Davesh Maulik

1 PSET per week, usually 5 problems, 2 computational and 3 hard/proof-based 2 midterms, 1 final with emphasis on proofs

Weekly Psets that took a bit of time, but were rewarding in that you really got to learn the material this way. Two midterms, medium difficulty. And a comprehensive final of the same difficulty as the midterms.

I took this class as an econ major with an OK but not great background in math. I'd recommend it if you have to take it (especially since all my friends died in "real" analysis) but be aware: PROS: (1) Professor Maulik is decent. I was afraid we were going to get an Indian dude with a heavy accent but he grew up here and speaks American English. He's helpful and responds quickly to emails and is often willing to give extensions on the homework (2) The curve is pretty generous; something in the 80s range will get you an A (3) Zhenrui was an awesome TA! He held review sessions before every midterm and final which were super helpful as far as getting a feel for the material goes. Sometimes it looks like he's sleeping in the back and then he'll raise his hand and point out an error on the board or ask exactly the right question to clarify a point when a lot of people look confused. I didn't really interact with the other TAs that much but my friends that did said they were pretty OK too. CONS: (1) There is a steep learning curve if you've never done proofs before (I hadn't). A large part of lectures as well as the homeworks and the exams will require you to do proofs and not baby "derivation" proofs where you just work backwards and manipulate down some equations until they look like what you want like in Calc III. Points are taken off for unjustified steps or logical errors. Memo…

I had professor Maulik my entire freshman year, Calc III first semester, and Linear Algebra second semester. He was the definition of a good math professor. He is a decent lecturer (American accent and loud speaker for whom it concerns), peppering his lessons with semi-easy access proofs, motivations for learning certain concepts, and a few sparse funny comments. It's not necessarily a class which you will love attending, but after having gone to most classes first semester and not nearly as many second semester, I would definitely say it's worth going. He assigned challenging but helpful written Psets every week, which sometimes took as little time as 2 hours, but a few as many as 9 (but that's probably just me). He didn't really have great review sessions or anything like that, but he leaves that up to the TAs (we had an amazing TA in Calc III). He's pretty fair when it comes to regrades, doesn't make you use anything as annoying as WebAssign, and is altogether a decent teacher who does not fall into the category of researcher who couldn't care less about his students. I also highly recommend going to office hours. Whenever you feel that he may be going too fast in class, or if you get behind and you feel the material is going over your head, if you go to him during office hours, he will really sit down with you and explain the concept as many ways as you need until you get…

Given that linear algebra is a subject very worth of study, it requires a fair amount of work. Basically 11 homeworks, 2 midterms, and a final. The problem sets are very representative of what you need to learn, but they do take several hours to complete. They are definitely quite doable, but I would not wait until the night before they are due. The course was more work than Calculus 3, but less work than any programming course. I found the TAs Mike Wong and Changjian Su to be very insightful and accessible, even via email when needed.

I have had many professors over the years in both undergrad and business school, and Davesh is the best professor I have had. When I think about the overall quality of a professor, I think in terms of a few categories: horsepower (i.e. pure math ability), teaching ability, and helpfulness. Horsepower Davesh is an incredibly talented mathematician. He got tenure at a relatively young age, and for those of you who like math competitions, Davesh was a Putnam winner while in college. That's the math equivalent of winning a Heisman Trophy, so for those of you who like math, that's pretty cool. While having a professor with more horsepower does not always make for a better teacher, Davesh's horsepower directly benefited the class. He never got lost in proofs; he didn't waste time; and he was able to show how all the material linked up in a very logical, thorough way. One of the prior reviewers mentioned a criticism along the lines that Davesh uses handheld notes at times - this makes the class more efficient and also he likes to use numerical examples to make things clear. Without notes, one would have to make up numerical examples on the fly which could be very messy computationally. I found the numerical examples incredibly helpful. He covers a lot of material in a lecture and the notes make things much more efficient. I don't like it when professors try to wing lectures and go of…

Problem Sets each week - some questions can be annoying

Maulik is not a good lecturer; he goes through topics really fast and it's very hard to focus on his lectures. He tries hard to address the students' questions, and clarifies some of them, but his speed is the main problem. The best you can do in a lecture is to take notes throughout without having understood much because you haven't had enough time to digest the information. Without looking at the textbook (which isn't a very useful one), it's impossible to understand what the theories he does in class imply practically. The lectures are very theoretical, but the assignments, midterms and finals are the contrary. His curve isn't very good either; you have to perform more than a few points above average to get a B+. My ultimate advice would be to take this class with Bayer instead.

Typical math course at Columbia: weekly homework, somewhat hard but easier than the Calc homeworks. Two midterms (people generally did well, though they got harder with time), and one long final worth 45% of the grade. Not too stressful.

I echo the previous review. Prof. Maulik was efficient and taught the class quite well. Like most other math professors, he definitely could have been clearer at times, and often went a bit too quickly through proofs and material. But all in all he got the job done well and had a dry sense of humor that was refreshing. The one stumbling block that I would warn people about is more generally about Linear Algebra itself. This class is one of those math classes that a bunch of people do REALLY well in, so that test averages are usually in the mid 70's or high 80's, so if you're not one of those people who easily gets 100% (there were many in this class) in tests, this might be a struggle. All in all the material isn't impossible and usually just involves arithmetic and *surprise!* algebra. The only hard part is that sometimes it gets really abstract when talking about linear spaces and applying the rules of linear algebra to spaces that aren't matrices. But all in all Linear Algebra felt like a VERY useful class that, in itself might not be all that interesting, but provided us with tools that apply to a lot of different fields: economics, statistics, data analysis, etc. All in all, very good class and teaches you a lot of useful stuff, particularly when it comes to data and dynamical systems.