Ovidiu Savin

Ovidiu is an ok Math professor at Columbia; there are pros and cons with his teaching. A word of caution though, if you aren't already very strong in your math classes at Columbia (A's consistently), you might have a hard time keeping up with the curve of the class. The means were about a 75 across the midterms and finals, and this is with 10 points on every exam being one that only a few people answer. That means that to get an A, you have to make little to no calculation errors in the non-challenge type questions. In terms of lecturing, Ovidiu is good at giving an outline and easier examples but skips over how to understand the intuition of the course. It may seem like he'll be good at this in the beginning, but the quality drops to pure computation later on. If you watch any MIT OCW videos on diff eqs and compare, you'll see the evident difference. This means you'll only end up with a computational understanding of ODEs. He will often try to explain things, end up not explaining well, and just saying sorry he can't do any better. I think this is definitely due to language as English does not sound like his first language. Overall, I was not satisfied with how the class was taught. My calculus professors and other math professors were much better.

Don't take Savin's class unless you have no other option. He's very smart (as expected), but not good at teaching students who aren't at his level. He often seems exasperated when students ask him clarifying questions or make casual errors during demonstrations. The concepts/problems Savin covers in his lectures and homework (taken directly from the textbook) are also NOTHING compared to the exams he makes. On multiple occasions, many other students and I were simply unable to answer questions because we didn't know what the hell we're looking at. This is an example of Savin assuming students can do the same mental gymnastics that he does. The average grades on both midterms were in the 60s (I can't remember what the final was). I left Savin's class with a general understanding of differentiating multivariable functions and calculating gradient vectors, which I suppose means that Savin did his job. However, that doesn't mean the process wasn't unnecessarily obtuse and arduous.

Savin is OK, not that good but not awful either. He teaches poorly, spends huge amounts of time proving easy concepts and then rushing through examples. And he honestly shouldn't try to rush, because he has a hard time solving calc problems: he doesn't bother to work them out beforehand, so he tries to wing them in class and always gets lost somewhere, and then stands in front of the board trying to find the mistake until a) he gives up and says "well, the rest is easy, you should know it from Calc III", or b) a student finds the mistake and points it out for him. The majority of the class ended up just staying home and reading the book, which was much clearer and a more efficient way of learning the material. Beware though of the last third of the course, after the second midterm, when he starts teaching calculus of variations. It's not in the textbook, so you'll need to go to class to learn that. He assigns relatively straightforward homework problems, but gives extremely hard ones on his exams. The curve is decent (B/B+), so you can struggle through the exams and still come out fine, but if you really want to feel like you have a firm grasp on what you're doing, you won't get that here. Ultimately, if you really have to take his section, it won't kill you, but there are better sections out there for sure.

Savin is a boss. Somehow he makes everything seem obvious. He never looked at the book or notes during his lectures, and always talks in a very matter-o-fact manner. It's important to not let this get to your head too much- review the notes and make sure it really is as obvious to you as it is to him. Savin holds the class to a high standard (or, if you ask him, a reasonable standard). He's sad when the average is always less than he thinks it should be. Here is an excerpt from the email he sent us after the class was over: "The average on the final exam was 52. The exam was difficult and also the material we tried to learn." I actually think this class is important for math majors to take, even if it's not as sexy as other subjects. I did most of the homeworks pretty honestly, and I feel as though I learned a lot about how to think about PDEs and how to prove basic stuff about them (uniqueness, maximum/minimum principles, etc.) The class has more in common with analysis than it did with ODEs. (BTW, having taken ODEs before I took this class, the material / approach of the class is completely different; it's not necessary but if you're not a strong student it'll help you out.) Keep in mind that most of your grade will be based on two tests where time pressure will be an important factor. DEFINITELY review the homeworks WELL, but don't stress out about knowing little facts. The…

Ovid, as he told us we could call him on the first day of Calc III, is a pretty great professor. I believe this fall was his first time teaching Calculus (at least in many years?), but he didn't seem rusty at all, though perhaps a bit bored with the basic and stoic material we had to cover. Either way, he taught extremely clearly and was willing to answer any question that a student had for him. He is funny, every now and then, though his lectures can get a little dry. It is mostly because he is so clearly brilliant that the class remains exciting. And it was pretty full, too. Not sure how many students were registered, but I would say about 2/3 were always there. Overall, a great and clear way to learn math fundamentals!

Well, I just survived a year of Honors Math, and now that I've gone home and thought about it, here's my review of the course. To begin, Prof. Savin is a savant (look him up online and be amazed at all his accomplishments, which includes a perfect score at the IMO) who can effortlessly teach without notes and solve most challenging proof problems on the spot. Really, the greatest impediment to the teaching is his wonderful but sometimes incomprehensible accent, but his notes on the board and his office hours more than make up for this minor shortcoming. If you truly enjoy the intricacies of math, I highly recommend you take this class, which serves at the alternative to the laughable Calc III sequence. (The class started with 90 but eventually whittled down to about 30 by the end of second semester.) It's sufficiently challenging enough to get you well-acquainted with the higher-level math courses in the department, and despite the incredibly low test averages (see below), there is a very generous curve that will save your grade at the end of the semester. Plus, the second semester of the course is much easier than the first; perhaps at that point, Savin has successfully conditioned his students to expect the worst on his exams and they react accordingly. Lastly, the only way to study for Savin's tests are to make sure your definitions and ability to do computations are solid,…

First of all, I took this class four years ago, so it's possible some things may have changed, but I doubt it. This review comments on the material in this class, its difficulty and what Savin is like as a teacher. As others have said, this class is much harder and requires a much higher commitment than calculus or linear algebra. To really learn the material and get a good grade you're going to have to know Rudin backwards and forwards. You will also have to do all the problems Savin assigns, even the ones he doesn't collect, and then some. Be prepared to spend more time studying and doing problems than in any other class you've taken. The students who succeed are the ones who love math, I mean really love it, and expect to use this material for the rest of their lives. If you're looking to challenge yourself or take an interesting math elective, don't take this one--at least not with Savin. To give you an idea, the kid sitting in front of me during the 4061 final handed in a blank exam. That said, as long as you have the necessary preparation and motivation you don't have to be some magic genius to do well here. In my case I had already taken Honors Math which was key since it covers a lot of the methods used in this class. The optimization course may also cover some analysis techniques, but I never took it. Although Savin is indeed a super nice guy, he is by no means an eas…

Professor Savin is a great lecturer. He has a simple style that makes it easy to understand the material. I found the class interesting and fun to attend. Questions were always welcome and he was constantly asking questions for students to jump in and answer which made coming to class a little more exciting. The course was at a reasonable pace and followed the book quite well. I highly recommend taking the analysis sequence with Prof. Savin if he teaches it again --or anything else that he teaches. You will learn a lot. The workload was lighter than expected (~1 hour for each homework and several hours for the test preparation) and I think it wasn't hard to do well on the tests and homework.

Professor Savin is a good professor, but he requires a lot of knowledge from his students, particularly on a theoretical/intuitive level. You cannot get by in the class simply by doing the homework; you have to gain some intuition (which he tries to teach in class). He's a very nice guy, though, and curves very well; on the whole, I would highly recommend him, as you'll both learn something and do well. He's very approachable and will teach you one-on-one. Highly Recommended.

Super nice guy, ultra well informed, great one on one, not very clear in class and tends to say "and the rest is obvious..." when discussing non-obvious results.