MATH 61
Introduction to Discrete Structures
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: courses 31A, 31B. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 180 or 184. Discrete structures commonly used in computer science and mathematics, including sets and relations, permutations and combinations, graphs and trees, induction. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
4 of 6
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2018 - This review is for MATH 31A. Take it with this professor, he explains the materials clearly and thoroughly. The concepts of this course are simple enough and he does not overcomplicate it, there are no surprise questions that are out of the scope of his lectures in the exams. Light workload with weekly homework that does not require submission and weekly 1-or-2-question-quiz except during exam week. Andrew Marks also gives out study guides prior to the exams so you'll know what to expect and prepare yourself well for it.
Winter 2018 - This review is for MATH 31A. Take it with this professor, he explains the materials clearly and thoroughly. The concepts of this course are simple enough and he does not overcomplicate it, there are no surprise questions that are out of the scope of his lectures in the exams. Light workload with weekly homework that does not require submission and weekly 1-or-2-question-quiz except during exam week. Andrew Marks also gives out study guides prior to the exams so you'll know what to expect and prepare yourself well for it.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - I really appreciated how she became more and more accommodating to people's circumstances and learning pace as the quarter progressed. She turned the weekly quizzes into SYOP where you present your own problem and solve it yourself, and is 0% or 100% only based on effort you put. You can just grab a question from the textbook (that isn't answered in the textbook) and solve it yourself, or talk about any new concept you learned or had difficulty grasping in the class. After the first midterm, she also gave extra 0.5% credit for each Zoom lecture you attend for a total addition of 5% extra credit. She really tried her best to explain the lectures clearly and you could really tell, but sometimes things can get really hard to understand especially when there is so much content to cover in 10 weeks. Sometimes, homework or test questions wouldn't even be like what was explained in class, and would have you take the extra mile to understand the lesson which I thought at first was unfair, but I guess it was cushioned by all the opportunities for leniency in other places. Overall, I enjoyed my quarter with Nina, and she is extremely friendly in Office Hours too!
Fall 2020 - I really appreciated how she became more and more accommodating to people's circumstances and learning pace as the quarter progressed. She turned the weekly quizzes into SYOP where you present your own problem and solve it yourself, and is 0% or 100% only based on effort you put. You can just grab a question from the textbook (that isn't answered in the textbook) and solve it yourself, or talk about any new concept you learned or had difficulty grasping in the class. After the first midterm, she also gave extra 0.5% credit for each Zoom lecture you attend for a total addition of 5% extra credit. She really tried her best to explain the lectures clearly and you could really tell, but sometimes things can get really hard to understand especially when there is so much content to cover in 10 weeks. Sometimes, homework or test questions wouldn't even be like what was explained in class, and would have you take the extra mile to understand the lesson which I thought at first was unfair, but I guess it was cushioned by all the opportunities for leniency in other places. Overall, I enjoyed my quarter with Nina, and she is extremely friendly in Office Hours too!
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2024 - I took this class online during the summer so it was a bit fast paced, but Ouellette did a pretty good job of covering the material. All lectures and discussions were recorded so you could always go back and rewatch them. Lectures were pretty clear, some topics were a bit confusing but the prof did a good job of breaking the material down. Lectures pretty much just follow the textbook, which actually explains things really well, so I would recommend at least skimming over it. This class may be hard if you've never seen the material before, but the textbook and lectures definitely help. Grading scheme: 25% homework, 25% MT1, 25% MT2, 25% Final. There was one homework assignment due each week with around 15 questions, which was pretty manageable. The lowest homework is dropped. Exams were all completed during lecture time on zoom with cameras and microphones on. Both midterms were 1 hour, and the final was 2 hours. Exams weren't terrible, and questions were very similar to the homework. A huge part of this class was justification, which I found quite annoying. You could show your work and get the right answer to a question, but if you didn't provide a complete justification to all parts of the problem, you would get points taken off. But overall, the class wasn't bad and Ouellette is definitely a solid professor.
Summer 2024 - I took this class online during the summer so it was a bit fast paced, but Ouellette did a pretty good job of covering the material. All lectures and discussions were recorded so you could always go back and rewatch them. Lectures were pretty clear, some topics were a bit confusing but the prof did a good job of breaking the material down. Lectures pretty much just follow the textbook, which actually explains things really well, so I would recommend at least skimming over it. This class may be hard if you've never seen the material before, but the textbook and lectures definitely help. Grading scheme: 25% homework, 25% MT1, 25% MT2, 25% Final. There was one homework assignment due each week with around 15 questions, which was pretty manageable. The lowest homework is dropped. Exams were all completed during lecture time on zoom with cameras and microphones on. Both midterms were 1 hour, and the final was 2 hours. Exams weren't terrible, and questions were very similar to the homework. A huge part of this class was justification, which I found quite annoying. You could show your work and get the right answer to a question, but if you didn't provide a complete justification to all parts of the problem, you would get points taken off. But overall, the class wasn't bad and Ouellette is definitely a solid professor.
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2020 - I took this class during summer session A 2020 (things may be different because summer + covid), but the breakdown was the better score between 20% quizzes, 30% midterm, 50% final or 20% quizzes, 15% midterm, 65% final. There were 5 quizzes total and the lowest 2 were dropped. Professor Ozel is incredibly helpful and clear. He would handwrite the notes for the entire chapter beforehand and upload them to ccle so you could follow along during lectures. His notes were organized and provided clear definitions and many examples. He was always willing to answer questions and re-explain concepts. Although there were no homework assignments, he provided a list of homework questions from the textbook that you can practice from. His quizzes and exams were fair. Overall, I really enjoyed this class, and I would definitely take professor Ozel again!
Summer 2020 - I took this class during summer session A 2020 (things may be different because summer + covid), but the breakdown was the better score between 20% quizzes, 30% midterm, 50% final or 20% quizzes, 15% midterm, 65% final. There were 5 quizzes total and the lowest 2 were dropped. Professor Ozel is incredibly helpful and clear. He would handwrite the notes for the entire chapter beforehand and upload them to ccle so you could follow along during lectures. His notes were organized and provided clear definitions and many examples. He was always willing to answer questions and re-explain concepts. Although there were no homework assignments, he provided a list of homework questions from the textbook that you can practice from. His quizzes and exams were fair. Overall, I really enjoyed this class, and I would definitely take professor Ozel again!
4 of 6
