbol and Kronecker Delta, which were useful tools to know, but things you probably haven't encountered before.
Victor Yakovenko PHYS313 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2024	Professor Yakovenko is great with some very good class polices. Homework and exams are both worth 50% of our grade, which is a stellar policy that more professors need to implement. Also, the final wasn't cumulative, which is also fabulous and makes it so much easier to study. For the most part, his exams were fair. This course was inherently difficult, so he would often describe to us the exam questions beforehand (not the question itself, but the scenario). Like, he would tell us that a question has a solenoid in it, but he won't necessarily tell us he's asking for magnetic field. Lectures were overall good, but there was a lot of content, and it wasn't super easy to follow. I don't think he did a superb job connecting what we learned to things on a broader scale, so I'm not sure how well I could apply the mathematical techniques we learned. Still, though, I'm happy I get to have him again for PHYS413! The textbook for this class (Griffiths) is also great!
Victor Yakovenko PHYS313 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/04/2024	Pros: -I liked Griffiths as the textbook choice; it's standard, but it's good -Lectures were pretty easy to follow and I felt like I got a lot out of attending them -Homework questions would be gone over in low detail in class well before the homework was due to give students hints on various parts -The exams were reasonable and open-everything -I liked the grading split: 50% for homeworks, 50% for 3 exams (final was not cumulative) Cons: -If you missed lecture, the posted lecture notes could be hard to parse; the textbook made up for this issue though I would recommend Dr. Yakovenko for PHYS313 in the future.
Victor Yakovenko Anonymous 10/27/2012	a instantly likeable professor
Victor Yakovenko PHYS404 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/22/2010	Well, his grading scheme is very fair and emphasizes homework above all: 50% homework and 50% exams (only one midterm and one final). He is indeed a brilliant and energetic lecturer; many people choose to skip lectures, but I feel they definitely enhanced the readings in the textbook. His choice of textbook was excellent (Thermal Physics, by Schroeder). This book was a joy to read, and I learned alot from it as well as from Yakovenko. I really thought I would fail this course, as my grades were poor. I still passed, mainly with my high homework average. Be wary on the exams; while the homeworks emphasize deriving abstract results for strange thermodynamic systems, the exams were seemed much more plug-n-chug oriented. Sometimes his lectures may get convoluted and messy, and he'll drop constants all the time. Nontheless, Yakovenko drives the point home well. The homeworks can be painful, however, and they virtually killed my weekends this semester. They really require you to think hard, but the instructions give many hints they help serve as a guide to the problems. Overall, great professor, despite my lower grade.
Victor Yakovenko PHYS404 Anonymous 11/09/2010	He's a likable guy and classes were interesting. The one complaint I have is he doesn't write his notes in an organized fashion, which made it really hard for me to look back at my notes and know what was going on.
Victor Yakovenko PHYS402 Anonymous 05/30/2010	Yakovenko is one of the better professors in the physics department, probably the second best physics prof. I have had after Hall. He lectures directly from the book, but I think his lectures are informative and helpful even though many people decided to skip them. His grading scheme is also very unique: 50% homework and 50% tests, and there are two tests, each counting 25%. He does assign a lot of homework though, and it is difficult, although the problems are not his own but are from the book. He sometimes makes up additional parts to questions which are pretty straightforward. Tests were impossible, however. I think the averages were below 50%. The curve at the end of the semester was something like above 70% weighted homework and tests was an A. I would recommend taking a class with Yakovenko, because he is one of the better lecturers in the department and the grading scheme really rewards those who work hard on their homework. You end up learning a lot in the class.
Victor Yakovenko PHYS402 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/29/2010	Yakovenko is a instantly likeable professor. He's funny, smart, and he's definitely effective at communicating the material. He has a habit of dropping constants in equations, which is okay, but you will need to include them in the homework or lose points. Of course, the first couple of times he does it, he re-introduces them at the end, so you kind of learn to do it yourself. He adapted the course structure to the students' incoming knowledge very well, he answered any questions directly (though he sometimes missed the point of a question), and he rapidly responded to any questions you might email him. I personally had an incident where I was sick and emailed him asking if I could scan my homework and email to him. He said I could and said he would give it to the TA. The next week, it turned out that the TA never got my homework, and Yakovenko said that he was not a conduit to the TA and that he hadn't agreed to give the TA my homework, that I would have to go directly to the TA. I double checked the email, and I wasn't making up our conversation, so I was a little peeved. I gave the homework to the TA and it didn't get marked down for lateness though, so from a practical standpoint there wasn't really a problem. In the end, I am looking forward to having Yakovenko as a professor again in PHYS404, which I guess says more than the rest of this review.