ELE N3401

12 Problem sets, 2 problems each. 2 Midterms , Final

I couldn't agree more with folks above. I am sure the faculty is not happy with this man's performance and general loathing from the student body as a tenured professor However, what can they do? Fortunately for the entering student body in a few years, he'll no longer be around. It is really a shame to the department to have such an individual around. Oh well. I feel sorry for the man and really hope him well. Good luck to those who must take his class! Advice: Do not plan on him teaching anything. Expect A LOT of material. Do not expect an A, and you will work very hard for a B.

Sen is actually a pretty good teacher. Granted he only teaches from his own notes, and any "textbook" in the class is a joke. Mostly he teaches his own examples, he tests you on his own examples, and all the exams are pretty much problems straight from the home work. Don't even think about getting in contact with him through email. Either show up at his office hours or try to snag the TA. If you can get him in person he's actually pretty approachable, just realize that he won't bother teaching you how to work out "trivial" algebra problems. His teaching style is a little dry, but if you can manage to stay awake during class you will learn something. Halfway into the semester when people stop coming he will start taking attendace. The lectures themselves are a little boring, but the actual workload isn't too bad at all. Weekly problem sets can be done from his handed out notes. The entire class can really just be boiled down to "Memorize Maxwell's Equations!" Everying is closed book closed note. Grading isn't that bad, but seems a little arbitrary. He doens't change the material much from year to year, so grades are influnced by a "Historical Curve"

1-2 assignments / week 1 MdTrm + 1 Final

Not so heavy. Homeworks are doable by his method only. Need to memorize the notes and homeworks to do even remotely decent. One midterm and one final. Does not use courseworks, or any other electronic form. Takes attendance randomly.

Professor Diament is your stereotypical nightmare professor as an engineering student, only worse. -Extremely B O R I N G , mainly because he is bored with the material -A P A T H E T I C to students actually learning the material which is evidenced by his running through it and avoiding questions like the plague. Not to mention if you have a question, his delicate ego is at stake and forces you to feel like you have the intellect of an amoeba. His tests are fair based on the material and homeworks. His lectures are based out of the textbook that he wrote.

The absolute worst professor I have ever had at Columbia after Fine. He makes you buy a textbook you NEVER use and it doesn't even correlate with the lectures. There are many ways to do EM problems and his techniques are what goes for the exams and problem sets. I wished at least he assigned relevant reading from the text. He is also NOT approachable in any form whatsoever. He never responds to emails and makes you feel insecure if you talk to him. I wish the EE department would not let tenured professors teach. They just make the whole class so MISERABLE thinking they can teach when really all we need is a prof who can articulate the difficult material in such a way that we understand it. Horrible horrible professor.

Paul Diament is a lazy and mean professor. Stay as far away as possible. Never left the walls of Columbia university since he started as an undergrad, he is also kind of an elitist, ironically also kind of a loser. Condescending and a lousy professor. He is pretty old, and miserable with his job. I think he gets of on giving awful grades.

10 problem sets, two midterms, final. First midterm is straightforward, second is harder, final is very hard. Grading is seemingly arbitrary.

Sen is one of the worst professors in the entire department. It's stunning to me to learn that he once earned a great teacher award twenty years ago. Sen started out the first class of the year by trying to turn the twice a week class into a three times a week class on his personal whim. Luckily for the class, after major conflict, he relented and realized that he had to stick to the class times that we had registered for. The class is supposed to be an upper level Physics class. Sen is a decent lecturer, but his notes are entirely indecipherable. His handwriting is horrendous and he passes out photocopied notes riddled with errors that are barely legible. Moreover, he assigns a textbook that is never used. The class has no correlation to the textbook. The material in the class is extremely difficult and Sen fails to teach it effectively. Instead, he teaches specific examples and tests you on those examples--but in the process you learn almost nothing about electromagnetics and only about the specific homework problems. His exams are closed book and similar to the homework problems. One exam question was actually "List every single formula that you know". By the end of the semester, almost the entire class was lost and just memorized the homework problems/solutions as opposed to learning the material. The class is graded on a very strict curve.