APMA 3120

Pros:
1. Fernando was a great lecturer. I would typically learn material in class and then apply it in the homeworks, so I would recommend going to class. She uses the chalk board and writes very quickly. Once she fills up the entire white board, she starts erasing things to free up space as necessary. So if you go to class and want to learn, you MUST follow along and be engaged or you're sure to miss things. Based on watching some of Lark's recorded lectures and him guest lecturing our class once, I can say that I very much preferred Fernando as a lecturer. I feel like she is more enthusiastic and the class environment was always more open for questions/discussion.
2. She's very open to questions and does a great job handling them. I believe she also teaches calc 1 or something, so she's very good with bringing people back up to speed from the basics whenever necessary.
3. The exams were quite reasonable in difficulty.

Cons:
1. The entire course is Prof. Lark's. He created it himself and has taught it for the past decade or so (if my memory serves me). I believe the tests were also crafted by Lark, so often times Fernando would do her best to hint at what she thought might show up on the tests, but you could tell she didn't know for sure.
2. Fernando just kind of threw everything into one massive files folder in canvas, so finding specific things was a bit of a pain at times.
3. Homeworks were oddly difficult at times. Also, they are due at 5pm on either Tues. or Thurs. I think I ended up with a roughly 90% avg on the 7 hws we had. I don't remember the policy on working with others because I worked on my own for almost all of them, but it would definitely help to check with others. They are very fair with grading. Most would consider them harsh, but I view it more as strict/adherent to the rules they laid out. They don't just go handing out partial credit bc they feel bad like some other graders might.
4. Midterm is worth 20%, final 30%. Helps some, hurts others. I botched the midterm, but it was deserved. You aren't given any formulas on the test nor a cheat sheet... and there are quite a few formulas, so be prepare to memorize things.
5. Lectures are not recorded. There is enough content on canvas to get by, but I found it to take longer learning wise.
6. Grades come back rather slowly.

I had already taken Probability a year prior so some things were somewhat similar/familiar, but there wasn't too much crossover. You could definitely take this class without having taken Prob.

#tcFF24