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Professor
Amiya Chatterjee
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - He is incredibly kind and caring for his students, but was rarely helpful. When students asked questions in lecture or office hours, the answers were frequently long-winded or merely repetition of confusing initial explanations. He encouraged students to visit him during office hours and to email him with questions, but few, if any, students seemed to find these helpful. There were significant technical issues throughout the quarter: even in a final review, I heard that the professor accidentally left during the middle of the session. Chatterjee lectured using slides that were both disordered and filled with errors. He struggled with pacing, at times speaking too quickly for students to follow and at times moving incredibly slowly. He clearly knows the class material well, but doesn't seem to understand what material students will struggle with or be able to provide alternate explanations. Homework answers are provided with assignments but are frequently incorrect. The homework is generally good preparation for exams, but some assignments were difficult more because of ridiculous integrations than implementing concepts. This class was a lot of stress and I didn't feel like I learned anything by the end of the quarter. The textbook was generally more helpful than lectures in understanding differential equation concepts, but exams often featured conceptual equations answered in class.
Spring 2020 - He is incredibly kind and caring for his students, but was rarely helpful. When students asked questions in lecture or office hours, the answers were frequently long-winded or merely repetition of confusing initial explanations. He encouraged students to visit him during office hours and to email him with questions, but few, if any, students seemed to find these helpful. There were significant technical issues throughout the quarter: even in a final review, I heard that the professor accidentally left during the middle of the session. Chatterjee lectured using slides that were both disordered and filled with errors. He struggled with pacing, at times speaking too quickly for students to follow and at times moving incredibly slowly. He clearly knows the class material well, but doesn't seem to understand what material students will struggle with or be able to provide alternate explanations. Homework answers are provided with assignments but are frequently incorrect. The homework is generally good preparation for exams, but some assignments were difficult more because of ridiculous integrations than implementing concepts. This class was a lot of stress and I didn't feel like I learned anything by the end of the quarter. The textbook was generally more helpful than lectures in understanding differential equation concepts, but exams often featured conceptual equations answered in class.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - I really don't like to give a bad review, but man my fellow engineers need to know about this nightmare of a class. Chaterjee is the worst professor i've ever experienced at UCLA. He is a nice guy, but that doesn't come close to making up for the cluster fuck of a class he "teaches." Lectures- Useless. Good luck understanding what this guy is teaching, becuase I don't know anybody that did. I kept attending in hopes that maybe it would one day click. It did not. Let me give you a little anecdote so you might understand what we're working with here: On our last class some guy in our class asked the professor to hand out the attendance sheet. Standard question, he hands this sheet out every single class for the 5% participation (which is nice bc none of my stem classes ever do this). Chaterjee pauses for a moment, walks over to this guy, then starts commenting about him owning an iPad and how he also owns an iPad. The guy then asks for the attendance sheet once more. Chaterjee (unprompted) starts explaining something on the board (that has nothing to do with the question). The TA speaks up and tries to clarify what the guy is asking for. Chaterjee says "Attendance sheet? I don't have anything like that." And then proceeds to explain how we should all not be worried about the attendance sheet- "The final is everything in this class." (45%) Now that you know who you are dealing with, you need to hear about the final exam. The final exam was supposed to be proctored by Chaterjee and the TA. Chaterjee shows up with about an hour left in the exam. Unprompted, looks at some dudes final exam and says he is doing the problem incorrectly. About 5 minutes passes and I hear some audio coming from the back of the room. I assume someone was trying to cheat and use their phone and they accidently opened tik tok or instagram or something. But no, the noise continues and is really quite loud, the entire room can def hear this. I finally look back- Chaterjee is sitting in the back of the room with tik tok on full blast just scrolling his heart out. This went on for a quite some time until the TA intervenes. We were also told that we would be able to see our final exams- We never got them. Which is just fantastic. because Chaterjee made a bunch of grading mistakes on the midterm exam, and I HEARD (keep in mind I heard this from other students so it might not be true) that a handful of students were just given zero credit on one problem of the midterm because Chaterjee didn't understand how gradescope worked. I hope you can see by now that nobody should subject themselves to this delusional experience- just take someone else. Our TA was pretty great though- discussions were the only way to get any kind of information, other than youtube, etc.
Spring 2024 - I really don't like to give a bad review, but man my fellow engineers need to know about this nightmare of a class. Chaterjee is the worst professor i've ever experienced at UCLA. He is a nice guy, but that doesn't come close to making up for the cluster fuck of a class he "teaches." Lectures- Useless. Good luck understanding what this guy is teaching, becuase I don't know anybody that did. I kept attending in hopes that maybe it would one day click. It did not. Let me give you a little anecdote so you might understand what we're working with here: On our last class some guy in our class asked the professor to hand out the attendance sheet. Standard question, he hands this sheet out every single class for the 5% participation (which is nice bc none of my stem classes ever do this). Chaterjee pauses for a moment, walks over to this guy, then starts commenting about him owning an iPad and how he also owns an iPad. The guy then asks for the attendance sheet once more. Chaterjee (unprompted) starts explaining something on the board (that has nothing to do with the question). The TA speaks up and tries to clarify what the guy is asking for. Chaterjee says "Attendance sheet? I don't have anything like that." And then proceeds to explain how we should all not be worried about the attendance sheet- "The final is everything in this class." (45%) Now that you know who you are dealing with, you need to hear about the final exam. The final exam was supposed to be proctored by Chaterjee and the TA. Chaterjee shows up with about an hour left in the exam. Unprompted, looks at some dudes final exam and says he is doing the problem incorrectly. About 5 minutes passes and I hear some audio coming from the back of the room. I assume someone was trying to cheat and use their phone and they accidently opened tik tok or instagram or something. But no, the noise continues and is really quite loud, the entire room can def hear this. I finally look back- Chaterjee is sitting in the back of the room with tik tok on full blast just scrolling his heart out. This went on for a quite some time until the TA intervenes. We were also told that we would be able to see our final exams- We never got them. Which is just fantastic. because Chaterjee made a bunch of grading mistakes on the midterm exam, and I HEARD (keep in mind I heard this from other students so it might not be true) that a handful of students were just given zero credit on one problem of the midterm because Chaterjee didn't understand how gradescope worked. I hope you can see by now that nobody should subject themselves to this delusional experience- just take someone else. Our TA was pretty great though- discussions were the only way to get any kind of information, other than youtube, etc.
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Most Helpful Review
Chatterjee was a good professor in my opinion. Lectures aren't as great, as they are pretty dry and boring (most other reviews on here seem to agree with that); he basically goes over powerpoints that you have access to online. I got much more done studying the book on my own than I did going to class. However, he sometimes will give hints in class about theories, etc. that you should know for the exam. This is one reason you will want to attend class. Although his lectures can be boring, he is nevertheless very helpful if you approach him outside of class with a question. If I went to his office hours with a question, I always left with a clear understanding on the material that I had been confused about before. Quizzes, midterm, and a final were all somewhat tricky, but he grades on a curve and seems to be pretty lenient with grading (I'm guessing at least 30% of the class probably gets an A). Don't be fooled, you will have to work hard in this class to understand everything and do well. But if you put in the time and effort you will do fine and probably leave with a good grade. I recommend this guy and would definitely take him again.
Chatterjee was a good professor in my opinion. Lectures aren't as great, as they are pretty dry and boring (most other reviews on here seem to agree with that); he basically goes over powerpoints that you have access to online. I got much more done studying the book on my own than I did going to class. However, he sometimes will give hints in class about theories, etc. that you should know for the exam. This is one reason you will want to attend class. Although his lectures can be boring, he is nevertheless very helpful if you approach him outside of class with a question. If I went to his office hours with a question, I always left with a clear understanding on the material that I had been confused about before. Quizzes, midterm, and a final were all somewhat tricky, but he grades on a curve and seems to be pretty lenient with grading (I'm guessing at least 30% of the class probably gets an A). Don't be fooled, you will have to work hard in this class to understand everything and do well. But if you put in the time and effort you will do fine and probably leave with a good grade. I recommend this guy and would definitely take him again.
Most Helpful Review
Chatterjee wasn't good by any means but he wasn't terrible. I personally can't understand his Indian accent, so I stopped going to lecture. The test are based on 1)theory and 2)homework. I got an A in the class just by reading and studying the textbook and doing homework. The easy thing about Chatterjee is that he tells you exactly what he is going to test you on. The bad thing is that it is very theoretical - you can never "just wing it" on a test. All in all, if you study hard what he says to, you will get an A. Also, test questions have multiple parts, so its hard to bomb. Chatterjee doesn't throw screwballs - you're not going to be doing well one day and failing the next. I would recommend him.
Chatterjee wasn't good by any means but he wasn't terrible. I personally can't understand his Indian accent, so I stopped going to lecture. The test are based on 1)theory and 2)homework. I got an A in the class just by reading and studying the textbook and doing homework. The easy thing about Chatterjee is that he tells you exactly what he is going to test you on. The bad thing is that it is very theoretical - you can never "just wing it" on a test. All in all, if you study hard what he says to, you will get an A. Also, test questions have multiple parts, so its hard to bomb. Chatterjee doesn't throw screwballs - you're not going to be doing well one day and failing the next. I would recommend him.