Just noticed that there are no reviews on MacInsiders for these two classes. Can someone help me out, and put a review. Thx

Ya so ... these are actually new classes this year, so i don't find it surprising that there aren't any reviews ... especially for 2zz3 as we are all still taking it. I would of said take a look for reviews for the previous second year engineering math classes (2m03 and 2mm3, or 2po4 and 2qo4 i think) but i can't seem to find reviews for them either lol

and sorry for the lack of help lmao

both of these classes make me cry at night

http://www.math.mcmaster.ca/~bprotas/MATH2Z03/
http://www.math.mcmaster.ca/~bprotas/MATH2ZZ3/

2Z03 was sorta fun, 2ZZ3 boring imo.

Whatever you do, learn MATLAB early and make sure you brush up on the basics.

Originally Posted by rcrw88

both of these classes make me cry at night

Really? I'm kinda excited because 40% of the marks are based on programming, which happens to be my forte.

Originally Posted by lmasud

Really? I'm kinda excited because 40% of the marks are based on programming, which happens to be my forte.

I'm just not a maths person; the scripting is based off the course material and isn't too hard to get near perfect on the stuff if you work at it.

Lol. Comp. eng dont have 2zz3, but i can comment on 2z03.

Terrible. Protas is terrible at teaching it, and 100%, you will not have 40% worth on matlab since he knows people just cheat. If your lucky, it will be 30%, maybe even 20 or 25. His tests are unfair, that is, if you do the homework, your still not going to get a good mark guarunteed, because he pulls questions we thought we'd never see.

I know for sure they will reevaluate matlab, maybe even change the type of assignments for it aswell, because honestly, they are giving people a free 30% or 40% to ones who just COPY and paste. literally.

Originally Posted by blackdragon

I know for sure they will reevaluate matlab, maybe even change the type of assignments for it aswell, because honestly, they are giving people a free 30% or 40% to ones who just COPY and paste. literally.

Well, I'm taking it over summer, so they might not change it for now. Btw, anyone willing to sell their book to me?

Here's how the marking scheme should have been:
20% Matlab
40% Two tests
40% Exam

I came up with that in 5 seconds. His marking scheme is ridiculous and probably the reason why the term 2 assignments are so much harder and the last test was made for the purpose of violating all the engineers. I'm sure he got complaints first term for the fact that matlab was worth 40% and people got high marks from it.

Is protas the only prof that writes the test? Does anyone know if he'll teach summer school?

MATH 2Z03 I found pretty straight forward. Just do the homework and you'll be fine.

MATH 2ZZ3 on the other hand we got sorta f'ed since Protas felt the average for the class was to 'high' so the second midterm was brutal and the average was ~45%. The material itself I did not find very interesting at all and imo was more difficult to grasp than the stuff in 2Z03.

Anyways you may think 40% for MATLAB is awesome but in reality these assignments take hours and are sometimes kinda ridiculous in difficulty. I love programming too especially in MATLAB it was just the amount of time you had to spend on the assignments...

Are you guys still not primed for the insanely difficult test/exam to avoid bellcurving downwards?
That's one you might as well get used to now.

So Childs isn't teaching 2ZZ3 anymore? He used to be the one to write most of those midterms and exams.

We'll see how 2ZZ3 is eventually. I screwed up on 2MM3, not too sure how I failed it since vector calc. used to be a strong point for me.

I would rather not have tests worth 40%. Unless they are still doing 4 tests...
probably better would be: 25% A, 35% M, 40% E

McLean also said he was sick of teaching 2nd year math

And yeah, the matlab assignments were really hard and time consuming.. which is why i guess 95% of people just "aquired" it.

no 2ZZ3 ftw

Originally Posted by Colin

... the average was ~45%.

Heh, it was actually 38%. I think like 3 people got above 13/18 out of the ~700 in the course. He was ecstatic to hear how badly we ****ed up afterward too.

There is almost no point in writing reviews for these two classes. They are yet again going under massive revisions from what I hear, so next year will probably be completely different.

Anyway, yes, Protas (and almost every Polish prof I've ever had to be honest) sucks ass at teaching. His style is read from the textbook, so obviously, it's easier to just not go to class and read the textbook on your own. Our matlab assignments are so difficult because:

a) That's what Protas is here "researching"

and

b) A lot of people cheated on the assignments last semester (probably around 80% of the people enrolled in the course) so Protas got pissed and decided to ass rape us this semester. He also implemented really intense searching for cheaters. Nearly a tenth of level 2 engineering got academic dishonesty on our first one for 2ZZ3 from what I hear.

In my opinion, the coverage of the course also makes no sense. How the hell are you supposed to understand Gauss' theorem with only one 1 hour lecture on it?

The course is stupid... a whole bunch of unrelated maths jumbled together in a confusing mass.

I wish someone would just friggin realize IT MAKES NO SENSE TO HAVE THE MATH DEPARTMENT TEACH THE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT. The math department has no idea what we do and do not have to learn for engineering, so instead they try to make this confusing sampler of everything.

Luckily, one of my friends went to the dean and Protas will not be the course coordinator anymore next year due to a massive number of complaints. So hopefully they'll get it right for those coming into second year engineering in the future.

/rant

Also, I heard that first year math for engineering is going to be switched back to the original system next year (3 maths rather than two). Anyone know if this rumor is true?

Yep, it's gonna be 1ZA3, 1ZB3, and 1ZC3