Instructor

Shyamprasad Karagadde

Semester

Autumn ‘21

Course Difficulty

Moderate to easy in the start. It becomes moderate towards the end of the semester with new techniques creeping in.

Time Commitment Required

Moderate. A weekly brush-up is enough to get a broader idea how the course is being progressed.

Grading Policy and Statistics

Lenient. Nearly 50% of the students were given AB or above in Autumn ‘21.

Attendance Policy

Although the professor doesn’t check for attendance, it is expected that you give 70% of the attendance because of the random short quizzes. If you are in the class, he expects you to pay full attention and starts asking questions randomly to the attendees.

Pre-requisites

Not really, the professor covers everything from basics.

Evaluation Scheme

The assignments were supposed to be done in groups of 3-4 and carried a weightage of 30%. The quizzes along with some in-class short quizzes (kind of 5 minute surprise quizzes) carried 30% weightage. Mid and end semester exams were given 20% each. It was a bit easier to score as the heavy weightage is not given to single exams like mid or end semester but rather was distributed throughout the semester in the form of quizzes/assignments.

Topics Covered in the Course

Course starts with a revision on vector calculus and proceeds towards Linear Algebra with 2-3 new topics like eigenvalues, diagonalization and least squares fit of data apart from the topics covered in first year Linear Algebra course. Later into the semester, we encounter ODEs, Sturm-Liouville Boundary Value Problems, Partial Differential Equations and integral transforms (Fourier Sine and Cosine, Laplace transforms, etc.).

Teaching Style

Professor Karagadde writes notes live while teaching in the class and uploads the recorded videos and hand-written digital notes. He covers all the topics from basics so that no one feels difficulty in catching up.

Tutorials/Assignments/Projects

There are very frequent assignments. Sometimes it feels too hectic and also difficult to solve. But since the assignments are to be submitted in groups, the final time commitment we feel towards the end is not much.

Feedback on Exams

Quizzes are almost straight forward ones based on the methods that sir teaches. For mid and end semester exams, sir might give questions based on some different techniques that he narrates in the class but not write in the notes.

Course Highlights

Sir’s teaching style. He is very calm and clarifies even the smallest of the doubts.

Course Importance

To stay in the engineering field, the techniques taught in the course will be of great importance for any course that involves some math and going towards research.

How strongly would I recommend this course?

If you like doing math so much, I would definitely recommend this course. If not also, it would be helpful for most of the other electives.

When to take this course?

I took the course in my 9th semester. I feel 6th-7th semester would be ideal for taking this course.

Review By: Prathik Reddy