MATH 2310

This class taught by Mr. Urasltsev is challenging. In the Fall, the grade breakdown was 50% problem sets, 35% open-book/notes tests, (Written Midterm 10%, Oral Midterm 10%, Final 15%), 15% misc (presentations, test reviews). The homework is often guided by example videos and take around 5 hrs/week: not too bad. The presentations are similar in difficulty and are often explained in office hours, which you should attend. The real challenge are the tests which are much more conceptual and have a low relative average (good curves, final averaged a 51%). Solid preparation with the textbook for several hours for a couple days did the trick. Understanding how to run through integrals without understanding the 3D geometry is what will do you in. Focus less on the arithmetic, more on what is happening with vectors and space. Biased review as I got an A+, but there were a couple A, A-, and a good number of B+ I think.

This class was a lot of work and very challenging. Two lectures a week + a discussion section that was sometimes group work, sometimes more lecture, and sometimes rather pointless. Weekly WebAssign homework (online textbook problems graded on competition) and Gradescope homework (free responses questions graded on accuracy). The WebAssign was time consuming but you had unlimited attempts. I'm not sure how you were supposed to do the Gradescope without going to office hours. Two timed, in-person midterms, one timed, take-home final. All were open-note but closed-internet. We also did three recorded group presentations which were kinda a pain to do but were graded on completion. Gennady clearly cares about his students and wants them to succeed, but doesn't hold back when it comes to assigned lots of difficult work. Some of his lectures were good, some you had no clue what was going on. TA Jun had potential but was often way underprepared when it came to answering homework questions. On the other hand, TA David was great and if anything over-explained answers. In the end, Gennady's grading scale was pretty generous -- the median grade was an 88.

Do not take this class unless you absolutely need to for your major/minor. I am writing this to save anyone thinking of taking it just cause.

Gennady is a very nice guy. However, this class has been the hardest and most stressful part of my week for the entire semester. As you might have noticed, I have not completed the class, and he curves grades at the end so I cannot say anything about my grade or the curve, but I can tell you about my experience in class.

The lectures are okay. I don't know anyone in my class so maybe that'd make it better. Gennady is definitely passionate about his work, but he's all over the place. It's very hard to follow along when you are taking notes, particularly on paper. Sometimes you'll understand, blink twice, and then he seems to be talking about something completely different, so you scramble to catch up, get confused, and then you find out it was a proof that you'll never see or use again in your life.

Grades are comprised of 50% HW, 35% on midterms and finals, and 15% on other such as presentations.

Midterms are okay ( the average on the first was 73% ), and I am yet to see how he grades presentations.

But the homework...
Every week there is a WebAssign and written homework due on Tuesday. The WebAssign is definitely doable although it may take a lot of time and effort, but, you will finish it. The written homework is where the difficulty in this class is. The written homework is impossible, he takes easy concepts and makes them as difficult as humanely possible by making sure you have to use the most obscure formulas that you learned about for one day in middle school in order to solve them. I had a personal, professional tutor for this class, and they ended up quitting because it was too hard! You have to go to office hours to get the homework done, and what's the point of that? To just be given the answers? I mean ill take them but homework should not be hard enough that you don't even put it an effort.

In summary, don't even think about taking this class unless you have to. And if you do, good luck.

Prof Ultrasev is an incredibly smart teacher who knows a LOT and loves teaching. He makes the classes enjoyable (despite the topics not always being the most interesting), but as a student who generally likes math it was something I looked forward to. Don't get it wrong, the class is HARD. In fact, despite being a CS major i spent more time on this class than my cs class. The class is mostly hard because of the homeworks. Homework is broken down into webassigns and written homeworks. Webassigns are just guaranteed 100%'s, as you get infinite tries on the questions. The hard part comes with the written homeworks. They're quite hard and require a lot of deep understanding and complex thought to complete, and i can almost guarantee you that you won't be able to finish one completely without going to office hours. that being said, GO TO OFFICE HOURS. Ultimately, the reason i succeeded in the class was because i went to Gennady's office hours and the TA's office hours. This class is definitely a more-you-put-in-the-better-you-do-esque class - at a certain point, the more time you put in i think it almost directly correlates to your performance.
On another note, Gennady is amazing and is incredibly hardworking. He's almost singlehandedly responding to all questions on Piazza and goes above and beyond to ensure that students are learning. He offers tons of resources, and the grading is generally leanient, as he drops something like 2 of the worst webassigns and written homeworks, and generally curves the exams. I'd recommend taking this class if you're interested in math, need to get this as a pre-req, or are looking to stretch your scope in math a little and be challenged while doing so.