Professor
Seth Putterman
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - I just want to point out the other review sounds kind of AI-generated. I would say Professor Putterman mostly goes through derivations from the textbook (Griffith's) pretty slowly, which don't really help with solving the homeworks/doing well on the exams. I spent most of my time skimming the textbook/doing the homeworks, and the most helpful material was probably the review session/worksheets made by the TA. You get a 3x5" notecard cheatsheet for the midterm and an 8.5x11" paper cheatsheet for the final. The exam questions were much easier than the homeworks' (some were 3 star problems from Griffith's), yet it was still pretty easy to mess up if you don't have your fundamentals down. The best way to study for exams was probably just reviewing the TA's worksheets and the easier homework problems Exam Distributions: Midterm: 60 +/- 20 Final: 45 +/- 20
Winter 2024 - I just want to point out the other review sounds kind of AI-generated. I would say Professor Putterman mostly goes through derivations from the textbook (Griffith's) pretty slowly, which don't really help with solving the homeworks/doing well on the exams. I spent most of my time skimming the textbook/doing the homeworks, and the most helpful material was probably the review session/worksheets made by the TA. You get a 3x5" notecard cheatsheet for the midterm and an 8.5x11" paper cheatsheet for the final. The exam questions were much easier than the homeworks' (some were 3 star problems from Griffith's), yet it was still pretty easy to mess up if you don't have your fundamentals down. The best way to study for exams was probably just reviewing the TA's worksheets and the easier homework problems Exam Distributions: Midterm: 60 +/- 20 Final: 45 +/- 20
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - This class is definitely a tough class. Putterman is a pretty engaging lecture and often fun; he really cares about his students understanding of the material. Despite this, there are times where he does cover topics pretty fast in lecture and it often goes above other students' head, mine included. This class had pretty tough material to cover, ranging from the wave equation in multiple dimension + separation of variables, Fourier series and transforms, bessel series, PDEs, and complex analysis. The hws and exams are pretty difficult as well, but Putterman generously curves the class. One thing to note though is that his lectures are not recorded and notes are usually not posted (with the exceptions of pictures of the whiteboard). I do recommend that you attend lecture as I found that more helpful than just looking at pictures of the whiteboard.
Spring 2023 - This class is definitely a tough class. Putterman is a pretty engaging lecture and often fun; he really cares about his students understanding of the material. Despite this, there are times where he does cover topics pretty fast in lecture and it often goes above other students' head, mine included. This class had pretty tough material to cover, ranging from the wave equation in multiple dimension + separation of variables, Fourier series and transforms, bessel series, PDEs, and complex analysis. The hws and exams are pretty difficult as well, but Putterman generously curves the class. One thing to note though is that his lectures are not recorded and notes are usually not posted (with the exceptions of pictures of the whiteboard). I do recommend that you attend lecture as I found that more helpful than just looking at pictures of the whiteboard.
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