18.994: Seminar in Geometry
Table of contents
- Course Info
- Realistic Prerequisites
- Subject Matter
- Course Staff
- Lectures
- Problem Sets
- Exams
- Resources
- Grading
Course Info
Class Size | 13 |
Hours/Week | 9.8 (11 responses) |
Instructors | Tomasz Mrowka, Susan Ruff |
Overall Rating | 5.3/7.0 |
Realistic Prerequisites
- The content of 18.02 was a necessary prerequisite. There was some material from linear algebra (18.06) as well, though most of this material was easy to find online or in the textbook.
Subject Matter
- This course was helpful in learning some of the foundations in differential geometry without too much extraction given that most of the material took place on two-dimensional surfaces in three-pace.
- Some felt like the material was a bit too computation, but had lots of applications such as cartography, computer graphics, and especially physics.
Course Staff
- Very friendly and approachable. The staff helped by being flexible with their availability for office hours and discussions which was nice.
Lectures
- As a seminar, this course had lectures led by other students which resulted in variation in quality, but also a variation in teaching style.
- Textbooks helped clarify the material in lectures.
Problem Sets
- Challenging.
- Some examples involved quite a bit of computation, and the non-computational problems became important theorems that were used later on in the course.
- Office hours and problemset groups helped a lot.
Exams
- There were no exams for this class.
Resources
- The class used Shifrin’s “Differential Geometry: A First Course in Curves and Surfaces”, which was made available online.
- The class follows the textbook pretty closely.
- One student also recommends the use of do Carmo’s book on differential geometry.
Grading
- Students felt that grading was incredibly fair and reasonable.