Abhay Pasupathy

Homework (10%): 11 problem sets. The first 10 were from the textbook and consisted of 8-10 problems. Pasupathy made the last one about thermodynamics himself. Your lowest 2 scores are dropped, and most people just copy from the solutions manual, so don’t expect this to boost your grade. Recitation Attendance (10%): Show up, sign in, do a problem or two. I don’t recommend Augusto’s section. Midterms (40%): There are 3 and your lowest one is dropped. The first 2 had 3 problems and the last one had 4. All are extremely difficult with averages falling from somewhere in the high 60% range on the first one to the low 50% range by the last one. Final (40%): There were 8 problems. All of them were based on some of the hardest questions from the textbook. While the final was cumulative, it did not cover thermodynamics at all and focused on rotational dynamics and fluids.

Prof. Pasupathy’s dry sense of humor makes lectures somewhat entertaining, but he spends a little too much time getting laughs out of the class through his frequent demos. As a professor, he has a strange and extreme commitment to solving problems symbolically; while I understand that solving algebraically reduces the likelihood for calculation errors, he was adamant about solving a harder 1D motion problem using a messy system of 4 equations in office hours once when it could’ve been solved with just 2 of the fundamental formulas from the textbook. The first 2/3 of the semester is tough but still doable, but there is a ridiculous difficulty spike when you reach rotations and fluids near the end of the semester because 1) these topics are naturally harder to grasp than kinematics, forces, and energy and 2) Pasupathy spends even less time on these concepts. Bottom line: if you don’t have a solid physics background from high school, find an easier professor if there is one. The course is supposedly curved to somewhere between a B and B+, but the class seemed to have more students with a stronger background than usual this semester.

6 hours per week excluding class time Up to 12 hours during exams

Pasupathy's class if entertaining as he does a lot of demos and always tries to keep class engaged. However, he is not a very good teacher. He spends most of the class time deriving formulas and does very little examples and practice problems. When he does do practice problems, he goes through them very quickly and always solves problems in terms of multiple equations where you have to solve for the unknown. He pretty much teaches straight from the book so it is very helpful to actually read the textbook and the sample problems. Pasupathy expects students to have a fairly strong foundation in physics so this class will prove to be especially challenging for students who have very little physics background. His exams are difficult (usual average around 60%) but the class is curved. His problem sets are also difficult and can be time consuming, but are all from the textbook. His exams are similar in difficulty to the homework. You often have to learn topics on your own as they are not thoroughly explained in class. For exams he will provide some practice problems if you ask for them, however these will not be enough to study for exams.

20% - weekly problem sets (at end of semester, could drop two; at beginning, he only advertised one free problem set) 40% - 2 midterms 40% - final Problem sets are ~10 questions.

For a shorter summary, look at the last paragraph: Things in your favor: Prof. Pasupathy is, on the whole, an entertaining lecturer. He can be witty, has good energy, and it is very evident that he is invested in teaching. His accent is only slight, and understanding him isn’t a problem. He also does his best to incorporate demos and get volunteers in the class involved; it’s an attempt to make sure you’re not sleeping, and is usually successful. His problem sets are generally fairly straightforward. Only in the first third of the class were the problems he wrote as part of the problem set a major factor; later on it was mostly problems from the book. With the solutions manual (decently easy to find), his problem sets aren’t a problem. What’s nice is that irrespective of all of this, he hosts a recitation every week where he essentially just answers homework questions and does homework questions for an hour. If you’re having trouble just getting the answer/through the process, go to recitation and he’ll do it for you. Things not in your favor: His lecture style isn’t the most informative. Like the reviewer before me, he does tend to solve a lot of problems in class. His philosophical standpoint in solving a system of equations is to only plug in at the very end; while good when solving problems, it doesn’t seem to be the ideal way to teach concepts. He does less of that, and i…

20% problem sets, 20% each midterm, 40% final. Problem Sets vary in difficulty. He writes less of his own problems in the second portion of the semester so those problem sets are easier.

Abhay is a solid teacher, and I would definitely recommend him over Professor Tuts. However, his teaching style is different from what most people are used to. He doesn’t spend as much time on conceptual nuance as I would like, and then spends a lot of time on problems. Instead of solving for the value of intermediate answers, he solves everything like a system of equations (which get uglier and uglier as the year progresses) and plugs in at the very end. Hence, most of the class consists of doing problems where one gets bogged down in a lot of ugly algebra, and thus, many students miss the conceptual nuance and understanding of the problem. If you take a step back and realize that all Abhay is doing is solving a system of equations in a different form, it becomes much easier, but it takes most students a large portion of the semester to get used to this. That being said, I still found Abhay a good teacher. He has a quirky personality, and he is quite energetic throughout the class. He has demos decently often and encourage student participation frequently. ATTEND LECTURE. He goes way more in depth than the textbook, and you will definitely be in the dark if you skip class. His problem sets aren’t too bad, unless he decides to write his own problem. When he writes his own problems, be prepared to spend a large amount of time on them. I think solving his problems was definitely…

Weekly problem sets, two midterms, and a final.

I joined his class after my first midterm, and I basically had no idea what was going on during the entire semester. Pasupathy would give us extremely hard questions in class that he did not explain at all. His homework problems were also annoying, and so it's extremely helpful if you have the solutions manual. He is also extremely rude when it comes to emails. I emailed him several times asking him for help, and he would respond with one word replies. I would not recommend Pasupathy, but I got an A even though I had no idea what was going on.