MATH 3250

Braga was a very engaging professor. He's extremely intelligent (I mean as is every math professor) but also really down to earth. He's young and sort of quirky so lectures aren't a bore. He edited his online lectures heavily during Covid-19 (almost in a YouTube style format) so you get the sense he really does care about his work. That being said, the course was difficult. I think I heard the average on the first midterm was a 67 (though this could be wrong... I find it hard to believe it was this low but I know a few people who didn't do well on it.) He is very theory based and spend a lot of time in the abstract rather than doing actual problems. This is also how his exams are. I haven't received my final grade, but I just submitted my final and am likely to get between a B unless he curves the class (which I do not anticipate). You will learn a lot in this course (though he skipped over a chapter which I thought was odd). It is a very light workload though. There are no homeworks. He often gives suggestions of problems to do in the book, but they are usually just proofs to the theorems you learn. I was able to scrape by with a 92 on the first midterm by just rigorously going through everything the entire day before (don't necessarily suggest this, this is just how I study). Definitly take linear algebra before this though. I took this as a 2nd year the semester after I took linear and it was a huge help-- there are a lot of matrix topics/ applications and I could tell the first years in the class who have not taken linear were very confused. It's doable if you haven't taken linear but I don't know why you would choose to take this course first. Overall, if you need to take this course, Braga is a good option. My best advice is just to reallllly understand what's going on conceptually. If you don't the exams will kick your ass as only about half of the problems are "solving" differential equations. This was probably the hardest course I've taken here (the final was a killer...) but I don't really know if there are better options. Braga is such a nice guy though so sometimes it distracts from the difficulty of the course. If you have to take it, attend lecture and actually read the textbook for proofs behind the theorems (even if he doesn't go over them). However, it appears now that Braga is really of the strain of professor who believes a calss average should be a C/C+. I don't know anyone who got a A in this class. So while yes you learn a lot, you are likely to suffer GPA wise.

The class grade is based on 10% attendance for labs, 25% exam 1, 25% exam 2, and 40% final. Although there is no homework, you should be spending 3-5 hours a week doing questions in the book and reviewing notes. However, this will only do you so much good because of how difficult Braga makes the exams. The class average for the first exam was 64 and he didn't curve, nor did he curve the final grade (I don't know anyone who got better than a B+ for the course), that being said, I would not recommend taking the course with Braga. If you are even considering it, just know, he took points off for a student scratching out their work instead of erasing.

Overall speaking, Bruno was a pretty good instructor, and the grade can’t be bad with some amount of work put in. I freaked out when I first saw the courseforum last semester, but it turned out much much better than I had expected (apparently he now curves and give bonus points). There are no homework but Bruno gives practice problems, which are basically what the exams will be based on. The TA session quizzes were difficult at first, then after we talked about this with Bruno, he told TA to give more easier quizzes. Would recommend taking this class with Bruno.