Professor Coupek is an effective lecturer with a true desire and ability to bring understanding to his students. We covered the basics of set theory and proofs, modular arithmetic, group theory, and ring theory. Instead of buying a textbook, read Professor Coupek's lecture notes on Canvas. They are extremely helpful.

The homework was mostly straightforward, with maybe an average of one challenging problem per week. The challenging problems were always fun to think about and rewarding to solve. No late homework was accepted whatsoever, but the lowest homework was dropped to account for this. There was also an extra credit homework worth 2.5% of the final course grade, which is quite generous.

The exams were at the level of some of the easier homework problems, and were very completable within the given time. Professor Coupek posted many practice problems before each exam, many of which were more difficult than the exam questions themselves. This really helped in solidifying my understanding of the concepts going into each exam.

Professor Coupek was also very helpful during office hours. In this class you may often come up with an idiosyncratic solution, and then in office hours find out there was an easy way to do it.

Overall, I highly recommend taking Survey of Algebra with Professor Coupek if you get the chance.