[Mahratta]

I noticed that there weren't any reviews for 2nd-year math courses, so...

This course is the successor to math 1B03, but is somewhat more geared towards math majors than its predecessor. It starts off by defining the idea of a vector space (in a more concrete fashion than the junky axiom-list given in 1B03) and goes on to examine complex vector spaces. My professor (Dr. Hart) did mention the "taboo" ideas of underlying algebraic structures, but that's not guaranteed.
We went on to cover inner product spaces and properties of linear transformations. The particular topic of similarity then led into the primary focus of the course, diagonalisation and its various applications to differential equations, quadratic forms, quartic surfaces, genetics, and population dynamics.

The course is something of a transition between the computationally-based 1B03 and higher courses in algebra. Proof (usually by 'definition-chasing', as Mowicz calls it) was the primary focus in lecture. The online assignments were all computation, while the tests were usually ~60% computation-style and ~40% definition-chasing / derivations. Tests were fair, and generously marked.

Dr. Hart was excellent. His style of lecturing was great, and he threw in lots of interesting remarks. If you've got a chance to take a class with him, I highly recommend that you do so. The TA (Chris) was also good. Tutorials were a bit dry, but he's great in-person.

Overall, I found the course interesting in terms of topics, but wasn't particularly fond of the computational aspects (necessary because of the textbook and the nature of 1B03). The marking scheme:

20% assignments
15%*2 midterms
50% final

cool, I'm taking this course during the summer but they haven't announced who is going to teach it.

Originally Posted by Eternal Fire

cool, I'm taking this course during the summer but they haven't announced who is going to teach it.

It should be pretty easy - are you planning on taking 2S as well? I highly recommend it if you're interested in so-called 'pure' math, although it is quite a jump from 2R.

Originally Posted by Mahratta

It should be pretty easy - are you planning on taking 2S as well? I highly recommend it if you're interested in so-called 'pure' math, although it is quite a jump from 2R.

They don't offer 2S03 during this summer, but I'll definitely try it out at some point. Hopefully next school year if I don't have a timetable that is too overwhelming.

I see that 2R is a prerequisite for both 2S and 2T, do these courses have similar content? are they different in difficulty?

Originally Posted by Eternal Fire

They don't offer 2S03 during this summer, but I'll definitely try it out at some point. Hopefully next school year if I don't have a timetable that is too overwhelming.

I see that 2R is a prerequisite for both 2S and 2T, do these courses have similar content? are they different in difficulty?

2S and 2T are supposed to give you a taste of 'pure' and 'applied' mathematics, respectively. The content is very different. 2S is nearly entirely theoretical (I've posted a review on it) while 2T is nearly entirely computational. I haven't taken 2T, but I do know that you learn about the applications of linear algebra, so it's a great course to take if you're planning on co-op or something.

I think they should be similarly difficult. Both courses are meant to be more difficult than the mainstays (i.e. 2X/2XX and 2C), and you'll be introduced to pure and applied mathematics as it really is for the first time, unless you've looked ahead.

Im not a math major but took 1B03 and it was very interesting.
Im thinking of taking this course in the summer.

Would you still recommend me of taking this course?

Originally Posted by milkproject

Im not a math major but took 1B03 and it was very interesting.
Im thinking of taking this course in the summer.

Would you still recommend me of taking this course?

Yeah, definitely. 2R gives you the fundamental ideas of linear algebra without being a 'real' math course (what I mean by that is that you won't get too many proofs). It should make the 1B material make a lot more sense, since 1B really masked linear algebra.

You'll make the transition from seeing linear algebra as the study of matrices to seeing it as the study of vector spaces and linear transformations.

For a person who's not the best at math, but by no means mathematically inept - someone slightly above average - would this be a difficult course? or would it require a looot of effort to do well in?

^ Yeah...And will most of the information stem off of new concepts or be more of a continuation of the concepts learned in 1B03?

I am slightly confused as to whether I should take 2R03 or 2X03? I am good at the calculus level math but not soo much in the Vector space and 3D stuff so which one focuses less on the vector space level and more on numbers and differenciating...the thing is 2X03 is a calculus course but when I went to first class it was a total THEORY lecture about vector space ...so I am really confused now as to which one to take..

Anyone got any suggestions? Thanks in advance

IF HARADA IS TEACHING THE COURSE, RUN FAR AWAY, FAR FAR AWAY

But seriously though, she over complicates things and is very condescending, unless you're willing to deal with that stay far away and take it when a different prof teaches it.

Prof: Dr. Sawyer

Written Assignments: 10% (top 5 of 7)
Midterm: 20%
Optional Quizzes (2): (10% each for a total of 20%)
Exam: Remaining %

Optional quizzes meant that you had the option of handing in the quiz or not. If you hand it in, the quiz is worth 10%. If you don't hand it in, that weighting got pushed to the exam. So for those who MSAFed the midterm and decided not to hand in either of the two quizzes would be faced with a 90% exam which was very risky.

I did not like Dr. Sawyer. His teaching is really confusing. I feel like he tries to compensate for this by making his tests/exams a bit easier by making the questions mostly revolve around the "easier topics" and by making it of the format "Do x of the following y questions. If more questions are attempted, the first x will be marked". However, the markers were absolutely brutal and very, very picky. The first midterm was all first year material and even then, the average was about a 60. This is our second course in linear algebra and our first course where we're attempting more rigorous proofs but the markers don't seem to understand that and still grill us on every small detail. Marking scheme for the midterm was ambiguous. For example, there was a question worth 10 marks that had 3 parts and you'd expect that each part would be worth a similar amount, but no. There was no set amount of marks for each part, it was just left up to the discretion of the marker and I ended up asking for clarification for where I lost marks and the prof said "I don't know". Then I brought up the fact that I lost 5 of the possible 10 marks for some silly mistake and I felt that was not justified since that's basically half the question's worth and he said he would not challenge the TA and that unless the TA wrote something that was incorrect, he would not do anything about it. Not only this but when I was talking him, he kept moving as if he was in a hurry to get lunch or something and I found it very disrespectful as if he wasn't even paying attention to what I was saying.

Assignments were very difficult (in my opinion, too difficult). Majority of the assignment questions were proofs and I ended up having to google almost all of the questions because I had no idea how to start these proofs and it's kind of hard to receive help on proofs without the person helping you doing the entire proof. I wish that we had done more proofs together as a class so that we could practice together and talk it out. There were very few calculation questions in the assignments and so it was easy to fall behind in the homework because you didn't need to do many textbook problems (if any at all). This prof also didn't really use the textbook. He wrote his own whole book for linear algebra. Impressive but not that helpful as most parts were pretty confusing on its own.

I did not like how the timing of topics was spread out in this course. We practically spent the entire first two months (Sept to the end of Oct) doing revision of first year material. Then starting November to the first 2 weeks of December, the material was just coming on way too fast and he was not spending enough time on the topics. He even started making those powerpoint slides and was skimming through everything so quickly. It was just way too much coming at once.

The TA was not the best. I felt like he didn't really put himself in our shoes. This was really our first course in linear algebra that we started to prove some more rigorous proofs and he would always say that he looked at the profs notes and found them confusing and would then give us an alternate way of proving the proof. But his way always ended up being the "smart" way where he would make some kind of clever lemma/substitution that someone at our level would never think of and then proceed from there. So basically we had a confusing prof and a TA who did things at too high of a complexity for a first course in proofs. He said that we would eventually need to start thinking like real mathematicians and making these clever lemmas/substitutions but one does not make these things without proper prior exposure and practice with lots and lots of proofs!!! He's a grad student for crying out loud, of course he has the exposure!!!

The exam seemed pretty fair. Most of the questions were standard textbook/assignment problems. However, calculating backwards from the mark that I received with the mark that I went in with, I did very very poorly on the exam which really shocked me. I don't like to make excuses but for some reason I have a strong feeling that the markers were once again being very very picky with the marking and most likely a correct answer was not "fully" correct unless accompanied with everything that the marker wanted for that question. It was of the format "choose 5 of the 7 questions". Each question was worth 20 marks for a total of 100 marks. Not all questions were of the same difficulty or length either. Marking was most likely similar to the midterm where the number of marks allotted was left up to the discretion of the TA.

In summary, there were many things wrong with this course. The prof, the way things were taught, the time spent on certain topics, the assessments, the TA's teaching style and the markers' unkindness.