APA M1601

Assignments every week or two that are "recommended" - take about 30 min to 1.5 hrs 4 Graded Projects: he lays out pretty clearly an example of what you should do which is pretty easy to just follow. If you are interested, he encourages you to do some investigation of the topics on your own instead. - projects take 4 hrs ++ depending on how much you do / if you get stuck with debugging your code forever

The previous reviews pretty much sum up this class. Though it is probably one of the hardest preprofessional courses, Professor Mauel makes this class awesome! He is one of the most enthusiastic professors I have had and his enthusiasm made this a 9 am class that I didn't miss once (as well as my favorite class so far at Columbia). I took this class my spring semester after taking W1004 with Cannon. With this as my only prior programming experience, I found I was more than prepared for adapting to the new language (Mathematica) for this class. If you have no programming experience at all, this might make the beginning somewhat frustrating, as he does move rather quickly through the basics of the language. I loved this class; it made my semester. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has any experience with programing and is interested in physics, comp sci, or math, or to someone without programming experience prepared to learn quickly and put in time on your own (preferably before class starts) learning.

Fairly light. Optional homeworks. The only grades come from the projects that are due once ever 3-4 weeks.

You should not take this course unless you are REALLY into physics or math. The topics we covered this semester were Kepler's Laws of Motion, Randomness, Data Compression via Fourier Transforms, and Quantum Mechanics. If none of this sounds remotely interesting to you, this course is not for you and will be a 3-hour weekly waste of your time. You also should not take this course if you have had no programming experience. Mauel hardly goes over the basics of Mathematica, and introduces new constructs and functions with only a passing statement. If you really want to know what your code is saying or want to create really cool/intricate projects, you will have to spend some time learning Mathematica code by yourself, which will be a bigger challenge if you haven't taken AP Comp Sci or COMS 1007. Having said that, if you are interested in these topics and understand (fairly) simple programming concepts such as loops, arrays, and modules, this course will be worthwhile. Mauel is a fantastic and very enthusiastic professor. I don't think I've ever had a teacher as enthusiastic about his/her subject as Mauel is. It's also stunning just how knowledgeable he is in such a wide range of topics. He is also incredibly helpful on a one-on-one level, so do yourself a favor and take advantage of this: talk to him after class, email him, and schedule office hour visits. However, he does tend t…

Moderate: 1-3 hours for a homework assignment Workload can increase substantially if you complete original projects.

This class became my favorite of the semester in no small part due to Prof. Mauel. He is an excellent teacher. I had not seen that level of enthusiasm in a teacher before. Sometimes he'll even exclame: "Isn't that cool?!" I sincerely hope that I can take another course of his before I graduate. I had no real programming experience before this class. I had worked a little with computer algebra systems before, but not extensively. This course gives a broad introduction to the world of computational science. It makes use of Mathematica, which is installed in all the computer labs. The topics vary from year to year, but expect to see some of the following: * Orbital dynamics * Chaos theory * Fractals * Digital signal processing, e.g. image/audio compression, filtering * Protein folding * Quantum mechanics Every week, Mauel gives an assignment that incorporates much of what was discussed in the last class. All the files are available for reference and often all that is necessary to complete the assignment is to copy and paste the code from the class notebook into the homework notebook and modify the code a little. You don't need to be a programmer: just pay attention in class and don't be afraid to ask Mauel for help. He is extremely helpful and understanding. Mathematica has detailed help built-in for every function. Information can be looked up very quickly. In addition to homewo…

Weekly assignments in between four projects. Everything is done outside of class, but Mauel generally goes over the basic concepts that you need just before assigning them. With any of the work (including the final), either Mauel or the TA would help you out if you only email your program to them. The projects each involve a topic but you can go anywhere you want with them.

Mauel is amazing. I took the class having no experience in Mathematica (which is the only program he uses) and was really very afraid after the first couple of classes. A lot of people drop out, but if you do the work (and Mauel is kind enough to read through all of your code for errors if you're stuggling) you will soon get over the computational barrier and learn a lot about the concepts. It seems to definitely be one of the harder pre-professional classes but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Mauel is so energetic in class that it's obvious he really likes this stuff, and he's so willing to help you out. The TA was also extremely helpful. Although you do sometimes get caught up on trying to figure out syntax, it really it not difficult programming in the sense that you have all the code from lecture, so it's mostly copy and paste. Take this class and you will begin to love Mauel and the subject.

Weekly exercise that takes you at most 2 hours a week, and 4 projects. Depending on how devoted you're into the course materials, and also your programming skills, each project can take you 2- 10 hours.

This course serves its purpose as a pre-professional course: it tells you the truth that Coumbia's applied math curriculum is all about physics. The course covers 4 physics topics: astrophysics, statistical physics, Fourier transformation applied on physics problems and quantum mechanics. If you're a physics guru, this class is certainly for you. Otherwise, you should really consider taking another pre-professional course. Anyway, Professor Mauel is the most enthusiastic and friendly teacher I've seen in Columbia. One can easily tell that he's genuinely interested in what he's lecturing: will you jump and exclaim in delight when you talk about Kepler's laws? I won't, you probably will not, but Professor Mauel will. He's also friendly and he doesn't mind giving you personal, step by step tutorials on how to complete your assignments. You can e-mail him your mathematica programming codes, (Oh, this class is all about mathematica and programming, if you don't know C++/ Java, you'll be in a great disadvantage) tell him your problem, and he'll tell you his suggested programming codes usually within 24 hours. Also, he's willing to sit next to you in front of the computer, teaching you how to solve the problems. What else can you ask from a professor?