What courses youv'e enjoyed the most?

[JSBeckton]

I guess I'm the only fan of thermodynamics...

 

[Brad Barker]

I guess I'm the only fan of thermodynamics...

i liked thermal physics. it's fun "collecting" state functions like U, H, F, and G. it's kind of like pokemon!

i also like stat mech, but maybe because it's just so much easier than my graduate quantum 2 class.

other favorites: honors physics 2 (the baby EM class) and honors modern physisc (special relativity with what is basically the quantum 1 class covered in a little over a month).

 

[mathwonk]

i stil maintain the prof makes the courtse in most cases. a "good prof" never teaches a crappy course, unless your defn of "good prof" is someone famus in the field. that is not a good prof.

one confirmation of my thesis is the example above of the student who had lazarsfeld for abstract algebra. i will warrant no noe here or anywhere else has ever had a crappy course from rob lazarsfeld. he is a student of fulton from brown,. waslater at ucla and is now at michigan, and is not just a great algebraic geometer, but a fantastic teacher who alwYS PREOPARES THOROUGHLY AND BELIEVES IN ACTUAlly geting down on the students level and giving insight into the subject.

he never blows you away with high powered stuff that conceals the phenomena. he teaches everything well and is highly in demand as a lecturer at profesional conferences because we like to understand what we are told too!

of course a good student can also make lemonade out of lemons by reading thoroughly in the book. but that is not a good course, that is a good student making do in a bad course.

in a good cousre the profesor gives much mroe than is in the book, and makes it understandable to you.

many students here seem not to realize that even the best books are usually miles behind current knowledge, and even reading a great book, cannot possibly make up for a good prof who gives you insight from his/her own grasp of the field.

if the book seems better than the prof, then the prof is probably not very good. I know I have been spoiled in this regard, by having profs like lazarsfeld, tate, mumford, bott, hartshorne, but many of you also have great profs but are not even bothering to notice it.

It is incredible that so few people here even know the names of their profs much less their bios.

Do yourself a favor, find out who is teaching the course, and choose the good ones.

and a grad student is not ncesarily a bad prof, althugh most are not too good for lack of experience.

in my school days, essentially the best physics prof was a grad student named bamberg, who is now quite well known at least for his teaching.

of course the physics dept in thoe days was famous for its terrible teaching of undergraduates and turned many of us off almost permamently to the subject.

undergrads should never put up with this attitude that a dept does bnot care about its students who are paying their salaries.

in my day too, enough of the more courageous students complained loudly enough that in the 2nd semester they gave us a good prof. i had already lost focus unfortunately by then.

the poor lecturer first semester was a famous physicist, but i unfortunately forget the excellent lecturer second semester, probably because i had foolishly stopped attending most of the time.

in psychology the famous profesors (take my word for their fame) were mostly notoriously poor profs, one for his mediocre lectures and another for his egomania and treatment of students.

a fantastic counterexample was guest lecturer named roger brown, whose bio you can look up on google. he gave the one memorable lecture in an otherwise bad course.

this course was so bad that the only other good memory i have from it was from the reading, a sure sign the prof stunk.

 

[mathwonk]

i will go further and say that one good prof can entirely change the value of your education. a student who goes to georgia and has say ted shifrin for the bulk of his undergraduate career, is getting a math education that will rival what he would get at berkeley or anywhere else.

in fact shifrin was one of the very most honored instructors at berkeley befor coming to georgia. this was a case of a grad student who taught better than the profs.

on the other hand a student who goes to harvard and takes only courses from harried inexperienced grad students, or uncaring but famous full profs, wil get the same educaton he/she could have had at any mediocre school for a fraction of the tuition money.

i recall being an undergrad at harvard, taking honors calc from tate, and comparing notes with smarter more well prepared friends who had chosen a run of the mill course from some grad student, or even famous but uninspiring prof, and thinking: gosh they are not excited at all about being at this great school. what a mistake!if learning were just about reading the book, no one would go to college and pay tuition, as the same books are available for a relative song, (compared to tuition).

if you say you got great course from a poor prof by reading the book, then you paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for an education you could have had free in the library.

you are not taking advantage of your college experience and are wasting a LOT of money.

the only thing you are getting for your money is the reading list, which you could have picked up the first day for free in my day, or online nowdays.

take a hint guys, start collecting on your huge investment of time and money.

 

[quantumdude]

At RPI:
Intermediate Mechanics I and II from Ed Brown.
Advanced Calculus from Lester Rubenfeld.
Abstract Algebra from David Schmidt.
Quantum Mechanics II and III from the late, great Nimai Mukhopadhyay.

At SUNY Albany:
Advanced Linear Algebra from Mark Steinberger.
Group Theory Seminar from Mark Steinberger.

 

[mathwonk]

wow! thanks. by the way, trivial question: is there another a on the end of Mukhopadhyay? or maybe a v? anyway i think i know this man, or someone with a very similar and long name!

no aparently there are many similar names, some having a final a, this one not. my apologies.

 

[mathwonk]

lester rubenfld looks very interesting, a top math guy and tecaher whose mathematical genealogy goes back to norbert wiener and josiah royce, and who is now especially interested in teaching young people, pre college, our most important area of educational potential.wow this is like searching out good wine, there is so much of it, and it ages and changes!

 

[quantumdude]

wow! thanks. by the way, trivial question: is there another a on the end of Mukhopadhyay? or maybe a v? anyway i think i know this man, or someone with a very similar and long name!

no aparently there are many similar names, some having a final a, this one not. my apologies.

Nimai was my former PhD thesis advisor, who I talk about in my Journal. He died before I finished. I'm too stubborn to give up on the PhD, so I returned to school last semester.

Here's a pic and bio from Physics Today:

http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-53/iss-11/p73b.html

 

[mathwonk]

fantastic! i did the same, after 4 years out teaching i went back to school and finished in another 3 years at utah in 1977, after the birth of my second child.

good luck to you tom, you clearly have the maturity and ability to finish up, i can only offer you moral support for the stamina that will also be required from you and your family, if you have one. i am sure you will be successful.i enjoyed the article on nimai, particularly the last few lines. i also benefited from contact with hindu spiritual teachers and learned the unity of all genuine religious beliefs, i.e. those that focus on spiritual growth, rather than the exclusiveness of truth to its own group.

 

[neurocomp2003]

The curriculum that a prof lays out is also apart of the course and this is what I rely on when i need to resort to learning through books because the prof is horrible(or how he teaches the subject in class, eg his voice tone)
but i require the knowledge from a topic and cannot devote time if I have to take another course to replace the course credit.

Granted Canada tuition fees are a lot cheaper than the US(oh how i really want ot go to CMU).

I'll agree with you that a great prof can almost teach anything...or at least make a good topic extraordinary. But even a good prof may not be able to make a course interesting to a student, for example I found Quantum to be boring and though Dr. Donald Sprung is a pretty good speaker...the course was still boring to me). Also I'll agree that a textbook is no replacement for a great professor but IMO is for a poor professor.

As for naming profs, I do email the good ones and tell them how much I've enjoyed their classes after the grade ofcourse regardless of it but on an open forum it doesn't really matter does it?

But if you like;

Computability Theory: Matt Valeriote
ComputerGraphics: David jones
Computational Physics: Erik Sorensen (didn't much enjoy the course but the prof was good)
Astrophysics(2): Ralph Pudritz
Analy.Mechanics: Raj Bhaduri
NeuralNets: Sue Becker
Vision: Judith Shedden
-------
Postdoc/Profs
MathBiology: C.Bauch
Proving Techniques:ZKovarik & Ray W.(wasn't actually a class but a weekly
preparation session for taking Putnam)
NeuroPsych: Bill. Gaetz (example of a class that was good but i suck at reading and did poorly), i found this profs name to be funny.

-------
Grad School
Computational Geometry: Antoine Deza (taught me to think in higher dimensions)
NeuralNets: SIMON HAYKIN (not the NNEts course i mentioned before with the postdoc)...
simon haykin is a vary influential teacher (wish i had him in undergrad.
NeuralModelling: Ian Bruce
HPC- Optimizing Intensive Code : Mark Hahn

 

[quasar987]

Out of curiosity mathwonk, I will list the math professors I had; tell me if you know any of them (They're almost all french-canadians but some studied in the US or UK)

Complex analysis - Paul Gauthier
Real analysis - Michel Delfour
Linear Algebra - Veronique Hussin
EDO - Qazi Ibadur Rahman
Applied analysis - Andrew Grainville
Analysis in R^n - Richard Duncan
Topology - Octav Cornea
Probability - Francois Perron
Differential Geometry - Iossif Polterovich
Calculus - Andre Giroux

 

[mathwonk]

i thought some people might want to try to get those same professors in class.

 

[mathwonk]

did you mean andrew granville?

andrew granvile was for years a professor at the university of georgia, where i am. i campaigned for him to receive our only chaired professorship because of his outstanding mathematics and his wonderfuly energetic and effective teaching.

he became the David Barrow Chair in mathematics, and served admirably for years before finally accepting a nice offer to return to his home country I believe of Canada.

While he was here he greatly increased and strengthened to graduate program in general and in number theory in particular.

he helped us obtain an NSF VIGRE grant, and also created our first postdoctoral program as an outgrowth of a very prestigious nationwide grant he received from NSF, one given the top young researchers in the country.

his students went from georgia to jobs at some of the best schools in the us, and he is a prime example of a professor changing the value of an education well beyond what might be expected from a state school. One of his students Ernie Croot, solved a famous open problem of Erdos, taught at Berkeley and is now tenured professor at GA Tech in Atlanta.

Andrew was an advisor to the international mathematical union on choosing speakers for the international congres and an editor of a number of the best journals, and greatly in demand as a wonderful speaker who makes the deepest questions seem natural and interesting to everyone.

We were very sorry to lose him and you are extremely lucky to have him in montreal.

 

[quasar987]

yep!

Btw, I wasn't maliciously trying to make a point, I really want to know if you know any of them.

 

[mathwonk]

i didnt understand any possible way your post could have been malicious. i am happy to learn about these people. check out my revised discussion of granville above.

 

[quasar987]

As a teacher, I did not enjoy him very much. I stopped going to the lecture before the midterm when I realized he wasn't going to say anything that wasn't in the book. The subjects he was teaching was (rigorous) Fourier series/integrals theory and Sturm-Liouville theory... Maybe he wasn't that motived by the subject, being like you say, a number theorist.

But his exams reflect some of what you're saying about his ideas regarding teaching. For instance, one of the question in the midterm was "Explain how Fejer's Kernal is important." and the question in the final worth the most point was we could choose from 4 different questions. 3 were typical questions involving proving/rederiving results seen in class, but the 4th was "Write an essay on a topic of the course that interest you (provide many mathematical formulae)"

 

[mathwonk]

it may be that he wanted to learn this subject by teaching it, and hence was a little off his usual very strong game. i would recommend taking him again though in any form of number theory.

i am glad his teaching philosophy did come through somewhat.

 

[Cod]

Calc-Based Physics I

It was the first physics course I took in college and it is definitely the class I enjoyed the most over my college career. My professor made it interesting and fun while keeping it professional and scientific. Also, after taking the class is when I switched my major to physics (goes to show the impact it had on me).

 

[mathwonk]

try to remember that professors name, as it is crucial to your development.

 

[Cod]

try to remember that professors name, as it is crucial to your development.

There's no trying to it, I'll never forget his name. It was Dr. Russ Patrick at Southern Polytechnic State University in Georgia.

 

[gravenewworld]

mathematical logic & computability theory
abstract algebra and field theory
organic chemistry
advanced macroeconomics (you actually get to learn real econ in this class)
game theory
mathematical economics
biochemistry
intro to spanish I
lol and women's literaturehated any analysis course with a passion. i used to be really good at algebra and logic though.

 

[neurocomp2003]

gravenworld? what is/was your major?
math+biochem+bus? or mathbiocehm

 

[gravenewworld]

gravenworld? what is/was your major?
math+biochem+bus? or mathbiocehm

Major: chemistry and mathematics
minor: economics

 

[mathwonk]

the lesson of a lifetime of learning and struggling, is that all these subjects are potentially fascinating. the only way to be bored by them is to have a poor teacher.

never give up on the possibility of eventually becoming magnetized by them.

none of us is so fortunate as to be able to ignore the importance of analysis, or physics, or algebra.

 

[robphy]

my relativity courses ( various levels [undergrad, grad, indep-study, sat-in-on] ) taught by Mould, Balasz, van Nieuwenhuizen, Wald, Geroch, Malament, Ashtekar, Sorkin, Mundy )... each professor enlightened me with unique viewpoints on the subject.

 

[mathwonk]

young people, notice the experts here have taken advantage of many many learning experiences and teachers.

 

[leon1127]

Analysis - Ozvath, although he is getting old. I wish I have him when he was younger, then I would have ask a lot more questions.
Vector Calculus - Ramakrishna. He was the first professor of mine who did not follow the standard topics and teach the course entirely from differential forms.
Applied Maths - Ramakrishna. In this course, he basically taught from books. But since he uses those results a lot he gave personal insight about topics.

 

[brendank]

my favorite courses that I have had so far are in order:

1) Modern Physics
2) Fluid Mechanics
3) Thermodynamics

 

[PhysicsHigh]

i enjoyed the article on nimai, particularly the last few lines. i also benefited from contact with hindu spiritual teachers and learned the unity of all genuine religious beliefs, i.e. those that focus on spiritual growth, rather than the exclusiveness of truth to its own group.

I like too

 

[Caramon]

Honours Calculus I (Math), The Ancient World (Classics), Metaphysics (Philosophy), Epistemology (Philosophy), Philosophy of Space and Time (Philosophy), Introductory Particle Physics (Physics), Physical Cosmology (Astrophysics), Special Projects (Physics Research)