course
Calculus 3

Take this class with Andrew! He makes the workload very digestible and structures his class very well. This was the online covid format so his midterms were MCQs and he let us take 2 attempts in case something went wrong in the first one. As someone who had a relatively heavy workload in Calc 1, this class seemed super light and amazing!

BEST MATH CLASS AT COLUMBIA

Professor Abbott is incredible. She is the best math teacher I have ever had, and certainly by far the best I've had at Columbia. Each lecture is clear, structured, and organized, which I appreciated as someone with significant organizational challenges - because of this, I could spend my time outside of class studying the information the way she taught it instead of trying to learn it through YouTube like I've had to do with other Columbia math classes. When introducing a concept, she usually defines it, proves it, and provides example(s), so I walked away from lectures both understanding the concept AND how to apply it. She's really good about responding to emails in a timely manner (once I emailed her on the weekend, not expecting a response until Monday but she replied later that day!). She's also so kind and understanding. If you don't understand something, just go to her office hours, and I guarantee you will leave understanding it. She doesn't condescend to you for not immediately grasping a concept, and will explain it in a million different ways until it clicks for you. The exam averages were really high, not because the material is easy, but because the professor is phenomenal and doesn't unnecessarily complicate things. If you are taking calc III, please please take it with Prof Abbott. I learned so much in this class without any mental anguish, which is what college should be about.

Don't take Savin's class unless you have no other option. He's very smart (as expected), but not good at teaching students who aren't at his level. He often seems exasperated when students ask him clarifying questions or make casual errors during demonstrations. The concepts/problems Savin covers in his lectures and homework (taken directly from the textbook) are also NOTHING compared to the exams he makes. On multiple occasions, many other students and I were simply unable to answer questions because we didn't know what the hell we're looking at. This is an example of Savin assuming students can do the same mental gymnastics that he does. The average grades on both midterms were in the 60s (I can't remember what the final was). I left Savin's class with a general understanding of differentiating multivariable functions and calculating gradient vectors, which I suppose means that Savin did his job. However, that doesn't mean the process wasn't unnecessarily obtuse and arduous.