Operational Calculus
Partial Diffey
Intermediate Diffey
CS 228
CS 328

If anyone would like to share their experiences in these, I'd be appreciative.

~calcninja

Fuck 228. In the ass. Supposed to be hella easy (still is difficulty-wise) and this new homework has taken multiple hours because of the length.

Who did you have it with? When I took it with Wilkerson, it was easy as pie, including the homework. I think I missed maybe one or two points the entire semester with relatively little effort. Granted, that was probably 3 years ago, so times may have changed.

Anyway, back to the original poster... CS328 with Price was one of the best classes I've had. He can be a bit of a hardass, but I learned a lot from him. Plus, he's all-around a pretty cool guy once you get to know him.

Partial Diffeq was one of only 3 Bs I earned during my undergrad... and I had to struggle pretty hard to earn that. I had it with Dwilivitch (or something like that). He has some policies that are kind of strict, but overall still pretty fair. That was a busy semester for me though, so if you're pretty strong in Math, you might have better luck than I did. Plus, I think Dwiviliwhatever is on sabbatical, so they might have someone else teaching it.

Btw... CS/Math dual major?

I think Price and Ercal teach 228 now and they are both way more difficult thatn Wilkerson was. Easy A with Wilkerson, but I hear a few people say that the class now requires a lot of work. But wilkerson teaches OS now so maybe that got easier.

I know a couple of guys in CS228 with Ercal and all they do is bitch about it, it seems to be rather retarded class in general.

Nah, straight up math needing to get some requirements out of the way.

Math 303 (Math Modeling) was lame but not too difficult when it was taught by Herring. I've heard he's retiring though, so I don't know who might be teaching it. It could be a really good class if it had the right instructor.

I never got around to taking combinatorics, but I've heard good things about it. Same for modern algebra.

If you need a stat class, Stat 343 with Dr. Sam was pretty good.

I was a CS/Math dual major in my undergrad days.

I took CS228 with Wilkerson. Wilkerson makes any class easy. Back then it was all about learning algorithms to do optimization, calculus, and linear algebra and the effects of hardware limitations on your computations.

CS328 took these topics farther in general and specifically in C++. CS328 also teaches you about architectural design for software and mathematics. Over the course of the semeseter you will create a library to efficiently (minimize memory and computations) perform matrix computations. CS328 with price is no cake walk but it's not overly difficult either. Price actually cares that you understand the material so he might seem strict on some things. CS328 is one of the best classes I've had.

Taking CS 228 with Price and it's pretty tough. Wilkerson must be really lax because I would never characterize Price as 'easy'.

Took PDE with Akin-Bohner and it was pretty cool. But I'm a Math major. IMO PDE was easier than ODE in some ways because PDEs are so complicated that you can memorize the equations or very simple methodologies that are required to solve them because PDEs are often only analytically solvable under very specific and limited circumstances. ODEs can be solved a lot more flexibly than PDEs so you have to learn more complicated techniques to cover multiple cases. PDEs don't work that way.

One thing that drives a lot of people away from PDE though is that you have to learn stuff from complex analysis to understand some of the solution methods.

Ive got 228 with ercal right now. The class isn't that hard, all he does in lecture is go through the slides(which are all on his website if you care to take a look). The first test was a bit of a bitch, but I managed a B. Because everyone was so upset with it he was thinking of making the next one open-everything. This semester is the first time ercal has taught 228 so maybe next semester will be better.

Did ercal do his usual test bank? I've heard from some people that really like ercal ... but in reality it seems like all he does is show up to class and read slides to us (I'm in CS387, but I've heard this happens in 284 and now 228). He gets really excited about what he's teaching, but is really really unprepared - in 387 he usually has to figure stuff out or think about it for a while then he'll start talking again (that, or look through the slides and his website till he finds the answer, at which point he's usually lost the class). It should be noted that the slides are usually whatever the textbook publisher provides (and therefore really out of date for most CS classes). I don't see much of a point in paying attention during class because I don't like his teaching style and I feel like I'm learning more from doing the programs than anything else in that class.. dunno if he bases the rest of his classes around an outdated and irrelevant network topology though...

In short, I'm not taking 228 next semester because I don't want to have an 8:00 class (even if it's Wilkerson), and I don't want to take it at 9:30 with ercal.

228 is easy as shit with Ercal. He drags about 10 minutes worth of material out across an entire period. If you understand like... geometry and have taken linear algebra it'll be a cakewalk.

He didn't give a bank for the first test, but if you just wrote down the main equations and threw them on your crib sheet you were set.

I wouldn't say he's unprepared, I think it's just that for the classes I've had him in (284 and 228) it's not really his deal. But then again, you're saying the same stuff about him in 387 which is supposed to be his deal, so...

I'd probably put him as average. I've definitely had a lot worser profs than him at UMR.