Xiaobo Liu

Xiaobo was a great Calc III teacher. He made sure to teach everything in the book and everything that would be on the hw. His lectures actually do apply to the hw. HW was also not hard and the worst scores are dropped. Take him for Calc III for sure! In my class he even gave extra credit on the final cause on of the midterms was hard.

Pretty decent professor. If you took him for Calc III, his teaching style is still the same. He teaches straight from the book as the other reviews have already mentioned.... so a bit boring. He goes at a good pace as well. You never really feel overwhelmed during lecture. Be warned of some differences though. For Calc IV, he posts practice problems that no longer reflect the midterms or final 100% i.e. It ISN'T like Calc III in which the practice exams were exactly the same as the real exams expect different numbers. So... be prepared for that. But as long as you know how to do the homework and the practice exam problems, you should be fine for the exams. Oh... btw... he has a Facebook, so add him for extra credit! jk, but I thought it's cool that he has a Facebook.

WORST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, worst professor/ teacher i have ever had! yes the man is brilliant, and yes he is famous but he still doesn't know how to teach. maybe its a language barrier!!!if you want to learn don't take his class. you will pass but you wont learn anything you didn't already know or taught yourself. all he does is regurgitate the book and when asked to go further into detail or explain something ( other than word for word) he just gives a blank stare and smile. again, this is where the language problem comes in. in my opinion he's a nice but but horrible teacher and can't explain things well. unfortunately, if you aren't like most of columbia and haven't taken up to calc 3 in high school, he's not the professor for you. get used to hours upon hours at the math lab and meetings with ta. although, you will probably be happy with your grade just wait till you get to calc 2& 3. the whole point of taking calc 1 is to have a good foundation not just pass a class. thank goodness the people at the math lab.... oh and don't, if you make the first mistake, no matter how tempting take him again. when you finally do switch professors your grade book is in for it

Really found the guy not to be a good teacher at all. I scraped through the class by memorising the practice exams. This wasn't all his fault, as I had been misadvised by my program director, who told me it was an ideal course to take alongside Calc 1 (Calc 3 is a pre-requisite) I agree with the other poster regarding the obnoxious student, he was a class A prick

Professor Lu is a fine professor. The course material is kind of dry, but Lu handles it well. He's laid back and helpful when writing the final paper. A very nice guy and very engaging.

Professor Liu teaches straight from the book, often using book example problems as his class lesson. His lessons are relatively boring, but will basically ensure that you can do the homework. His accent is not difficult to understand and some of his mistakes are quite amusing. The exams are based on specific book problems, so if you do the homework, you'll likely do well on exams. The sample exams help even more, since problems are exactly like the exams, though be careful and don't become too focused on any version of a specific problem.

Weekly problem sets, 2 manageable midterms, and a very fair final. Workload is medium to low relative to other Calc IV sections. Take this guy if you get the chance!

I highly recommend you to take this guy if you have taken Calc already in highschool, and is being a lazy bum by taking it again. Although he is not a good lecturer (you tend to fall asleep in his classes), he is a very fair and lenient grader. His midterms/finals are very similar to his sample exams, so do the sample exams and you should be fine. The exams themselves are not difficult and the curve is generous. His accent isn't that bad (I mean, all the math profs are foreign anyway) and nothing beats his grading system. Final Word: take Xiaobo for calc!!

Prof. Liu comes prepared to class with clear notes and only a very slight accent you get over by the end of the first lecture. He seems quite shy and many times fails to understand the simple questions from the students. In general, not a difficult class at all...although I'm not too sure how much I actually learned from it. He solely focuses on the methods and completely ignores the applications of Linear Algebra. Many times he fails to give clear instructions on his homework assignments whenever he decides to modify them resulting in a horrible homework average. For once I relied on the exams to get a decent grade. Basically, go to class the second half of the semester to get certain concepts clarified and make sure to memorize the practice midterms/final since they are pretty much exactly like the actual exams.

Weekly responses to the readings, not a big deal, and a final paper... like any colloquium.