I decided to challenge myself this summer with two advanced mathematics classes. I took Single Variable Calculus on the Coursera Platform, and Linear Algebra: Frontiers and Foundations on the edX platform. The calculus class was excellent, on par with the best MOOC’s I have ever taken. The Linear Algebra class was lackluster compared to the shimmering pearl on Coursera
Course: Single Variable Calculus
Professor/Institution: Robert Ghrist, University of Pennsylvania
Rating: 5/5 (Excellent!)
Learners beware! SVC on Coursera is not for the faint-hearted. This was the most difficult MOOC I have taken so far, but the work was worth it. SVC is composed of 57 lectures, all intermediate to advanced perspectives on the Calculus you might have taken in high school. Prof Ghrist. did an absolutely fantastic job at creating lectures that were imminently practical as well as interesting. The homework was divided into basic and advanced, I just managed to do all the basic work and I still thought it was hard! There are five quizzes and one cumulative final exam for this class. I would highly recommend this class to anyone who wants to sharpen their analytical skills or deepen their knowledge of what calculus is all about.
Course: Linear Algebra: Frontiers and Foundations
Professor/Institution:Dr. Maggie Myers andDr. Robert van de Geijn, UT Austin
Rating: 2/5 (Meh)
Maybe I just wasn’t ready to learn Linear Algebra… but IMO this course wasn’t very good. My main critique of this class would be that I invested 12 weeks into it and barely learned any applications of linear algebra! We spent a lot of time proving various lemma’s about the main objects in linear algebra, but almost no time doing anything that seemed practical! Perhaps it is just the nature of the material, but I found that either the practice problems were either too simple or too challenging. I didn’t take much working knowledge from this course, so I will definitely need to take this class again… Dissapointing.
Perpetually Confused 