Paul Siegel

Weekly Web-Assign and BEASTMODE written HW (even on exam weeks), 2 mid-terms, final.

40% Homework Assignments - Interesting but usually very time consuming 25% Midterm Exam and 35% Final Exam - Both were very reasonable and straightforward.

Weekly problem sets. 2 Midterms. 1 Final.

Prof Siegel is funny, good natured, and someone who'd enjoy a beer and discussing Star Wars and Comic-Con. That being said, I would NOT recommend him for anyone who has no previous experience with Calculus. Much of his lectures are a combination of "Math-speak" and pretty complex "examples" which seem more for his amusement than to teach foundational concepts. If you've read any other reviews, his weekly written homework will make the math tutors at Milbank 333 cringe! Honestly, the written HW takes up a lot of time and I didn't learn a thing from it since he often includes material that you'll never encounter in Calc I (e.g. Hyperbolic functions). If you're a math major and just have to take calc again, go ahead and take this class. If you're anyone else (like me), you'll end up watching hours of Khan Academy or YouTube to teach yourself! Which by the way, check out Professor Leonard on YouTube -, he's an instructor at some small college in Georgia, but his explanations are clear and concise. If it wasn't for him, I would have failed this class miserably. And lastly, Prof Siegel is not very organized, if you have to ask him something, talk with him before or after class or during office hours. I emailed him multiple times over the semester but never received a reply.

This was definitely one of the best classes I’ve taken at Columbia. Paul Siegel put incredible amounts of effort and enthusiasm into teaching this course and this played no small part in making the course such great experience. Professor Siegel is an excellent lecturer who presents the material at a reasonable pace with high levels of enthusiasm in addition to a good amount of involving the class. He’s very organized also does a great job answering questions without getting sidetracked. While the material can be very dense, he does a great job keeping a relatively light tone with humor and interesting asides. Additionally, he typed lecture notes that paralleled the lectures for the entire course, and these were extremely helpful. They totaled to about 50 very dense pages by the end of the semester. As the previous review mentioned, the material was related chapters 1-5 and chapter 8 of Munkres, but he also added several topics and examples of his own choice that were not in the textbook which greatly enriched the course. It was clear that the put so much thought into what he covered into this class, which was a refreshing departure from professors who essentially read from the assigned textbook during lectures. The same creativity extended to the choice of homework problems, but this often meant that the homework assignments could be very difficult. He definitely went out of h…

Paul Siegel made Calc IV my favorite class in all of my Columbia career. Seriously, this man is a gem in the Columbia math department. He is approachable, organized and very clear in presenting the material. The course is a challenge but he makes it so much more fun and surprisingly enjoyable. The weekly homeworks can be scorchers but go to his office hours and crowd in with 20 other students while he takes you through the hard proofs but yet allows for you to learn and figure it out on your own. Seriously, this man is an AMAZING PROFESSOR and TRULY deserves the golden nugget!

6+ hours of homework per week, 2 midterms, 1 (comprehensive) final.

1 Problem Set/Week (generally challenging) 1 Midterm (5 problems, this was straightforward and almost entirely from notes. There was one problem from a homework (the hardest on the test) and one that we had not seen before Final: 8 problems, each consisting of a definition and then a related proof. Most problems seemed fairly straightforward but the material was harder than the midterm and a couple of the terms were things we'd only seen/used once.

I'll get the important stuff out of the way first: Unless you are a math (or related) major and/or coming fresh out of an exceptionally rigorous AP Calc course, do not take Calc I with Paul. Now that we have that out of the way, here's the "nitty-gritty." Paul is an exceptionally nice guy, he's very approachable, and he hasn't been grown to hate teaching yet. He really loves math (and fun dorky jokes peppered throughout his lectures). But if you don't know from experience already, mastery of a subject doesn't always mean that you can impart this knowledge in digestible terms to newcomers. The beginning of the course is a fairly comprehensive (albeit, short) review of key pre-calc and trig concepts. If you don't know them already, don't expect him to take the time to stop and explain it to you. Not only will you most likely end up more confused than you were, but you'll also be leaving less time for him to explain the heaping pile of material he crams into one period. Your best option is to scribble a note about the things you don't understand and take care of it on your own time. About that "own time," though: don't expect to have too much of it. Written homework and WebAssign problems are assigned every week. The WebAssign problems are annoying (due to the strict syntax you have to use when inputting answers), but shouldn't take you more than 2 to 3 hours, max. The written ho…

Paul is a great guy whose enthusiasm both for teaching and the material is very obvious. He moves through lecture at a pretty reasonable pace and often asks the class questions about what they think the next step in a proof might be, etc. He is always well-prepared and very organized -- over the course of the semester he typed up 50 pages of notes (updated at least weekly) that detailed nearly everything done in class (complete with proofs, examples, and exercises) and these were enormously helpful. That said, we covered a lot of material (I believe approximately Chapters 1-5, 8) in Munkres and I found the homework to be quite challenging, especially some of the Algebraic Topology at the end. Overall, though this class was probably harder and more work than I'd expected after hearing people who'd taken it previously with other professors, it was very well done and Siegel is very helpful and responsive both via email and in office hours (where he will often go through the idea of the proofs of hw problems).