APMA 2130

Not a bad class if you KEEP UP WITH THE WORK. Everything builds on the previous chapters. Johnson does a good job of teaching and is very enthusiastic and funny however, so if you have to take this class i would reccommend johnson

Professor Johnson really wished to see everyone succeed in the course and he was trying his best to accomodate everyone's needs. Although sometimes a bit disorganized, he was a great teacher overall and was always available for his students.
Although the course got difficult at times by taking some time outside of class to solve some example problems I was able to get through the material.
WebWork problems along with the weekly quizzes were really helpful in forcing me to stay on track in the course. There were a total of 13 WW assignments and 10 quizzes throughout the semester.
If you want to do well in exams make sure you are not solving the hw problems on Wolfram Alpha and force yourself to do them. They make you understand how everything works and makes the lectures much easier to understand. Go through old exams and solve them without looking at the keys.
Definitely go to office hours and talk to Space Bob. He's awesome and I'm so happy I got to know him this semester. Would definitely recommend this course with him!

This is hands down the best math course at UVA. In general, APMA courses are equivalent to the amalgamation of traffic accidents and appendicitis. However, with Johnson, prepare to have a very straightforward and fair experience. Differential Equations was a difficult course for me in the beginning, but soon you realize that Johnson's quizzes are EXACTLY like his lectures, and his lectures tend to dumb everything down significantly for easier understanding. His exams are JUST LIKE the quizzes, which are JUST LIKE the lectures, so if you review his powerpoint slides you can and will get a great grade. The final was a breeze thanks to Johnson, but he also made the overall experience of differential equations (AKA what could've been a course that makes one feel like tiger dung) very enjoyable.

This class is undoubtedly one of the best math courses at the University. Professor Johnson, or as his students like to call him "Space Bob", is an excellent professor who takes his time and genuinely cares about each and every one of his students. As far as I know, he is the only professor who posts lecture slides, which are extremely helpful when working on homework and studying for exams. In terms of workload, this class is decent, with WebWork assignments due every week, and a quiz every week as well. Exams were every month, but once again with adequate preparation, it is not hard to do well. The average on the first exam was 80, second was 90, and third was 88. The final is 30% of this course, which can make or break your grade at the end. In terms of content, if you have a solid foundation in derivation and integration, you should be fine. The only tricky part of this course for most was Laplace transforms, which are confusing but once again Professor Johnson explains them very well in class and in his office hours. If this is a class you must take, Professor Johnson is definitely the man.

Professor Johnson, aka Spacebob, is one of my favorite Professors at UVA. I came into Diff Eq worried what this class had in store as it was known to be a difficult APMA course. After a few classes with Professor Johnson, he made this class very enjoyable to the point that it was my favorite class I was taking this past semester. He posts the lectures, which are very useful for looking over concepts and worked out problems. There are also weekly WWs and quizzes which are not difficult, but you must keep up with them to understand the material, particularly in the latter half of the course. I recommend doing the WW in groups because you can learn from each other on concepts you are rusty on and finish the WWs quicker (through personal experience). One thing Professor Johnson does I noticed compared to other professors, is he addresses potential issues students may have in the WW problems/concepts while reviewing for exams and clarifies them through emails, which really helped me and a bunch of students a lot. Once again, those emails come as a result of going to office hours, which I highly recommend going to any time you have a doubt. He's beyond willing to work around with your schedule as well if you cannot go to office hours. As for tests, they are not super theoretical or anything but simply test if you can solve differential equations. And he gives you an 1 hour 30 min - 1 hour 45 min on each of them. By redoing the WWs, doing optional textbook problems, and using resources in addition to bob's from the APMA 2130 all site, I ended up doing really well on the midterms and even the final. So you will succeed if you put the effort in. Definitely take this course with Johnson not only because of his ability to teach differential equations, but because he's a hilarious guy and if you get to know him well enough, will call you out (happened to me a lot) and makes a difficult subject engaging and doable!

Great professor. Grade comes so you don't have to worry about it. Class is engaging and you really learn the material. Class with space bob isn't really difficult

I LOVE SPACE BOB! HE is very funny and will make fun of you for yawning but it's all part of his personality. We stan

I realize that this review will be somewhat subjective, but I really didn't like this class. I took this course spring semester of my first year immediately after taking calculus 3 and thought it was quite difficult in a much different way than calculus 3 was difficult, due to the over-reliance on algorithmic thinking, rather than visualization. Despite my unfamiliarity with the course material, I feel like I would have learned it more thoroughly if I had a different professor. Space Bob, as he is known by, came across as a little sporadic and had the habit of striking his stick against the front desk of the lecture hall. This, coupled with his quiet voice and his disorganized lecture slides, was successful in distracting me to the point of frustration, leading me to take notes off of Prof. Fulgham's slides outside of class in order to truly "get it". Although his quizzes and tests were relatively straightforward, the final (written by Julia Spencer I believe) was a lot harder and more theoretical. My grade tanked at the end because I performed so poorly on that thing. If I were to take this class again, I would take complex variables and linear algebra first, because this class draws fundamental concepts from both classes, including complex roots and eigenvalues.

Great prof. Funny and engaging and the only things he brings to class is a NASA coffee mug and a long stick.

Space Bob is the best professor that I have had at UVA, and I won't be surprised if I continue to say this until I graduate. He is excellent at communicating the material clearly in class. His powerpoints (he always publishes them on Collab) are sometimes convoluted, but if you go to class you will definitely understand him/them. This seems to be his way of making class attendance mandatory. He is also really lowkey funny so I always found myself paying attention in this class. This reflected in the test grades--we averaged close to a 90 on every single test, even the ones that he told us to study extra hard for. The homework required a good amount of time, but the automatic feedback from Webwork is extremely helpful, so I always felt like the homework contributed to my knowledge of the material. That was pretty much the only amount of required work you had to do for the class. Studying for weekly quizzes usually required about an hour of studying as well. Due to everyone having decent grades, he did not curve at all but I'm sure most people didn't need it. 10/10 would recommend.
P.S.: He also picked a great TA!! She was extremely helpful and actually ran the discussions (which always included a quiz so you wouldn't be tempted to skip). She was always open to being emailed with questions.
P.P.S.: This class cost me $0 (besides tuition obviously)! Webwork is free and there was no required textbook! Free classes are always a plus in my book.