APMA 3080

my goat, she is so chill and gives out extra credit in class. exams are not that difficult and also gives pts back for things. very kind and generous. about the course overall: not as much work as other apma courses but still a good amount of worksheets. matlab projects are annoying though but doable.

Linear algebra is a great resource for nearly all engineering types! The actual course content is easier to compute, and some subjects are easier to understand than others. While the computations can be tedious at times, they are definitely doable in most cases.

The course is set up like so: you are given a worksheet and set of notes every class. You are expected to fill out the notes and complete the worksheet by the beginning of the next class. Every week you would have an additional homework set, and every 2 weeks you would have a programming project to do (which isn't that hard once you get further into the course).

Now, as for the professor, I would reccomend with taking it with someone else if possible, but if she is the best option then go for it. Her positives is that she has a LOT of bonus opportunities, as long as you stay engaged with the course material, and she also appreciates feedback and likes to keep her students engaged.

Now for the negatives. First, I often found her to be rude when asking for help understanding the course content and completing assignments. There were times when I would be stuck on the projects and she would get frustrated and irritated with me and we'd end up getting nowhere. Also, her exams all contain multiple choice questions that ask about the most miniscule, abstract details, and there may be 1 or 2 correct answers, which is actually WAY harder than an average free-response exam. Finally, she can get a bit preachy about a student's learning process, which can make some students feel pretty bad about themselves, but overall it takes away from the time for the lecture.

Overall, while the class shouldn't have been difficult, she found a way to make it more difficult than it had to be. For those earlier reviews that said this class was a "bag of tricks" kind of class, they are 100% right. Also, I will note that the TA's were really helpful in completing the assignments and helping us further understand various topics, and they were actually nice and patient about it, so please visit them to your advantage.

Prof Li is amazing. You can tell she really is passionate about teaching from her lectures. She is always checking in mid lecture to ensure everyone is on the same page and strongly encourages student participation during lecture (you can get extra credit). The exams get more difficult as the class progresses but I have found this course one of my easier ones I've taken here. If you utilize the resources she provides the exams will not surprise you. That was my best way of preparing for this course. I personally never attended instructor OH but I've found TA hours very helpful. Some find the matlab projects annoying but they really aren't bad. I'd say each one takes you max two hours total and you have a few weeks to do them. It may seem irrelevant but they include that in the curriculum so the more difficult application based questions do not appear on the exams. TLDR; prof li is great I highly recommend you take the class with her