professor
Matt Deland

I highly disagree with the previous comment. Matt was a dedicated teacher, put into a difficult situation because of the range of student-ability in the class and the fast paced summer schedule. Nevertheless, he had office hours every day and was always willing to meet at other times and discuss problems. The tests were fair in the sense that many of the problems were similar to the homeworks assigned with one or so problem more challenging. All in all I felt I walked away appreciating linear algebra and would recommend taking a course from Matt.

Truly horrendous experience. He is not interested at all in teaching. He copies his own notes on the board quickly, mostly in theorem-proof-theorem-proof-theorem-proof mode (obscurely, and he often screws up on the board too), and then gives you quizzes and exams that have nothing to do with what he talked about, or even with the contents of the textbook!!!. He marks no transitions, and he makes no emphasis on important points or essential contents. And he doesn't allow formula sheets on exams either. As a result, the grading of homework, quizzes and exams is absolutely unfair, so not only will you learn nothing from his class, but your GPA will suffer unduly. Any resemblance between teaching (even bad teaching) and what he does in a classroom is entirely coincidental. I am truly amazed that he is allowed to teach independently at Columbia. The worst is I actually was very interested and excited to learn linear algebra. I guess I'll have to buy the Schaum's Outline...

Oh Matt, what can I say about Matt? Matt is really smart and really sweet. His lectures are really easy to understand and he's always available for office hours if you need help.