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Tyler Arant
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I’ve taken 2 classes now with Professor Arant (142 in Winter 2020 and 135 in Spring 2020), and spent more time in his office hours than in lecture by this point probably, so I feel qualified to review him.
Because he’s young, he was also really approachable and easy to ask for help in Office Hours. However, this is where my one issue with this professor comes up. When someone asked him for help with a problem, a good amount of the time he seemed to not want to actually go over the problem very often, and just talk a bunch of math at you, and when he’s done, you’re just kind of pressured into saying “yeah that makes sense” but when you’re actually doing the homework, you still have no idea what to do. In that case you should just ask a friend (if you’re lucky enough to have one) or the TA (if you have one that’s helpful). I think this really just stems from the ever common symptom many really smart math professors here have, where they are so smart that they kind of just leave you in the dust and don’t really slow down in the explanations. Other than that though, his office hours are really helpful and fun simply because he’s easier to approach and talk to than older and more Boomer professors; I know my jokes will actually land with him.
If you have strong feelings about this kind of thing, you might want to steer away from this course if he ever teaches it again, but something else I noticed is the fact that there was no MatLAB used at all in this course. Now I don’t really care because I’m a math major just because I like math, I don’t really care that I didn’t learn those skills of doing things like pandemic modeling with a computer simulation or other programming methods. However, I know those definitely are the skills that many applied math majors are expecting to get out of this course. The root of this stems from the fact that Professor Arant is a VERY pure mathematician, studying computability theory and logic stuff, so he approaches modeling from a very theoretical and, well, pure perspective. If you’re like me and don’t really care, then this is a completely fine class to take. If you’re not, then you might wanna steer clear.
Other than that, I guess I can just end with the fact that exams are very fair and well written, so that isn’t something to worry about. All in all, it’s very clear that he really does care about his students' learning, and puts a lot of thought into his teaching because of it. Just for that I can definitely recommend this professor in this class.
Different teaching styles work for different students... I personally didn't love the way this professor structured the class, but I think he is actually a good teacher. You have the security of knowing that if you go to all lectures, do all the work, and stay on top of everything you will do well in his class. I prefer a class that is less structured, with less homework, and more of a work independently to learn the material environment. I think I may be the rarity in this sense, so I do think many students would enjoy having him as a professor. Be prepared for a lot of homework, but you likely also won't need to do much extra studying aside from the homework, which he grades on completion. He also had a quiz once a week and I found that the quizzes were not easy, while they do account for a large part of your grade, so be sure to study for those. He is helpful at explaining the material and especially I give him kudos for being so organized. It was very easy to navigate back through his lecture notes to find what you were looking for, which is much appreciated in the remote learning environment.
The professor is very organized. I mostly relied on the class notes to help with studying for quizzes and tests. The class is very theoretical and proof-based. I recommend you attend class at the scheduled time in order to not fall behind, but relying on the lecture recordings does not make a difference.
The homework was worth 10% of your grade and it is based on completion. It was very long, but the TA's helped with solving some of the problems. The professor provides partial solutions to the homework after the due date. The homework was the best source of practicing the material and studying for the quizzes and tests.
The weekly quizzes were difficult, but if you fully understood the homework, then they were doable. (some of the questions on the homework were difficult though).
I felt the Midterms were much easier than the Final. Personally, the Midterms and the Final took a while to complete.
Overall, the class is very organized. He is willing to answer any questions you have and the class requires you to critically think.
I took this course during COVID-19. Professor Arant is nice in general. The first midterm is easy; the second midterm is kind of hard; the final is fine. The workload for this class comes from homework. Although the homework is graded upon completion, it still takes several hours to finish. Weekly quizzes are tricky, but if you fully understand his lecture notes, you are gonna be fine.
One of the best math professors I've had! He takes time to explain topics thoroughly in lecture and his quizzes are always really similar to the lecture examples or homework, so it's easy to practice/be prepared. His homework is graded on completion, which eliminates the stress of checking your work and just lets you practice problems and I was always able to complete them by setting aside one night of the week. His exams were fair and even though they were 24 hour format, I was able to finish them pretty quickly.
Math 106 is definitely different. I expected an easy A since this seems like a history class, but I was wrong. I think the professor you get for this class greatly affects your experience, as professors have the choice of covering certain chapters and whatnot. Here's the breakdown of this class with Tyler:
1) Tyler is a great lecturer. I learned mostly all of the material from his lectures and lectures notes. The book isn't so great, as it skips a lot of steps or explains things with too many words than actual math. Tyler did a great job with filling in the gaps and presenting a pretty complete class with his lectures and lecture notes.
2) Tyler's homework was okay. The questions he wrote were alright, but most of the time, I found the book questions to be confusing. Like I said before, the book is too verbose and the questions are just confusingly written. However, if you go to office hours, Tyler is more than happy to explain everything. He is very much advises students to come to office hours, and he is willing to explain and re-explain things that are confusing. He's very approachable in OH and in lecture, so the homework is not that bad to do if you just get help from him.
3) Tyler's exams are mostly fair. I thought his midterm was very fair based on the HW and lectures and his final was mostly fair. He did have one question I wasn't particularly a fan of, but that's only one question out of six. If you do the homework and understand the lecture notes, you should honestly be fine for the exam.
4) The content covered in this class is where I have the most issues. I think Tyler got to choose certain topics, and I feel like he made this class harder than it needed to be. He didn't focus much on the history, but had sections on sets and logic that were very new to some people. The only prerequisites for this class is lower division calculus, and oftentimes, I found myself using proof techniques and ideas that I learned in Math 115A. I don't think other professors make this class as hard as Tyler made it. It's not undoable or anything like that, but it's not what I signed up for.
Overall, I wouldn't mind having Tyler for another class. He is a good lecturer and is helpful and approachable. However, this class just wasn't my thing.
106 is a good class. Good overview of a lot of parts of math and good class to get used to writing some kind of proofs. Also the exams weren’t too hard (I was online though so it may be different since he curved easier for us)
131a is by definition going to be an insanely hard class. for everyone. so please keep that in mind. my whole class struggled together, and arant helped A LOT.
i think he's a great choice for 131a. Arant was unbelievably understanding. I always talked to him in office hours about my test anxiety and overall concerns and he was super down to earth and understanding, especially since this was our first in person quarter for a year and a half due to covid. grading is 20% homework, 20% midterm 1 20% midterm 2 40% final OR you can drop a midterm and have it be 30% with the final being 50%. most people dropped the second midterm since it was a complete shit show. I got F's on every exam and ended with a B-, so you really just have to hold your breathe and try your best until the end. He makes the material easier to understand, my advice would be to READ THE TEXTBOOK. every damn page. also buy the homework answers online (textbook solutions) through quizlet, it will save your life since the homework is really hard otherwise. He posts the recordings and his notes asap so you'll always have resources, and posts helpful 'what to know before the exam' sheets which I also really liked. i think he curved the class 20% since i had a 60% raw and ended with a B-. so that was really nice. i did email him after the second midterm basically in tears and he was super responsive and helpful. love this guy. TLDR: take him. it's going to be hard but he will help you!
Math 132 with Arant was a decent experience. Arant is chill and easy to talk to. His lectures are pretty clear and I appreciate him live streaming and recording lecture. I do agree his lectures are pretty similar to the textbook but I'm okay with that. Exams are okay, with averages in the 80s but keep in mind that exams were online this quarter. He also posts exam review questions which are pretty helpful, so make sure you study them. However he does not post homework solutions which is a con. His grading scheme is
Scheme 1:
20% Homework (Lowest 1 dropped)
20% Midterm 1
20% Midterm 2
40% Final
Scheme 2:
20% Homework (Lowest 1 dropped)
30% Better midterm
50% Final
I think the cons of this class is homework can be very time consuming. All of his homework are problems from Gamelin's book. Each homework is usually 10-11 problems, however each problem can have multiple parts so you should start early. To be honest, I think the first two weeks of the quarter had the hardest material, which is chapter 1 in Gamelin. But maybe that's just me. It gets better after you learn about Cauchy Riemann and line integrals.
I’ve taken 2 classes now with Professor Arant (142 in Winter 2020 and 135 in Spring 2020), and spent more time in his office hours than in lecture by this point probably, so I feel qualified to review him.
Because he’s young, he was also really approachable and easy to ask for help in Office Hours. However, this is where my one issue with this professor comes up. When someone asked him for help with a problem, a good amount of the time he seemed to not want to actually go over the problem very often, and just talk a bunch of math at you, and when he’s done, you’re just kind of pressured into saying “yeah that makes sense” but when you’re actually doing the homework, you still have no idea what to do. In that case you should just ask a friend (if you’re lucky enough to have one) or the TA (if you have one that’s helpful). I think this really just stems from the ever common symptom many really smart math professors here have, where they are so smart that they kind of just leave you in the dust and don’t really slow down in the explanations. Other than that though, his office hours are really helpful and fun simply because he’s easier to approach and talk to than older and more Boomer professors; I know my jokes will actually land with him.
If you have strong feelings about this kind of thing, you might want to steer away from this course if he ever teaches it again, but something else I noticed is the fact that there was no MatLAB used at all in this course. Now I don’t really care because I’m a math major just because I like math, I don’t really care that I didn’t learn those skills of doing things like pandemic modeling with a computer simulation or other programming methods. However, I know those definitely are the skills that many applied math majors are expecting to get out of this course. The root of this stems from the fact that Professor Arant is a VERY pure mathematician, studying computability theory and logic stuff, so he approaches modeling from a very theoretical and, well, pure perspective. If you’re like me and don’t really care, then this is a completely fine class to take. If you’re not, then you might wanna steer clear.
Other than that, I guess I can just end with the fact that exams are very fair and well written, so that isn’t something to worry about. All in all, it’s very clear that he really does care about his students' learning, and puts a lot of thought into his teaching because of it. Just for that I can definitely recommend this professor in this class.
Different teaching styles work for different students... I personally didn't love the way this professor structured the class, but I think he is actually a good teacher. You have the security of knowing that if you go to all lectures, do all the work, and stay on top of everything you will do well in his class. I prefer a class that is less structured, with less homework, and more of a work independently to learn the material environment. I think I may be the rarity in this sense, so I do think many students would enjoy having him as a professor. Be prepared for a lot of homework, but you likely also won't need to do much extra studying aside from the homework, which he grades on completion. He also had a quiz once a week and I found that the quizzes were not easy, while they do account for a large part of your grade, so be sure to study for those. He is helpful at explaining the material and especially I give him kudos for being so organized. It was very easy to navigate back through his lecture notes to find what you were looking for, which is much appreciated in the remote learning environment.
The professor is very organized. I mostly relied on the class notes to help with studying for quizzes and tests. The class is very theoretical and proof-based. I recommend you attend class at the scheduled time in order to not fall behind, but relying on the lecture recordings does not make a difference.
The homework was worth 10% of your grade and it is based on completion. It was very long, but the TA's helped with solving some of the problems. The professor provides partial solutions to the homework after the due date. The homework was the best source of practicing the material and studying for the quizzes and tests.
The weekly quizzes were difficult, but if you fully understood the homework, then they were doable. (some of the questions on the homework were difficult though).
I felt the Midterms were much easier than the Final. Personally, the Midterms and the Final took a while to complete.
Overall, the class is very organized. He is willing to answer any questions you have and the class requires you to critically think.
I took this course during COVID-19. Professor Arant is nice in general. The first midterm is easy; the second midterm is kind of hard; the final is fine. The workload for this class comes from homework. Although the homework is graded upon completion, it still takes several hours to finish. Weekly quizzes are tricky, but if you fully understand his lecture notes, you are gonna be fine.
One of the best math professors I've had! He takes time to explain topics thoroughly in lecture and his quizzes are always really similar to the lecture examples or homework, so it's easy to practice/be prepared. His homework is graded on completion, which eliminates the stress of checking your work and just lets you practice problems and I was always able to complete them by setting aside one night of the week. His exams were fair and even though they were 24 hour format, I was able to finish them pretty quickly.
Math 106 is definitely different. I expected an easy A since this seems like a history class, but I was wrong. I think the professor you get for this class greatly affects your experience, as professors have the choice of covering certain chapters and whatnot. Here's the breakdown of this class with Tyler:
1) Tyler is a great lecturer. I learned mostly all of the material from his lectures and lectures notes. The book isn't so great, as it skips a lot of steps or explains things with too many words than actual math. Tyler did a great job with filling in the gaps and presenting a pretty complete class with his lectures and lecture notes.
2) Tyler's homework was okay. The questions he wrote were alright, but most of the time, I found the book questions to be confusing. Like I said before, the book is too verbose and the questions are just confusingly written. However, if you go to office hours, Tyler is more than happy to explain everything. He is very much advises students to come to office hours, and he is willing to explain and re-explain things that are confusing. He's very approachable in OH and in lecture, so the homework is not that bad to do if you just get help from him.
3) Tyler's exams are mostly fair. I thought his midterm was very fair based on the HW and lectures and his final was mostly fair. He did have one question I wasn't particularly a fan of, but that's only one question out of six. If you do the homework and understand the lecture notes, you should honestly be fine for the exam.
4) The content covered in this class is where I have the most issues. I think Tyler got to choose certain topics, and I feel like he made this class harder than it needed to be. He didn't focus much on the history, but had sections on sets and logic that were very new to some people. The only prerequisites for this class is lower division calculus, and oftentimes, I found myself using proof techniques and ideas that I learned in Math 115A. I don't think other professors make this class as hard as Tyler made it. It's not undoable or anything like that, but it's not what I signed up for.
Overall, I wouldn't mind having Tyler for another class. He is a good lecturer and is helpful and approachable. However, this class just wasn't my thing.
106 is a good class. Good overview of a lot of parts of math and good class to get used to writing some kind of proofs. Also the exams weren’t too hard (I was online though so it may be different since he curved easier for us)
131a is by definition going to be an insanely hard class. for everyone. so please keep that in mind. my whole class struggled together, and arant helped A LOT.
i think he's a great choice for 131a. Arant was unbelievably understanding. I always talked to him in office hours about my test anxiety and overall concerns and he was super down to earth and understanding, especially since this was our first in person quarter for a year and a half due to covid. grading is 20% homework, 20% midterm 1 20% midterm 2 40% final OR you can drop a midterm and have it be 30% with the final being 50%. most people dropped the second midterm since it was a complete shit show. I got F's on every exam and ended with a B-, so you really just have to hold your breathe and try your best until the end. He makes the material easier to understand, my advice would be to READ THE TEXTBOOK. every damn page. also buy the homework answers online (textbook solutions) through quizlet, it will save your life since the homework is really hard otherwise. He posts the recordings and his notes asap so you'll always have resources, and posts helpful 'what to know before the exam' sheets which I also really liked. i think he curved the class 20% since i had a 60% raw and ended with a B-. so that was really nice. i did email him after the second midterm basically in tears and he was super responsive and helpful. love this guy. TLDR: take him. it's going to be hard but he will help you!
Math 132 with Arant was a decent experience. Arant is chill and easy to talk to. His lectures are pretty clear and I appreciate him live streaming and recording lecture. I do agree his lectures are pretty similar to the textbook but I'm okay with that. Exams are okay, with averages in the 80s but keep in mind that exams were online this quarter. He also posts exam review questions which are pretty helpful, so make sure you study them. However he does not post homework solutions which is a con. His grading scheme is
Scheme 1:
20% Homework (Lowest 1 dropped)
20% Midterm 1
20% Midterm 2
40% Final
Scheme 2:
20% Homework (Lowest 1 dropped)
30% Better midterm
50% Final
I think the cons of this class is homework can be very time consuming. All of his homework are problems from Gamelin's book. Each homework is usually 10-11 problems, however each problem can have multiple parts so you should start early. To be honest, I think the first two weeks of the quarter had the hardest material, which is chapter 1 in Gamelin. But maybe that's just me. It gets better after you learn about Cauchy Riemann and line integrals.