MATH 1220

Wow. It's only been a week and a half, and I think this class has been one the worst experiences I've had at UVA thus far (academically speaking). Every single day he has had connection issues and various other problems because he uses some old iPad to teach the class. Obviously there's a problem if every single day there is lag on the screenshare and a bunch of pop-ups blocking the screen. All you have to do is get on a computer????? Literally half the class we just sit here as he tries to figure it out. I already know we are going to be incredibly crunched for time in the future. As for actual class material, his notes are pretty bad. Absolutely bare-bones with minimal information and sometimes even misinformation with incorrectly calculated solutions. Thankfully I have some background knowledge on the class or I'd be screwed. Don't take unless you want to just sit there for 4 hours learning material by yourself every day. I'll update the review once we've had the first exam... can't wait for that. I'm sure you all are familiar with webassign so I dont even need to go into how bad that is. As for the homeworks he makes up, they make no sense. I sat down with 3 of my classmates and all 4 of us thought the problems made no sense. They were poorly worded and overly difficult with at least half of the problems almost unrelated to what we did during class time. Also makes you go in blind to every single quiz and test. No reviews, no study sheets, no anything. At this point I might as well have taken regular calc 2. There seems to be no difference.

Mark is alright. He is knowledgeable but tends to try to explain things in an esoteric, fundamental way rather than employing simpler methods. He tries to make you understand the fundamental principles of the study of mathematics instead of telling you "the value doubles," or things of the such. Very helpful in office hours; math department makes the exams pretty tough.

Exams are as hard as possible, with an average of 77 and no curve. There are 3 exams with the goal of tricking you and making you do poorly. The math department doesn't care about you learning. They just throw random formulas at you and then you just use them on exams. You won't get anything out of this class so only take it if you have to for your major.
Mark was alright though. He messes up a lot in class but never in a way to affect how well you can learn. He also has corny jokes that make him better than other grad students. Plus he's helpful if you visit him in office hours.