‘18.211:Combinatorial Analysis’

Table of contents

  1. Course Info
  2. Realistic Prerequisites
  3. Subject Matter
  4. Course Staff
  5. Lectures
  6. Problem Sets
  7. Exams
  8. Resources
  9. Grading
  10. Advice to Future Students

Course Info

Class Size 46
Hours/Week 10.2 (14 responses)
Instructors Anna Weigandt
Overall Rating 5.6/7.0

Realistic Prerequisites

  • Students recommend 18.06 for familiarity with adjacency matrices and Markov matrices.

Subject Matter

  • Most thought it was very applied.
  • Students thought the content was largely useful, and all interesting.

Course Staff

  • The instructor (Dr. Weigandt) was super approachable and great to talk to about the course.
  • There were many office hours by both Dr. Weigandt and the Undergraduate Assistant.

Lectures

  • Students learned equally from the lectures, the textbook, and the psets.
  • Concept questions in class helped students check their learning with the material.

Problem Sets

  • Students found the psets fun but challenging.
  • The professor prepared students well for the psets.
  • Psets took anywhere from 5 to 8 hours.

Exams

  • Students found the exams challenging.
  • The 2nd exam, out of 3, was notably the most challenging.
  • Students prepared for the exams by going through practice problems.

Resources

  • Students used the textbook (A Walk Through Combinatorics by Miklos Bona), lecture notes, and class recordings.

Grading

  • Grading was described as fair.
  • Dr. Weigandt published that cutoffs would not be higher than 90/80/70 for an A/B/C.

Advice to Future Students

  1. “Take this class with Dr. Weigandt, she’s great.”
  2. “Practice problems, practice problems, practice problems!”