MATH 3354

Frederik "Lennart" Meier is the man! He gives very organized lectures and explain the topics well. The course material is basic number theory and introduction to group theory and ring theory. The HW is usually 5 questions which aren't too difficult if you've had exposure to math proofs before. His exams are also pretty straightforward if you pay attention to the homework. He has 5 minute quizzes that are a little tricky but pretty insignificant grade-wise. Also the textbook is a nice resource, and a PDF copy may be found easily online. To conclude, Meier has a very nice accent and this is a worthwhile class if you like math.

I would recommend against taking this course unless you are required to. Meier was a nice guy but not a very efficient teacher; he spent all of class writing down theorems and proving them, which was pointless as we weren't required to know any of the proofs that he gave. He rarely if ever explained how to apply the theorems to do problems, which made the homework far more difficult than it had to be. That being said, the homework was by far the best preparation for the test as it was through the homework that you learned how to do applied problems as well as how to work out your own proofs. However, it took forever and was usually very hard. Going to office hours definitely helped but I usually couldn't make them because of timing conflicts. In addition to two midterms, a final, and homework, there were weekly quizzes. The true and false portions of these quizzes were pretty tricky and I usually did poorly, but it didn't affect my grade in the end. Overall, getting a good grade in the course was hard but doable. However, it required a lot of time on homework and making sure you understood the content despite the hard-to-follow book and lectures. In the end, I feel as if I learned a lot as far as how to write proofs, but I disliked every minute of it.