Anargyros Papageorgiou

I feel kinda bad writing a harsh review because Papageorgiou is a really nice guy and cares a lot. He's the professor who looks over your shoulder while you're taking the midterm and tells you where you've made a mistake. (This boosted my score by at least 10 points.) He's the professor who absolutely glows when people do well on the homework. When he says his door is open, he _means_ it. Really means it. So I'm not going to shit on him because I don't like him. Or because my grade will probably suck, because that's my fault for losing interest and not doing the work past March or so. I'm going to shit on him because despite what a wonderful person he is, his teaching has thoroughly earned it. Before I launch into that, though, here's my recommendation if you want to learn about quantum computing: read Scott Aaronson's book, "Quantum Computing Since Democritus". I bought it and chipped away at it half-heartedly for a few days in February and it taught me more and explained things better than Papageorgiou did in a whole semester. Ok, now that we've got preliminaries out of the way: The class really is as close to an out-and-out waste of time as I've had at Columbia. Each lecture starts with a 10-30 minute review of the previous lecture (generally closer to 10 minutes, but 30 happened a few times), so you're getting maybe 2/3 of a lecture. And then during that 2/3 of a lecture,…

Pretty bad class. Incredibly easy, but I walked out feeling like I wasted a semester. It's required for CS majors, so you'll probably take it anyways, but be warned: you will not learn as much linear algebra as you should. He repeats all the material at least three times, rather than moving forward. The homeworks are a waste of time. He's an incredibly kind man, and will explain anything you want to you, anytime. Definitely worth talking to outside of class and gong to office hours. He'll also help you on exams, if you ask.

AP is the best professor I've had at Columbia. His lectures are the only ones I've ever bothered to go to, as he actually teaches instead of preaches. He goes over what is important, tells you implicitly what is going to be on tests, and goes step by step so it's almost impossible to get lost. If you do, he'll stop and explain. He doesn't believe in pointlessly long questions or tests. He's focused on the principles, the tricks, that are necessary, and on how these things are useful in applications; specifically finance, which is excellent for CS as many job opportunities will be finance related.

This class was fairly easy; I definitely think it could have gone into more depth. But it was not a joke: it covered a reasonable amount of material in a reasonable amount of depth. Papageorgiou is just an effective teacher, and he doesn't assign cruel problem sets. The class covers only the basics of quantum computing. It's a CS class but it would be reasonable for a physics major to take it, if they had some very rudimentary CS knowledge (logic circuits, and the general idea of big-O analysis of runtimes). The fact that it was targeted at two groups limited the material we could cover. We couldn't really talk about complexity theory to avoid alienating the physics majors. And we couldn't talk about any actual quantum mechanics or real-world implementations of quantum computers, because that would have terrified the CS majors. You definitely need to know your linear algebra coming in. The first quarter of the class is basically linear algebra review, to familiarize students with the Dirac notation used in quantum mechanics, and help them get used to working with complex numbers. We then worked through how operations on quantum states can be equivalent to Boolean circuits (proving that quantum computers are at least as powerful as classical computers). The rest of the class was going over the famous quantum algorithms that are better than any known classical algorithm. Shor's…

Computational Linear Algebra with Papageorgiou is a pretty decent class. He's definitely one of the nicest professors you will meet at Columbia and is a lenient grader to boot. Apart from the actual teaching, this class is great. Linear algebra is a super interesting subject and has applications in every single field. Homework assignments are reasonable - not insanely hard or long. Tests are graded generously and he will tell you if you are right or wrong during an exam. The class is essentially Linear Algebra + algorithms for matrix operations. It follows the standard Linear Algebra book by Strang. Papageorgiou generally starts his class with a 20 minute recap of the previous lecture followed by whizzing through the current material. He has a strong Greek accent which can make class hard sometimes. He is an above average teacher, but his abilities are nothing to brag about. He wants you to understand the material and not monotonously apply formulae you don't understand. However, between his accent and bad handwriting, you can occasionally get lost and fall behind (I got lost twice this class - once during RREFs and another time during eigenvalues and eigenvectors). He sometimes doesn't really explain stuff properly and just says "Boom! Boom! You're done" which causes endless frustration. It's important that you go to his office hours and clear up doubts because all the materi…

This is for the quantum computing class - take it with Papageorgiou if possible at all. He's a phenomenal teacher - clear, helpful, and it shows that he really cares about your learning experience. He starts off every lecture with a review of past lecture, and he'll go through plenty of examples in class to make sure you really understand the underlying theories and principles. The class itself is no joke. You'll have to know your linear algebra (he'll do a quick review but you still need to have some background). Quantum computing comes down to matrix operators acting on vector qubits, so linear algebra is essential. Papageorgiou sometimes gets a little carried away and covers a large amount of material in a single lecture - make sure you go over your notes after to really understand it. As a result of his clarity and superb teaching, the average of the class was crazy high. So you really can't afford to mess up since the curve will hurt you a lot if you do. But since it's taught by Papageorgiou, you really shouldn't have any difficulties. Go to class. Do your homework. If you have questions, ask him in class or go to his office hour (he's very very approachable, I occasionally dropped in his office not during OH and he was glad to help).

Greatest professor EVER!!! AP is the nicest guy you'll ever meet. He really wants to give good grades to everyone in the class. As long as you go to class, this course is incredibly easy. AP doesn't mess around with tricks; he focuses on the core concepts and tests you on these same things. If you understand them, you don't have to worry about messing up on the tests. Getting near 100% is very doable, however AP reserves A+'s for those who also do the extra credits. Either way, if you go to class and make an effort, you should have no trouble getting a good grade. TAKE THIS CLASS.

5 homeworks, not very hard but sometimes tedious. Make sure you know your linear algebra. Each has a programming component to be done in MATLAB. Again, not hard but usually tedious. Two quizzes (one each before the midterm and final) that give you bonus points towards the exam grades. Midterm and final that are open everything -- no joke, you can use your iPhone if you want -- and are really just regurgitation for the most part. Like the gate decomposition thing, or "derive an algorithm to do X," where X is almost verbatim the description of some algorithm we covered in lecture and because the exam is open book you can just copy it out of the book. It is advisable to go to the midterm and final review sessions because *hint hint* the actual questions MIGHT be used as review examples, or simply given away outright by Papageorgiou. (I learned this the hard way.)

Prof. Papageorgiou teaches simply. He'll review material covered in the previous class, then get on and whiz through the topics he planned for the current class. And that's about it. Especially since the material isn't the most exciting stuff, class can get pretty boring. However, he really tries to make computational linear algebra accessible to everybody, and he tries to give everybody good grades. If you ask him to stop and repeat something, he'll do it. If you're a little confused about something on a quiz or a test, go up and ask him about it. He's very liberal with hints. There are five homework sets, four quizzes, a midterm, and a final. The homework sets are part theory (questions from the textbook) and part programming (often to implement algorithms he discusses in class). None were particularly challenging, except for the one for finding the null space of a particular matrix, and only because there were so many places for hiding potential counting errors. The quizzes and tests are really, really easy (he called one a "morale booster") and are meant to help your midterm/final grades. The midterm and final are also ridiculously straightforward (he'll even give you two or three of the five questions beforehand). Oh, and it doesn't hurt that you can ask Prof. Papageorgiou to check your answers for you. He'll tell you if anything's wrong and the correct way to get the rig…

5 problem sets. Homework was not too time-consuming. There were simple but helpful written problems. Most assignments also required us to write a "simulation" of some quantum algorithm in MATLAB. These were totally useless: often you would pass in the desired answers as an argument to the function. But it was surprising how helpful it was to my understanding to write them. 2 completely open-book exams (which includes any notes you want and even a laptop, for those students who pirate their textbooks). The exams had very high averages. If you asked a clarifying question during the exam, the professor was extremely generous with his answers; he wouldn't be coy if a mistake had led you astray.