Xiaodong Wang

School: Columbia University
Department: Engineering
Location:New York, NY
Overall Rating
rated by 13 students
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 Pros: Great professor and speaks fluently in his lectures. Review sheets are given out before every exam that are a good indicator of what to expect on the exam.
Cons: The class itself is difficult but that doesn't mean Professor Wang is a bad professor. The material is dense and don't take this class unless you really have to.
A lot of the class has to do with matrices and Professor Wang tended to use less proofs and more examples than the other 309 professors which is what helped me the most.
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 Terrible teacher
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 Wang was not too bad of a prof. I gave him 5 stars however because the easiness of his class pays off. We are given optional homework to do. The class was composed of 15% quizzes ( one every week), 50% (top 2 exams of 3) and 35% final. The quizzes were very similar to the homework and many times were the exact same problems as the homework. So if you do the homework you should average at least a 95% on the quizzes. However, he does not post solutions to the homework which kind of sucks. Although, he is very helpful during his office hours so you can always get the answers out of him in there.
We had 3 exams and only the best two contributed to your final grade. The exams were easy. The exams were purely computational except there was only one proof on exam 3. The quizzes never had proofs either. So really in essence, don't even do the proof questions on the homework because it is just useless work (remember, you don't have to turn in the homework).
His lectures are all theory, while his examinations are all computational. His homework is a mixture of both (like I said just do the computational problems because he never asks you to do the proofs). The material is very interesting and the class is really easy, so it is a good deal.
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 Not a very good teacher, lectures straight from the book. Class usually didn't attend... And told us "we didn't try hard enough" because the whole class did bad on an exam, when it was clearly a very difficult exam we were unprepared for as a class. Several of his test problems were unlike anything we did in class or on homework. Very tough class, and he doesn't make it any less strenuous.
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 He only grades select problems on the homework and will only mark them wrong; he doesn't explain what about the problem is wrong and doesn't post homework solutions. Luckily, I didn't find the book too hard to read. During exams he doesn't give you a half-time warning or anything and you're in Wells hall without clocks... so you would think he would be a good guy and let you know when you had half the period to go. I asked him to do this and he turned my request into a joke in front of the entire class. If this is your first time taking linear algebra I do not recommend him. Learning how to do proofs requires examples to work off of and without correcting homework it's hard to know what you did wrong. I would agree with the above statements that he doesn't belong in an undergraduate/first-proof class. Also, he doesn't curve the class which makes it hard again considering the fact that he doesn't correct homework. good luck.
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 He comes to class seeming like he wishes he weren't teaching it. He also lectures with the textbook as his notes, which means anything that he says can be gotten from the book about 100 times faster. The only reason he gets a grade as high as a 1 is because he assigns easy homework problems and easier test problems.
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 OK as far as math professors go, but still not super good at explaining things and his grading is a little harsh...you'll probably wind up having to teach yourself a lot of the material. Most people skip his class.
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 This guy was awesome. Don't listen to anyone that gave him a low rating. He is helpful during office hours. He is extremely lenient on giving partial credit to problems. Also, you can tell he is really intelligent and knows what he is talking about and he can also explain it well. I would regret days that I missed class because his lectures are very valuable.
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 Better than the other profs for DIFFEQ by far. Fair exams, the finals was ridiculous, but he doesn't write it obviously. We were well prepared for a normal final, but very few could have possibly been prepared for the final. I got over 90 on all my midterms and 100 percent for the HW, and I may not have 4'd, the final is that hard.
Take him if you have the option over Sreedharan or whoever else may be teaching it, unless its Courtney, cause he's the shit.
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 Not great, not too bad. Probably better off teaching higher courses. Very smart, terrible at explaining at an undergrad level. Too much homework, and not the nicest guy.
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 This guy is definitely better off teaching graduate courses. He makes students feel like morons and laughs when you ask questions. The first exam he gave had new material on it, so the class complained and since then his exams have been fair. You really are better off reading the book and figuring it out on your own.
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 This professor is not the best professor for this class he treats the course like a graduate level course. New materials are presented on the exams and he moves too fast for students to keep up. If you can avoid having him I suggest that you do.
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 This professor is not the best professor for this class he treats the course like a graduate level course. New materials are presented on the exams and he moves too fast for students to keep up. If you can avoid having him I suggest that you do.

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