Visa resultat

Advanced classical physics, FUF015

1. To which program do you belong

Ph.D GU»		0		0%
Ph.D Chalmers»		0		0%
Masters GU»		2		14%
Masters Chalmers»		10		71%
International Masters GU»		0		0%
International Masters Chalmers»		2		14%

Genomsnitt: 4.14

- Applied Mechanics, year 2.» (Masters Chalmers)

2. How were the lectures

Not useful»		0		0%
Below average»		8		57%
Average»		5		35%
Above average»		1		7%
Very Useful»		0		0%
No opinion»		0

Genomsnitt: 2.5

- The teacher has to belive in his ability to teach.» (Below average)
- Mostly more confusing than helpful» (Below average)
- Not very good handwriting, which always makes it very hard to follow the lectures.» (Below average)
- The disposition of the lectures made it hard to follow the course in the later half. The order that concepts were introduced in the course was not beneficial for learning.» (Below average)
- The lecturer is not so good at lecturing. Bad English, don"t always know what he is doing, can´,t answer questions and so on. Better to read the literature.» (Below average)

3. Additional comments about the lectures

- Some topics could´,ve used more examples. »
- hard topics so it was not so easy to follow. More exercises could be useful.»
- Not to easy to follow since the topics were not explained very much at all. Second part definitely harder.»
- Often hard to follow, I would have preferred a slower pace and more explained, not only steps in calculations but also more important physical facts. The first half was somewhat easier to follow, when we started on fields I was completely lost in notation and everything, too new stuff for me. Would have worked better if it existed some special made notes on this topic I think (a self-consistent (as possible)).»
- Prepare the exam before starting the first lecture, don"t have both a written and an oral exam AND obligatory hand-in problems. Just two of those three is good enough. »
- Lots of mathematics but the actual physics seemed to disappear.»
- Most of them were hard to follow. Especially the second part of the course»

4. How were the problem sessions:

Not useful»		7		58%
Below average»		1		8%
Average»		3		25%
Useful»		1		8%
Very useful»		0		0%
No opinion»		2

Genomsnitt: 1.83

- 1. Soporific. They were delivered in a monotonous mumble. 2. There was no structure on the black board. 3. Only equations were written down, no reasoning. » (Not useful)
- the lecturer during the problem sections did almost everything wrong.» (Not useful)
- Andro was honestly terrible at the blackboard. He mumbled, didn"t explain well, wrote sloppy and didn"t explain crucial steps. I also got the feeling that he didn"t want to answer "stupid" questions.» (Not useful)
- Unfortunately very unstructured and very bad handwriting. It was very hard to understand what was going on. All that was written down was formulas with little or no accompanying explanation, in written or in oral form. No problem text was written down and the source of the particular problem was never given.» (Not useful)
- It was my opinion that the problem sessions were badly focused. Much time was dedicated to solving differential equations while they left you with no clue how to arrive at the equations. » (Not useful)
- Only a few occasions, but fairly helpful» (Useful)

5. Additional comments about the exercise classes

- the teacher for excerise classes was terrible»
- more problem solving classes»
- More classes would be good»
- I think it should be more exercise classes (with a good teacher). Even on things from the last part. For example I felt like I learnt most of the theories etc. at the exercise classes at Quantum Mechanics (the course under the same period). Ling Bao was very clear and sympathetic.»

6. Comments about the homework assignments

- Some of the problems were difficult, as we were not used to solving word problems (contents of course were more theoretical)»
- The homework assignements were the best part of the course.»
- The purpose of the homework problems and how they tied into the lectures was very unclear. It was hard to understand the assignments. »
- A bit gruelling at times yes, but definitely the best way to learn the course.»
- The home problems were good, although there was sometimes difficult to know what was asked for.»
- Some problems fuzzily defined, only reflected mechanics part of the course»
- Maybe it was good problems but maybe too many lagrangian-calculations and too much on the "same" type of problems. I spent many hours on the problems, maybe too much because I got stuck and didn"t learn so much then. Some of the problems I couldn"t understand also what was meant to do. It was really quite easy things, but since I hadn"t seen or at least it was many years since I saw some methods (like finding principal modes etc. and solving some diff.eqs.) I wasted a lot of time just to look up definitions and stuff that could have been said on the lectures, or the exercise classes that didn"t succeed at all in this. »
- The best part of the course.»
- The assignments were good. I never understood whether they were compulsory though, I just did them all.»
- The workload was reasonable but the problems did not reflect the content of the course. »
- They took way too much time. If you have to spend all the time doing assignments, you have no time to do ordinary exercises or to read the course literature.»
- Some of the problems were unclear. Too few of the problems reflected the second part of the course.»

Your own effort

7. How many hours per week did you spend on this course?

14 svarande

At most 15 hours/week»		2		14%
Around 20 hours/week»		9		64%
Around 25 hours/week»		3		21%
Around 30 hours/week»		0		0%
At least 35 hours/week»		0		0%

Genomsnitt: 2.07

- This was obviously too little time but it was hard to know what needed to be done.» (At most 15 hours/week)
- Most of my time was spent working on the quantum mechanics, this course unfortunately came in second hand.» (At most 15 hours/week)
- The time spent on reading the book over the summer is not included in this estimate, so the total time is much more than the average would indicate.» (Around 20 hours/week)
- As always we have two courses at the same time, but this took most of the time.» (Around 25 hours/week)

8. How large part of the teaching offered did you attend?

14 svarande

0%»		0		0%
25%»		2		14%
50%»		4		28%
75%»		5		35%
100%»		3		21%

Genomsnitt: 3.64

- Why oh why did the lectures HAVE to be at 8 every day?!? That does not work for me.» (25%)
- Missed a couple of lectures, after that it was very hard to follow the rest of the lectures. This was in part because the book and the course did not cover the same areas and for the areas that were not in the book you had to be at the lectures.» (50%)
- The second part of the course, i.e the field mechanics, was exceptionally hard to follow.» (100%)

Goals and goal fulfilment

9. How understandable are the course goals?

I have not seen/read the goals»		4		36%
The goals are difficult to understand»		1		9%
The goals give some guidance, but could be clearer»		3		27%
The goals clearly describe what I am supposed to learn»		3		27%
No opinion»		3

Genomsnitt: 2.45

- the examination wasn"t understandable. First it said that it only was an oral exam and hand-ins. Then it was an written exam for passed grade. So it was hard to now what I was expected to do to get 3,4,5. The examples of oral exam questions also included a lot of other questions we didn"t even go into in this course, why? Couldn"t it just be more clear what to spend my study-time on?» (The goals are difficult to understand)
- I never read the goals.» (No opinion)

10. Are the goals reasonable

13 svarande

No, the goals are set too low»		0		0%
Yes, the goals seem reasonable»		3		50%
No, the goals are set too high»		3		50%
No opinion»		7

Genomsnitt: 2.5

- To understand the contents one needs to go quite deep into the subject I think, but the course was too wide in scope to allow time for that.» (No, the goals are set too high)
- It is a lot to learn in too short a time. » (No, the goals are set too high)

11. Did the examination reflect the goals of the course?

No, not at all»		0		0%
To some extent»		5		71%
Yes, definitely»		2		28%
I don"t know/have not been examined yet»		0		0%
No opinion»		6

Genomsnitt: 2.28 (bidrar till totalt genomsnitt/jämförelseindex)

- It was said the exam would be a lot about theoretical aspects, but there was a whole lot of problem solving anyway. Not a bad thing, just not what was advertised.» (To some extent)
- Althought the exam did reflect the contents and goals of the course, I feel we were not prepared as we had no reference of the type of questions that could appear on a such a written exam. » (Yes, definitely)
- The written exam wasn"t bad at all, it pretty much reflected what should be expected. The rather poor result may have come from not having any problems and solutions to these to exercise with.» (Yes, definitely)

12. Comments about the examination

- Actually, what was required to pass the course and get higher grades»
- the written examination was not the same as we expected to be,»
- It is a good combination. Especially it is good to have homework assignments to work on throughout the course.»
- The examination wasnt decided until the end of course and then it was still unclear how the grading would happen. This is unacceptable.»
- What was required to get the various grades was not clear, perhaps not even to the examiner, before he had had a look at the written exam.»
- Seemed a bit much, but the exam was quite alright after all.»
- like I wrote above...too many different exam-things. not clear what was required. 4 hours was enough. The exam wasn"t that hard and probably on a good level, but we didn"t at all know what to expect so therefore the probably low level. If the lectures would have been in just a bit slower tempo, and the last lecture or two last lectures dedicated to repetition of the entire course instead of touching group-theory, the overall result would have been much larger.»
- Medium amount of work.»
- The assignments were ok. 4 hours on the written exam wouldn"t have been very stressful, so 5 hours seemed a bit much.»
- The written exam was good but we had no idea what to expect of the exam before. A clearer information of what the exam would focus on would have been very useful.»
- No, nothing about the exam was clear. Why was there not information on grades on the written exam? There were rumors that it was just a test-exam. Why was all three forms being used? Is it not enough to do all the hand-in problems to get grade 3? In normal courses hand-in problems either grant you the grad directly, or is translated to points on a written exam. Here, we had to do the hand-ins and it was not clear what was to happen if they wasn"t handed in. I mean, you have to give us a second chance at passing the course. So, do we have to do a whole new set of hand-ins, or do we get just one new? Or, can we hand in the failed hand-ins later? How much later? All of this should be clear to the student at the beginning of the course.»
- Too much - not at all! A computer laboration should be added, as well as a mid-term exam. One or two three days laboratory experiments should also be required. »
- Homework+oral exam should be enough. It was completely unclear what was required to pass the course»

13. To what extent has the the course literature and other material been of help for your learning?

Small extent»		3		25%
Some extent»		4		33%
Large extent»		4		33%
Great extent»		1		8%
No opinion»		2

Genomsnitt: 2.25 (bidrar till totalt genomsnitt/jämförelseindex)

- Goldstein covered too much, the lecture notes often too little. Something in between is needed. » (Small extent)
- The book was sold out everywhere unfortunately, so unless you paid a ridiculous amount of money you couldn"t get hold of it.» (Small extent)
- It wasn´,t very clear to me whether the course (goals, exam, etc.) were based on the lectures or on the additional literature. » (Some extent)
- I didn"t buy the course book, but other students gave some pointers from the book.» (Some extent)
- I had a quite good understanding of the book, but still struggled with the exam. I passed, but barely. I don"t know why, since it was still a quite fair exam. It is a difficult course, and the material was probably narrowed down in the lectures, which I seldom attended. A course compendium would therefore be a great idea to write, the lecture notes are not pleasant to read in their current state due to poor handwriting, mistakes, bad structure and so on.» (Some extent)
- Much easier to follow than the lectures.» (Large extent)
- The book is great!» (Great extent)
- I did not have the course text» (No opinion)
- I unfortunatly did not manage to get hold of the book. It was not available at cremona or adlibris.» (No opinion)

14. Additional comments about the course literature

- It was very difficult to get a copy of Goldstein in the library, nor did they have it at Cremona. With regard to Per´,s lecture notes, I feel that the most important results (key equations or theorems) should have been somehow highlighted, i.e. make them stand out from the other results for easier studying)»
- The lecture notes were hard to follow.»
- I read Goldstein. It has a large overlap with the course, but it does not cover the course. Additional literature for the last part would be appreciated. Possibly the lecture notes could be augmented with more text to make them more book-like. Christian"s notes could be a good starting point if such an effort was undertaken.»
- Did not read course literature, online lecture notes were difficult to read and were not self-contained or self-explanatory. I did find good references on the net, at least regarding analytical mechanics.»
- Goldstein was best on the first half of the course. Became too much to read on the later part. Additional literature would be great! Good to have Christian"s lecture notes, though they should be corrected by Per maybe and many explaining sentences here and there can be added.»
- I read chapters 1,2,8,9 and almost all of 13 in Goldstein. A course compendium would have been nice.»
- I read Goldstein, and it was good. Per"s was very hard to follow. »
- Goldstein was generally quite good. The lecture notes were mostly hard to follow. More course material is needed for the last part of the course»

15. How well did the course administration, web page, handouts etc work?

Very badly»		0		0%
Rather badly»		2		16%
Rather well»		7		58%
Very well»		3		25%
No opinion»		2

Genomsnitt: 3.08

- I got the feeling that the course hasn"t really yet stabilized to a fully planned one.» (Rather badly)
- I misunderstood the formulation: "Hand-in problems will be handed out each week, save the last one.". I didn"t think there would be one in study week 7, which I considered to be the last week.» (Rather well)

16. How were the opportunities for asking questions and getting help?

Very poor»		0		0%
Rather poor»		3		23%
Rather good»		4		30%
Very good»		5		38%
I did not seek help»		1		7%
No opinion»		1

Genomsnitt: 3.3

- Yes, questions were answered, but the answers did not always make us more enlightened.» (Rather poor)
- I would like to add that when asking Professor Per a question personally, he would explain thoroughly and extremely in detail pointing out my mistakes. He is an excellent professor. » (Very good)
- Per was always available to ask questions, many thanks to him, He is great in this sense. » (Very good)
- Best thing with Per is that he almost never says no to help, and he is really eager to teach you if you insist.» (Very good)
- Per was often available in his office.» (Very good)

17. How well has cooperation between you and your fellow students worked?

Very poorly»		0		0%
Rather poorly»		1		7%
Rather well»		3		21%
Very well»		8		57%
I did not seek cooperation»		2		14%
No opinion»		0

Genomsnitt: 3.78

- We were a couple of students who often met and discussed and solved problems together. I learnt most here.» (Very well)

18. How was the course workload?

Too low»		0		0%
Low»		1		7%
Adequate»		5		35%
High»		7		50%
Too high»		1		7%
No opinion»		0

Genomsnitt: 3.57

- High and adequate.» (Adequate)
- One week it actually was too high, but that might possibly have been bad planning on my part.» (High)

19. How was the total workload this study period?

Too low»		0		0%
Low»		0		0%
Adequate»		3		21%
High»		9		64%
Too high»		2		14%
No opinion»		0

Genomsnitt: 3.92

- Since the goals and what was expected were so unclear for this course it was very hard to know what to do and to feel motivated. The QM course then got the most of my attention.» (Adequate)
- Well, I didn"t have time to do the laundering during much of this quarter. I had to buy new socks at the end of it :-)» (High)
- I took three courses...» (High)

20. What is your general impression of the course?

Poor»		4		28%
Fair»		4		28%
Adequate»		0		0%
Good»		4		28%
Excellent»		2		14%
No opinion»		0

Genomsnitt: 2.71

- The course left me more confused than before.» (Poor)
- Interesting and i feel i learned the basics of analytical mechanics, the field theory part was not so interesting.» (Good)
- I really think this course is of great importance.» (Excellent)

21. What should be preserved to next year?

22. What should be changed to next year?

23. Should specific parts of the course be expanded/compressed/improved/discarded, are they interesting/unnessecary/useful/difficult/...?

- An interesting topic that could be covered (or at least defined to some extent) is Chaos. »
- action for EM field, and its Hamiltonian should be expanded, Tensors should bee tought in the beginning of the course not at last. Lie algebra is very advanced topic shoulb be treated more smoothly»
- If tensor notation, tensors and Einstein summation is to be used it should be explained in the ***beginning*** of the course, not the end.»
- The Lie algebra part was never actually used in the course. That time might be better spent reviewing the concepts of the course. »
- take away: lie algebra (too little time anyway) somehow go through tensors before we use them. and the last part with fields seems very interesting and useful but I couldn"t grasp because too big topic and too many new things for me which I never have seen before.»
- I skipped the material in L12 and after since it didn"t interest me very much and since I had three courses this period and time was lacking.»
- The later subject in the course became very difficult to understand with the course dispositioned as it was.»

24. Please provide any additional comments

- Probably a very interesting subject but in this course it was too unorganized. This led to disinterest and a very mediocre effort.»
Genomsnitt totalt för detta stycke: 2.26