APMA 3080

TLDR: The course was overall a little challenging. Your grade in the class is heavily dependent on exams and the content can get difficult. However, Professor Chen does a great job of ensuring that all his students learn the material.

My review of this course will consist of discussing two different parts: the course and the professor. First, the course may seem easy or simple in the first few chapters but quickly becomes difficult. There are three lectures every week and there is a worksheet (a page of problems front and back) due by each class; this totals up to three worksheets every week. On top of that, there are weekly WebWorks and occasional Matlab projects. Thus, it can get overwhelming for some students to keep up with the course. Grading is broken down into the following: 10% for worksheets (which I believe should be more since there are so many worksheets throughout the semester), 10% for WebWork, 12% for Matlab projects, 2% for QuestionPress, 33% total for midterms, and 33% for the final exam. As you can see, your grade in this course is heavily dependent on how you do on exams. Consequently, this course can be difficult for some students. However, I believe that if you are majoring in anything engineering or math-related, this course is very important and contains essential topics. Some of it is actually interesting!

Moving onto my review of the professor I had when taking this course: Heze Chen. He is without a doubt the best professor I have had during my time here at UVA. First, he is very friendly and caring. He truly wants the best for his students and will do whatever to make sure they’re succeeding. Furthermore, he will accommodate any struggles students are going through. There have been a couple times where I’ve gotten into an emergency and he was understanding of my situation. Second, he has incredible response times to messages and emails. One of my biggest peeves as a student is contacting my professor and either not ever hearing back or waiting weeks to hear back. Every single time I emailed Professor Chen, which is often, or wrote a Piazza post, I would hear back within a day; frequently it was within 3 hours. Lastly, he understands the material very well. Whenever I attended office hours or asked a question in class, he would be able to answer it eloquently and in a way that would help me understand it.

Overall, while this class can be difficult, Professor Chen does a great job of ensuring that you succeed in it. Also, it is important to note that this is the second time I have taken an APMA class with Professor Chen. He is consistently a great professor.

#tCFS24

Professor Chen is a great professor and is a very effective teacher that cares about his students. Professor Chen's lectures were easy to follow and he uses an iPad to write. He makes very confusing concepts easy to understand, and he was helpful in his office hours. The grade was broken into different components: worksheet (10%), QuestionPress (2%), Webwork (10%), projects (12%), two midterms (33%), and a final exam (33%).

The worksheet can be done very easily, and you are permitted to work with other students on it. There was a worksheet assigned every class (front and back), and it was due the night before class, so it is important you don't forget about it and knock it out early. The QuestionPress was in-class questions that ask you about the material, and it's essentially used as an attendance check, but accuracy on these also matter as it determines whether you get 1% or 2% of your grade from it.

There was a Webwork assigned weekly. These are typically more difficult than the worksheets, but they are a good way to reinforce your understanding of the material. These could often be difficult to complete without a calculator (or MATLAB), and I recommend working on them sooner.

The projects were done on MATLAB, and these were supplemental linear algebra topics (e.g. Markov chains, SVD, PCA) that built on things you learn in lectures. These are assigned every few weeks or so, and can vary in difficulty, so I suggest working on them sooner.

There were two midterms that were each worth 16.5% of your grade and a final exam. The first midterm tested your knowledge on the first few chapters learned in the course. The second midterm was not cumulative and tested your knowledge on the next few chapters. The final exam was cumulative that tested your knowledge of everything you learned.

There can be a lot of work thrown you in a week (from worksheets to webworks and projects), so I highly suggest working on everything as soon as possible, and find people who you can work with as it will make your experience in this class way better. Professor Chen does his best to help students, and there were a lot of opportunities for extra credit, so take advantage of that. #tCFS24

I really liked this class! Prof Chen is a good prof who genuinely cares about his students.

Lectures: the lectures are fine. There's a pre-class reading component, but you can get away with not doing the readings. Since the lectures are just the prof writing notes on an iPad, the pacing of the lecture is pretty good. All lecture notes are posted to Canvas, which I appreciated a lot.

Content: there's a coding component and a traditional linear algebra component to the course. There are almost no proofs in this course. I've heard that APMA linear is significantly easier than MATH linear, but if you genuinely want to learn in-depth linear algebra, highly recommend taking it with MATH. APMA linear is more focused on the applications of linear algebra, so it's more computational (ie plug and chugging).

Go to office hours if you're struggling! Linear algebra can be difficult, but going to office hours really helped me understand the content. #tCFS24