Timothy Perutz

Professor Perutz was generally clear and easy to understand in lecture. My math background is shaky at best and I thought he did a good job of covering the framework of a complex concept; there's just not enough class time to go through everything. I found that a combination of lectures, textbook readings, and practice problems usually brought the point across to me. Professor Perutz did a great job of taking and answering questions too. Never went to office hours, but I heard he was very helpful. Now for the exams. They were HARD. I guess they are that way to ensure that you study for the test, and in my experience there is no way to get around cramming for exams in this class. His test questions were mostly conceptual, not "plug in the numbers" autopilot problems. Test questions often didn't even resemble sample test questions. Needless to say, many people technically did not pass the tests. He curved scores generously, but its not a good idea to rely on them. Overall, I would say the class is great for someone who wants a good explanation of what they're reading in the textbook. I can't learn math from a book alone and Tim helped tremendously. I found it worth the effort.

Professor Perutz is a classy guy and a great teacher. Don't get me wrong, I did really badly on the first midterm (it was curved to a B, but still) and I had to work really hard for the rest of the semester. But I challenged myself by taking this course and learned a lot. I had found Calculus II as well as AP Calculus A/B very easy and manageable and had to put in a lot of work in this class to do well. But it was definitely worth it. It's not Perutz's fault that Calc III is so hard: it's weird visualizing stuff that you're probably not used to. Go to office hours and put in effort and you'll be fine. Perutz is a great teacher.

Taking his class is a bad idea. It really bothers me how so many people right great reviews about him and if I read those before hand I would have chosen to take his class. You guys need to pay attention to this review. I am a very good math student. In high school I had amazing grades in Precalculus and Calculus 1 and I retook Calculus 1 in my first semester and got an A-. I decided to take Calculus 3 with Perutz because I thought I could do well but wow was I wrong. Calculus 3 was such a huge change from calculus one and perutz doesnt give you midterms that are questions that appear in the textbook when you are doing your homework. He requires you to think outside the box on the spot during midterms with very difficult and long problems. If you cant figure out the first part you cannot do the rest of the question and it is horrifying. A majority of the class failed the first midterm but there was a curve which I guess is the only good thing about this class so far. If it weren't for the curve more than 50% of the class would fail given the numbers he gave us for the first midterm. Please just run away from Perutz and Calculus 3, calculus 3 is a big shock to kids like me who were great math students. I thought calc was just do your homework and youll be solid gold for the test, THIS IS NOT THE CASE! well for perutz at least.

very hard to understand his points. spends a lot of time drawing diagrams, which albeit are incredible and look computer-generated, really did not help me when it came to the exams. Likes to put difficult questions in exams, and he admits that he will put a question on the exam that we haven't necessarily covered during class- he wants to use this as a way to distinguish the stars. caused me too much stress, even though I put a lot of effort into this class. a nice guy, and the grade gets curved immensely. but it doesn't feel good to settle the default ivy-league curved B.

Prof. Perutz is a decent and fair teacher. He writes most of what he's talking about on the black board and requires that we are only responsible for what he has taught in class. Having said that, however, I learned most of the material from the textbook (the standard calculus book that everyone uses.) Perhaps it is not entirely his fault (calculus isn't exactly the most interesting material) but I would always have to go back and read the text and do the examples to be able to do the homework assignment. But again - he's a fair guy. He doesn't test you on material he hasn't covered in class and doesn't give you obscure, ridiculously long and hard questions on the midterms/final. I would go with Prof. Perutz if you're taking the class for the Econ requirement. Don't worry about who your TA is for this class - it seems like Perutz does most of (if not all of) the grading (he's good about grading too - he returned the midterms within a week and had the final grades posted the day we took it.)

He was a really good professor, and he was always available to help. The class itself was not too hard (actually the first part was the hardest, it got gradually easier as the semester went on). I would highly recommend Professor Perutz for any math class.

If you have to take Calc III, take it with this professor! After reading other reviews about how horrible the other professors were, I decided to take the class with Perutz and never regretted it! He writes down everything he says on the board, and he tries to explain everything in as simple terms as possible. There was weekly homework, and sometimes it was pretty complicated or took a while, but not impossible. The tests were also fairly easy, and they were all given pretty generous curves. The most important thing for me was that I feel like I actually learned the subject well. And as a professor, Perutz is very approachable and does his best to answer any questions you have. Although the class isn't a guaranteed B or whatever, you WILL learn what you're supposed to, and Perutz teaches in such a way that the information is fairly easy to understand, so it's not hard to get an A. I highly recommend this class.

I love this class and this professor. Tim Perutz is really really nice guy and cares so much for his students. He's a little timid but is much more confident when explaining mathematics. If you've done research on him, you'll see he's written on some pretty brilliant topics. Even so, he's still really excited to teach what is probably amazingly boring for him. He wants everyone to do well. Definitely take this class, utilize his office hours if you need to. I'm taking his ODE class next semester.

so, Tim as we like to call him, is BY FAR the worst math teacher at Columbia. He is incapable of speaking in front of a classroom, he spends his whole class stuttering, and if you try to ask him a question, good luck, you're not getting any answer. He is extremely boring, repeats himself most of the time, and no, the English accent is NOT cute and sexy. Please do not take a class with this guy, he will most probably eradicate all interest you have in math.

Perutz is good. He does stutter a bit, but overall, his lectures are coherent and he really does aim to please. He offers 2 or 3 office hours throughout the week, and I've been several times. They're extremely helpful, he's good at making things clearer. Very amiable and greets me by name. A solid professor that I would recommend with no reservations.