Karl Sigman

I have to say, CULPA completely let me down on this one, as I was completely disappointed with this instructor. Some people might say he's a nice guy, but it was obvious that he really didn't care about teaching either of these classes, and for that reason this class was a major disappointment. While his typed lecture notes were excellent, this is not an adequate substitute for lecturing. Lectures generally started 10 minutes after the scheduled start time and ended at least 20 minutes early. I think there was one lecture the entire semester that ended at the scheduled finish time. There were several lectures that ended after as little as fifteen minutes, which seemed like a complete joke. If I'm going to go through the trouble of making the trip to lecture, I prefer to sit there for a full-length 75 minutes. I really don't feel like I learned much at all in these classes, and the level of detail was very shallow. I know we could've covered so much more if he were motivated to teach these courses, which is a shame because I could tell that there is so much interesting material in these subjects. Homework assignments were generally rather simplistic and formulaic, with an occasional tricky one. That being said, if you didn't know how to do them, you really could just go to recitation and the TA did all the problems. The exams were in a similar fashion, with relatively few quest…

This guy is an excellent teacher, the book is great, the grading breakdown is fair, and particularly advantageous to those who DON'T cheat on their homework, and DO make a concerted effort to learn the material well. Prof Sigman is not too great at looking for questions. He will sometimes ask "any questions on that?" while erasing the board and not turn around to look (especially if he's been moving fast, which he usually does). If you're bold enough to use your voice, he won't ignore you or anything. He's a nice guy. He usually gets us out early, which people have mixed feelings about from my understanding. Anyway, hard class but great class. Listen closely and you will learn a lot...this guy knows his stuff.

Karl Sigman is one of the best professors in the IEOR department. As an undergraduate doing 4106, I was initially apprehensive about the workload and difficulty of the material, but Sigman allayed those fears pretty early on. He is a great instructor, very crisp, very organized, and knows his stuff very well. His assignments are fairly straightforward, and definitely help reinforce concepts learnt in class. He posts notes about stuff he does in class, so you really don't need to write down everything he says. Just follow what he teaches in class, and read the notes before his exams. The midterm is slightly long, but fair, and the final is pretty straightforward as well, provided you know the concepts. A weakness of the course is the fact that he doesn't hold regular office hours, but it's pretty easy to schedule an appointment with him, so I've heard. Another positive: He never started class before 4:15 (class was meant to start at 4:10), and never ends it after 5:15. So it's material in just the right doses, and with his teaching style, is pretty enjoyable as well. All in all: great chap, interesting material, not too hard either

Fantastic guy. Teaches the class very well. dont worry if you did poorly in ieor 3600 - prof sigmans greatest strength is being able to explain complex probability proofs and theorems in ways very easy to understand. I did horrible in marianna cravioto's ieor 3600 because she could never explain the material unless it was in exact mathematical proofs. dont worry about that with sigman. he kind of looks like Splinter from teenage mutant ninja turtles, which for me anyway, is a bonus.

Sigman's lectures were very good becuase he went through each stochastic topic very slowly and made sure everyone understood it. His lectures are truly amazing and very easy to follow. Make sure you go to all of the classes and you shouldn't have a problem geting a B or higher in the class. He wants you to do well. The class was a 2 and a half hour one day a week type deal but he would come 15 minutes late and end the class 40 minutes early so it was awesome.

This man definitely knows how to teach. He delivers the course material in a very straightforward yet thorough manner. I look forward to finishing up my degree with many more Sigman taught classes

Classes were recorded in CVN, though it's definitely worth it to show up to class because questions get asked that aren't picked up on the video. He's very thorough with teaching, explaining things several ways and with concrete examples. He will drill a topic into your head with repetition. His voice tends to go monotnous though, so drowsiness is a common symptom.

Sigman is such a nice guy. He is very soft spoken, so you will have tune your ears if you want to hear him. His lectures are somewhat disorganized, going from one board to another. I had a really hard time keeping up with him. Most of the times I am lost since he doesn't specify what he is doing. For someone who have never taken probability and statistics, those class may be a bit challenging at first. But read the textbook and it should be fine. The textbook (and the class) emphasizes applications instead of theory. So there's more problem solving and crunching equations than doing proofs. Sigman's midterm and final are open book and open notes, in addition to being very straightforward. If you study well and know how to do the hw, you're pretty much going to do decently on his exams.

Weekly assignments (all less than 2-2.5 hours long). One midterm, one Final. Both exams are open book. For an upper level IEOR course, workload is not bad at all.

Great guy! Interesting and clear in class, and generally a nice person to talk to, interested not only in your academic success but also in you as a person. I enjoyed taking Stochastic Models with him, and would sign up for more of his classes.