APMA 2120

Any class in the APMA department is naturally going to be a grind. However, Hellings make the experience in multi ten times better. Chris is exactly what you want in a professor in almost every way possible. He is clearly interested in what he teaches and makes learning even the most boring topics enjoyable. His teaching style is very similar to Khan Academy. He is very nice and easy to approach and always keeps the class upbeat and lighthearted. He will help you with as much as he can during office hours and after class. Although it is a pretty rough class in the thick of it, by the end of the semester you'll be happy with the results if you have consistently put in effort and studying before the midterms and final. He seriously puts all the other APMA professors to shame. TAKE APMA 2120 WITH HELLINGS!

Definitely try to take the course with Prof. Hellings if you can. He teaches the concepts really well, without going too fast for people to keep up. However, to encourage attendance and note-taking, he doesn't post the recordings — you need to email him to get the recordings, and sometimes he doesn't respond until a few days after.

The instruction is partially in pre-class videos, which you watch and then complete a simple pre-class PDF worksheet. Then, in the lectures, Prof. Hellings teaches the rest of the material and gives you some time to complete the worksheets with other students and ask him questions. If you don't finish, you usually have until the next day to finish the worksheet.

The course doesn't require you to read the textbook, but you still have to buy the textbook + WebAssign (which is quite expensive; I think you can find access keys on eBay for cheaper but I didn't try that). There are two or three WebAssigns per week; although these aren't super difficult, don't leave them to the last minute.

The midterms are okay (if you study well for them, that is) and the final was pretty fair (not super hard).

Overall, it was a pretty good course under Prof. Hellings.

#tCFF23

A lot of people say you either find Calc 2 hard and Multivar easy or visa versa. I'm one of the people that had a harder time in Multivar. That said, I think professor Hellings is a big part of why I was still able to get a good grade in the class. I enjoyed his teaching style, and I found him to be very clear when explaining difficult concepts. He always asks if the class has questions, and is very understanding of any circumstances that may come up.
Homework is decent, what you would expect for an applied math course. There's always a worksheet due after each lecture, but he usually provides some class time to get it started. Additionally, you have up to three attempts on the worksheets, so you can get a 100% without issue.
I loved having professor Hellings. I definitely recommend him; try to take his course if you can.

#tCFF24

Professor Hellings is a genuinely nice person and pretty chill. His lectures are good and he goes into depth to make sure you understand where everything is coming from. I would recommend doing the practice tests!! A lot of similar questions show up on the exams.

One of the best teachers I've ever had. Very kind, explains concepts well, and always has an enthusiasm for teaching. Also very patient and willing to answer any question. The course load isn't too heavy, and the lectures are well-paced and well-written, with notes to fill in throughout the lecture. The flow is a little fast, with a few new concepts introduced every class, but everything is well explained, with solid examples, both visual and mathematical. Overall, a fantastic course, with a passionate and caring teacher.

Professor Hellings is one of the best teachers I have ever had. He is a really caring instructor that you can tell is passionate about what he does. Each class has a 20-minute pre-class assignment and an in-class worksheet, which can be resubmitted up to 3 times for full credit. Every week, there is an online homework (Webassign) that takes about 2ish hours to complete. The exams are fair and are not too difficult, as long as you prepare well with the extra practice he provides. I recommend redoing all worksheets, Webassigns, and in class examples to prepare for exams. Overall, Hellings is a great guy who makes a fast-paced class pretty manageable.

He is truly one of the best math teachers and professors I've ever had. He has made an overall difficult course into a good time. Please make sure to get a 100% on everything besides exams so there is room in your grade.

Professor Hellings is truly the saving grace of this entire class. I have never struggled more with a math class in my entire life, and still managed to pull out a high B even though I genuinely thought I was going to fail. And I don't mean this as an exaggeration. In all sincerity I thought I was going to have to retake the class. This class definitely requires a lot of going to office hours and working through problems with the professor or TAs. I would say the biggest struggle is how fast-paced it is, and tests will appear out of nowhere (not really - Hellings has a calendar, but timeline wise it feels like that). This class put me through so much pain this entire semester that I truly considered dropping it, only for me to literally end up doing fine. Take it with Hellings!!!

Professor Hellings is an excellent professor. There were a few standout qualities about his teaching style: Precise & concise (lectures are to the point, explained in layman's terms, short). He is also very patient, accommodating, and reasonable. Hellings always kept his composure, and delivered a clear and short lecture.

I rarely left the lecture unable to grasp the concept at hand, so long as I was roughly paying attention. The in-class notes do a good job pacing the content of the course, so one concept is not covered too in depth, and vice versa. Towards the latter units, though, where integration in higher dimensions is common, hard focus and some time spent outside of class is necessary.

All of the exams were straightforward, with a reasonable representation of the content that we had learned (with the exception of one, which covered an extensive amount of content, but not with unreasonable depth). Hellings makes sure that the class has ample time to complete the worksheet, and consistently postpones the deadline if he feels necessary.

The jump from calculus II to calculus III (content wise), is large. Taking this class, however, was surprisingly not too bad, and Hellings made it worth it.