18.901

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 20
Hours/Week 7.6 (8 responses)
Instructors George Lusztig (Lecturer), Joshua Amaniampong (UA)
# of Responses to Course 18 Underground Questions 6/20

Realistic Prerequisites

  • 18.100 is a hard prerequisite.
  • Experience with proofs and some set theory knowledge is helpful.

Subject Matter

  • The course material is very theoretical, broad, and useful in future topology courses.
  • “More theoretical, and helped me better understand parts of 100B I was confused on. Allowed me another way to look at analysis which I found particularly useful.”

Course Staff

  • The professor was kind but not a good lecturer.
  • Students did not have much interaction with the TAs.

Lectures

  • Many students did not find the lectures helpful and studied from the textbook instead, which had similar content and was better organized.
  • Lectures were generally difficult to follow.

Problem Sets

  • Problem sets were doable, but sometimes tedious and challenging.
  • Problems were from the textbook and generally well-chosen.

Exams

  • Students felt prepared for the exams following the lectures.
  • Exams were fair and did not require much creativity.

Resources

  • Students highly recommend the textbook Topology by Munkres. This was the main resource many students used throughout the course.

Grading

  • Grading policy was generally clear, but not entirely transparent. Also, grade cutoffs were not released.
  • Grading was sometimes harsh and too semantic on psets and exams.

Advice to Future Students

  1. “Topology is an excellent class to take …“