| May 2021 |
DeRosa is a great person but a terrible professor. This course is way off what I expected and I learned very little from it. First of all, this course deals with very little 'quantitative' stuff. It's basically the history of finance. The is no problem set or quiz, just loads of reading on financial theories. The exams are basically mini-essays and he does not give out answers, which means you have no idea why he gives out the grade he does and has no idea how to improve. Second, he integrates too many irrelevant anecdotes in class and he has strong personal opinions on things that he expects you to agree with. A waste of time, to be honest. Third, there is no clear rubric for grading, as I mentioned. According to him, the midterm doesn't matter to the final grade if you improve a lot. However, he gives no advice on how to improve, other than going to the lectures and doing the readings. It seems that he grades the essays to his own preference. Also, the exam questions are unclear and it's hard to know what he wants from the questions. To sum up: 1) waste of lecture time on irrelevant information 2) not much quant stuff going on 3) randomness on grading 4) a LOT of reading. Maybe a little too much for a finance class. 5) No hw, just 2 exams. No exam answers are posted.
| May 2021 |
This class was taken online due to covid restrictions, so some observations might not apply during usual class setting. He's a nice guy, and he puts an effort into the class. I disagree with the other reviewer that his exams are the same as the practice exams - they were not! This class covers material that would otherwise usually be covered by two undergrad classes, so everything was kinda rushed. He did try to explain the concepts well, but most of the time they just didn't get through. He would go back and explain things again if you had questions, and there, I guess, he did a better job explaining concepts. He tells a few jokes, and most of them aren't bad. The grade was calculated using exams and HW, with a fair weighting scheme that he modified to help students' grades a bit more, and he dropped the score of two HWs. While teaching, he makes quite a few mistakes. While most professors do make mistakes, you will notice that he makes them more than the average professor. This can make the material confusing at times. He does catch most of his mistakes in class, though, and sends clarification emails. I never went to office hours or asked him questions after class, but based on some interactions in class, it seemed like he was available for answering questions during office hours. Overall, nice guy, puts an effort into the class, but you'll need to read the textbook or look for some online resources to understand some concepts properly. Exams were hard, but the grade was curved. (That might not be helpful, though, if most students are cheating on the exam and you're not.) He did try his best to minimize cheating too.
| May 2021 |
Prof Stein is a great lecturer and I often enjoyed attending class/watching the recordings. The audio quality of the lectures became quite poor in the middle of the semester, which made it difficult to follow along to what he was saying. However, he did fix this after a few weeks when students brought this to his attention on piazza. The TAs aren’t the best... I’m convinced they’re either careless or don’t fully understand the material. There were a lot of complaints about the ways TAs graded the homeworks/exams. The exams are also quite difficult. The midterm and final both only had around 4-5 main questions, with each question either requiring a nontrivial proof, algorithm or both. If you don’t study, I feel like it’d probably be hard to get anything right, since there are no “easy points or simple questions. You also really need to know your stuff and be prepared for everything, because anything from the semester could pop up on the exams. I spent almost half the time on the exams just digesting the questions before actually starting to write down anything. Not because the questions are poorly written, but because they require a lot of thought. The class was curved very generously and I did learn a good amount. Overall I enjoyed the class and would recommend taking it with Prof Stein if you’re looking to study algorithms more.
| May 2021 |
Really awful class, avoid at all costs. Unbearably boring (even for a math major like myself). The professor just read screenshots of various theorems from the textbooks the entire course. Please dont take this class unless you are required to. Professor seemed nice but didn't really care about teaching the class or the students. major F in the chat
| May 2021 |
Really awful class, avoid at all costs. Unbearably boring (even for a math major like myself). The professor just read screenshots of various theorems from the textbooks the entire course. Please dont take this class unless you are required to. Professor seemed nice but didn't really care about teaching the class or the students. major F in the chat