Fabio Nironi

An unreasonable amount: 9 homeworks of 10 problems each. some required topology textbooks, others were just painfully long. One was 11 pages for me. The exams literally require that you've seen and remembered the proofs elsewhere, they don't test your knowledge of a process taught by him but of a process either taught in topology or something completely unrelated to analysis (what was his stuff on commutative maps?) or your memory of a proof from some topology book or a half a page long proof in rudin.

One reasonable problem set per week. Usually took me 4-6 hours, maybe 8 on the hardest ones. He drops your lowest two. He also offers extra credit problems which are significantly more difficult. Challenging, but manageable.

I agree with both of the previous reviews. Fabio Nironi has no idea how to teach a class. After observing other analysis classes, there is a clear difference between the teaching those professors gave and that of Nironi. They helped, he recited. De Silva was amazing, Nironi was terrible. Take it with her or whoever else. The last review talked about how Nironi made the midterms 20% and 30% and the final 50%, and I agree it's unjust. Yeah maybe people cheated, but that's the real world and Nironi, after all that schooling, should learn to deal with it. That's why the homework is only 20%, if people didn't cheat the homework would be 100% rather than putting 80% of the grade on random sit-ins prone to error. That's not to say cheating is a good thing. I'm sure the class would have loved to have done the problem sets, but you see other professors assign 4-5, maybe 6 problems a week from Rudin. And those problem sets take forever. Nironi assigns 10, and they're mostly the most obnoxious problems Rudin provides. The class almost felt like this guys revenge on people who didn't appreciate math like he did. I mean the proof of Rolle's theorem, probably one of the easiest questions on the exam, still takes a fair amount of ingenuity to pull out of thin air. He has no idea how to write a test because the problems he assigns for homework can take 3 hours to hammer out in your head, and…

I found Professor Nironi to be very difficult to learn from. He spend the majority of class time proving the formulas and equations that will be used on his problem sets rather than giving examples of how these tools will be used. I found this immensely frustrating and aside from the first two weeks of class (which were easier and more clearly taught), I learned 100% from the textbook. This is no exaggeration. I would sit through class, pay attention, take notes, and grasp only about five minutes of lecture. I went to his office hours several times to ask questions and while he was very eager to help, his explanations often continued to go over my head. I ended up getting most of my help from the Barnard Help room. (Keep in mind if you decide to do this, only some of the TAs there are familiar with Calc III material so make sure to take note of when they're there.) Professor Nironi also offers a voluntary recitation on Fridays. I couldn't make it due to a conflicting class, so I can't comment. Furthermore, only one problem set out of nine were returned over the semester, making it very difficult to learn from my mistakes. He also doesn't believe in posting answers to practice exams, so you won't know which concepts you're getting wrong until you get your midterm back (i.e. too late). He writes his midterms to be longer than any student could complete and then grades entirely b…

final workload completely different from the original one in the syllabus (not sure if he's allowed to change it?) but it's 50% final, 20% 2 mid terms (25% best 15% worst)

I agree with the previous post. To sum it up, I think Nironi's teaching style punishes, rather than encourages, students who are learning the subject for the first time; for example, from personal experience, he doesn't give much partial credit on exams, if it all. Finally, at the last second (way after finals), he decides to completely disregard the homework portion of the grade (20% of the final grade), saying that most students copied from online sources (which I assume is b/c while most students did relatively well on the homeworks, only a handful did well on the exams). I don't agree with this in three aspects: 1) homework problems are much easier than the ones on the exams b/c they're open book and there's no time constraint 2) even if students did find solutions online, it's not that much different than looking up solutions in the student manuals, which is available for many math classes 3) while some may have cheated, some may have actually gotten help from other students or tutors. To drop 20% of the final grade and make the final exam worth 50% after the exam had already been taken, I think it's unfair. Nironi is a likable professor but his teaching style discourages students who are learning the subject for the first time. The material as difficult as it is, on top of that, with no homework grade and no partial credits on exams and an exam format that favors student…

20% 9 problem sets with breaks given randomly but he says he'll disregard them if you do really well on tests, 2 midterms (25% your better `15% your worse), final 40%. He assigns the worst, i,e. 5-part with little benefit in return, problems

Unfortunately previous reviews for Nironi also hold in proof-based classes. I'd like to say he's very dedicated to the subject and looks to share that inspiration, but I feel there are some problems with that. First of all he quit posting homework solutions after the fourth problem set, and when people requested more solutions he emailed the class and told us to Google them. In fact, he didn't even hand back our homework, you had to be lucky enough to find him in his office. Second his office hours were a real pain, immediately after the class at a time where almost anyone would have another class to attend, and he wasn't particularly personable when he was available. of all he pretty much just lectures straight from the textbook, it even sounds as if he's reading to you. Some people find it a virtue when a professor follows the textbook closely, but that wasn't really the case. Rudin's exposition is so much better than most people didn't really take any notes or pay much attention at all to his lectures, which are particularly hard to follow anyways. Third, he mostly, with some notable exceptions, just lectures straight from the textbook, it even sounds as if he's reading to you. Some people find it a virtue when a professor follows the textbook closely, but that wasn't really the case. Rudin's exposition is so much better than most people didn't really take any notes or pay…