IEO R4004

Quite a pain. Weekly assignments that take 3-4 hours at least. Open book midterm and final. The weightage of the exams and homework was undisclosed, so make sure you don't slack on the homework.

Homeworks: about 7, assigned with a week + to turn each one in. Each was fairly focused, and therefore easy to do if you read through the book. Most took under 4 hours, though a couple took longer. Exams: Fairly easy, and curved. Covered the same sort of concepts as the homeworks and with ample review (in-class and posted past exams) given.

According to the syllabus, the grade was calculated as follows: 25% Homework Assignments - there were a total of 7 graded homework assignments over the course of the semester 35% Midterm - open-book and open-notes, similar in format to the practice midterm, but generally covers the topics that are not covered on the practice midterm 40% Final - same deal as the midterm, but all the problems came from the second half the course, despite us being told it was cumulative exam

This is a tricky review to write. The material is interesting no doubt, but I agree that it is made to look harder than it is. Sethuraman is not terrible. He's just ordinary. Monotonic, repetitive, and not very organized. He's a nice chap, no doubt, and is said to be helpful in his office hours, but you take a class for the in-class experience, and at 9:10am, I didn't have a very pleasurable one. He often fumbles while explaining concepts, and averts questions by saying "he'll get back to it later," without ever doing so. The material could have been taught in a much better way, and his TA Tulia did a great job in doing so. Assignments are fairly arduous. And exams are fairly tricky as well. Mean on the final was around 60%, and that on the final was around 50%. The class was not as smart as it should have been though, and so it's not impossible to do well. To sum it up, he's not as bad as other reviews suggest, but definitely could have been clearer.

Professor Goldfarb taught otherwise dry material as best as he could, and in a very clear logical progression of concepts. The lectures got very difficult at certain points, as he talked about linear programming from an abstract linear algebra perspective. Fortunately, these difficult foundational concepts weren't examined. The free book, along with the parts of his posted lecture slides that explained how to do the problems from a practical perspective, generally taught each concept very well. The overall difficulty was moderate, with somewhat tricky exams and long but easyish homeworks (if you put the time in to read the requisite chapter). Goldfarb himself was extremely helpful with any questions I had, and amiable as well. Grading was easy, with a large curve to boot. I hear he was a lot more difficult in the past, but deliberately held back this year (and presumably in future years too). Overall: Take this over the other deterministic models courses, you won't regret it.

Dawn is really awesome. There's really nothing not to like about her. Some parts of the class were not incredibly exciting, but she was empathetic about this and admitted that some of the material wasn't the most exciting. She was always well-prepared for lecture and seemed like she really enjoyed teaching the class. She's also incredibly approachable and friendly, and makes asking questions during lecture very easy. I am sorry to hear that people took advantage of this last spring in her Discrete Mathematics course, but that was not a problem this past semester. This class definitely teaches a lot of good material. The material definitely compliments what is taught in COMS 3137 - "Data Structures and Algorithms," though there is no programming component in this class. Some of the algorithms exist in a few variants (simplex, one-phase simplex, two-phase simplex, upper-bounded simplex) and it's important to keep these varieties straight in your head. The homework was mostly out of the book. Some of the problems were a bit of a pain, and a lot of tedious work overwhelmed the concepts that we were learning. However, most of this is just the nature of the material. The book itself is not very good, and I don't think it was a good choice for the class. It has a good number of typos and makes the material so much more complicated than it needs to be. For that reason, it is important…

Heavy not difficult but made very difficult because of the confusion.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS IF YOU CAN. ONE OF THE WORST PROFESSORS YOU WILL EVER ENCOUNTER. Jay is definitely a smart man and a distinguished scholar from MIT. But he lives in his own world and this will drive you insane if you take his class. He thinks everyone has the same aptitude for understanding the subject matter as MIT Phds. He is also socially inept and as such often confuses teaching effectively with trying to quiz and fool the class. He will often leave questions unanswered just so he can test the material. Confusion is part of the syllabus in that there is no consistency in textbook, or notes, or where the homework is assigned from. If you want to feel a little crazy by all means take this class. Jay is very disorganized. BEWARE.

I read the other reviews, but I took this class in 2008 and really enjoyed it. Professor Sethuraman seemed very well prepared for class, and although some examples were more theoretical these were not the basis of the course. I was afraid of taking a class from this professor based on the reviews, but I'm glad that I did (besides, the class is required anyway).