APP H3100

Weekly PSETs that were longer than the Mississippi River. (Generally had some reasonable questions from Griffiths) 10+ hrs (9 with a Google master) Midterm that was super fair, reasonable, and could be done within time Final that ... we won't know. We never got it back. But we all thought it was fair?

Weekly problem sets, one midterm (early in the year) and one final (open book).

(For the record, I was happy with the grade I got, so this isn't a grade salt review). I love quantum mechanics, but Herman made my life miserable. He assigned problem sets that, even with the power of 12 people (i.e. the entire class) + Google + the TA + Griffiths + Sakurai + MIT OCW Physics 8.04, we were still unable to get the answers. When asking Herman, in the case where he didn't cancel his office minutes (he never gave us a full hour, just 9:30-10 on ONE DAY the day after the homework was assigned...meaning you would have from 2:40 PM Wednesday to 9:30 AM to think of questions) he told us to "think about it." Over email, if you propose a method that is incorrect, rather than giving you hints, he just tells you you're wrong and to "think about it." Oftentimes, we didn't even have office minutes! He cancelled them almost biweekly, meaning we only had the TA to rely on. (Note: the TA was amazing and he is the only reason this class was tolerable. He would have been a better teacher than Herman.) In lecture, Herman assumed we only lived and breathed physics from a young age, sometimes joking that we should've seen these things in kindergarten. I now realize he wasn't joking. Once, when covering Zeeman effect, he said he would "snowjob it" (he says snowjob means hand wave) because we had seen it in Modern Physics. Last time I checked, Modern Physics was not a prerequisite fo…

Professor Pedersen isn't a great orator, but he's certainly passionate about physics, even in this class which isn't his particular area of study. He actually teaches instead of just lecturing at the board, and he's got a lot of energy. To boot, he's quite down to earth, and very easy to approach outside of class. A great professor.

13 (!) problem sets, all lengthy, especially if they're the book problems. However, they're worth 30% so the effort is worth it. 1 Midterm (relatively easy if you did the problem sets in an "honest way", as the Prof. put it.) and 1 Final, a little more difficult than the midterm since it is cumulative.

I had a pretty small/nonexistent background in Quantum Mechanics coming into this class, but I think Prof. Herman did a very good job teaching this course. The first day he gave us a survey, and I think he was slightly disappointed at the general lack of background among the class, but nonetheless adjusted his syllabus accordingly. He always appeared enthusiastic about the material and imparted much of this enthusiasm into his daily lectures (sometimes interjecting "this is fun!", much the the chagrin of the class who were no doubt still attempting to wrap their minds around his latest hastily scratched down derivation.) He certainly moved quickly, unless he got caught up in something especially tricky, or couldn't read his own handwriting on his notes. At the end of the day though, he managed to squeeze everything he needed into the lectures to make sure you could do the weekly problem sets (perhaps with a bit of inspiration, and a bit of help from the excellent TA.) Make no mistake about it, the problem sets were long and difficult, as you might expect for a 3000-level course in QM, and he began writing them himself to discourage use of the answer key for the book. In effect though, this actually made the problem sets easier since he could teach directly to what would be on the problem sets. Herman frequently criticized the book for being too elegant. Perhaps. I thought the…

13 problem sets worth 30% of your grade. A midterm worth 25% and a final worth 40%. A note on the problem sets: Actual calculations will be relatively simple but extremely difficult to decipher/figure out. Even the best students in the course were known to take 4-6 hours per problem set. If you don't know your stuff, plan on spending 10 hours per week just doing problem sets; this does not include time for reading. Big time commitment.

He told us on the first day that it was the first time he had taught this course and used this text. Boy did it show. Herman is a great administrator, okay scientist (check out the number of citations he has using Google Scholar; pretty low for a Columbia professor; not to say that I have any myself) but worst of all, a mediocre professor. I learned absolutely nothing in this class. Herman's lectures are all over the board. Literally. He will go on and on about something that is in the text, Griffith's "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics," or attempt to do relatively simple derivation but do nothing except confuse you. If you want the low down read the book. Going to lecture did absolutely nothing for me in this class and I hardly missed one. The homeworks are difficult, usually encompassing something we haven't covered or done. Most students in the class have seen QM before; I had not. I was far behind the entire time. Just as an example of divide in the class, on the midterm, 4 people essentially failed, 6 got "Bs" (50<60) and only 2 got an A; the highest score was an 88. He panders to his obscure knowledge of finite complexity and tells random jokes and meaningless stories. This class was a waste of time. The only good think about it (and the only reason I learned anything) was the TA, Austin Kcong Cheng, a graduate student in Applied Physics. Office hours with the TA were e…

Weekly problem set (~5 hours or more) worth 30%, 1 midterm worth 20% and a final.

I thought Herman was a good professor. He moves quickly in lecture but is thorough and answers all questions thrown his way. Goes through proofs extensively but doesn't do a whole lot of problem solving in class, making the problem sets more difficult. He doesn't like the textbook we used and I tend to agree, it skips a lot of material and leaves it to the homework problems. The problem sets are hard and time consuming, and there is one every week no exceptions. He wouldn't give out a practice/past midterm or final, making the type of questions on them kind of a mystery. But they really aren't as bad as the problem sets and lectures would lead you to expect. Pretty much the basic concepts in short problems. Overall a challenging class, not worth taking as a tech elective (whoops) but a good class.