Comput Math:intro-numercl Meth · Applied Physics And Applied Mathematics
8 Problem sets 1 Take-home midterm 1 Take-home final
I would say this course had a pretty standard workload for a master's level applied math class. There were 8 homeworks and 2 take-home exams (midterm and final). The homeworks had a mixture of easy and difficult questions, but with the help of available resources (classmates, TAs, and the professor) they were very manageable. I myself had a busy semester and couldn't start most of the homeworks until a couple days before the due date, and I never had any worries about the deadlines (if you have the time though definitely start earlier :)). For each of the exams, we had a few days to complete them before we turned them in. The midterm wasn't too hard, I finished it in an afternoon, the final, however, was very challenging; I spent essentially all of the alloted time for it. With that said, the median on both exams was quite high (I think they were both about 90). If you put the work in, you should be able to get an A or higher no problem. (Also, I encourage you all to answer questions on EdStem for this course as he mentioned that those who answer questions frequently will be given an edge in grading).
Expect this class to be BORING. Professor Ren is the sweetest professor in the Applied Math department, but he's not very engaging. Don't worry, you can learn almost all the material by reading the slides or the textbook, so his teaching style is not a huge inconvenience.
This course provides a great overview of numerical methods and Professor Mandli presents the material in a very instructive and constructive manner. He uses Jupyter Notebooks to present the notes which is very nice as the theory and related code/plots will be right by each other. With that being said, I don't think it's necessary to physically go to class. I know a few people who did great on all of the assignments and didn't physically go to class since the first week. To that point, the averages on both the homeworks and exams were high, but Mandli adjusts the grades only to the students' benefit (i.e. no deflation). I strongly advise those who are planning to take this class to form a study group to work on problem sets with, it will make your life so much easier. Also, use EdStem! Many people posted useful questions and answers on Ed and that really saved me in some cases.