Loved his Australian accent to death but failed his final, dislike his test format.

Murfet smells! D:< He’s funny and good-natured, so lecture isn’t usually a bore. But half the class didn’t know what he was talking about every day while he’s teaching. He gets everything straight out of the textbook, confusing symbols, explanations, and all. Therefore, his teaching of the concepts was very mechanical and I only memorized formulas for his class. Sometimes he graphs when asked for clarification, which helps, but lots of times he just said the same thing.

Math homework always takes me freakishly long, so I don’t have much comment on that. However, it makes it so much harder not knowing what I was even DOING. It my first time learning calculus and he sometimes threw around terms like we were supposed to already know them.

I absolutely hated the 2 midterms and final because for every test, the questions on the first half were alright, but then the last half would be a series of questions that I had never seen in class. It was either that or we spent one day covering it and the class was left brain-dead and confused (stupid propagated error question, I am talking about you). Midterm means hit the 70%s and 60%s while the final’s mean was 55%, so you tell me what’s wrong here!!!

It was a flappin’ miracle that I didn’t automatically fail this class, but I struggled in Math 3B due to the rickety foundation I learned in 3A.

Murfet was a pretty decent teacher.

What makes him good:

1. His australian accent is awesome. It just makes him that much more easy to listen to. Although I will warn that his voice is also deep and so the total effect might lull you to sleep.

2. His lectures are pretty clear. He explains it properly and thoroughly. He also points his notes online for you to review. They have pretty good explanations so it's easy to read and follow.

3. His homework problems will help you learn the concept better. I did not think they were particularly long assignments. 1 assignment usually took me about 30 minutes-1 hour. It does get a little tedious at times though, and sometimes the extra problems might be a little unnecessary, but it's good practice.

What makes him bad:

1. His tests/midterms are all low in points, and it's always a awkward total of points. For example, one of his tests was out of 28 points. That means, you can only miss 2 points and still get an A (technically, and of course this is without the curve). I would much rather have the test be worth two points more so that I could miss 3 points instead of 2. 28 is just annoying....8 more points to miss than a 20 point test, but you're still only allowed to miss 2 points like a 20 point test.

2. Some of his word problems are worded weirdly. His midterms are pretty straightforward, but when you get to the word problem they are (A) harder than the ones that you practiced in previous lectures, homework, and practice exams, (B) difficult to understand what he wants you to do/solve at first glance of the problem.

FALL 2011
He is horrible, if you have a choice do not take him. he struggles trying to explain his lectures, he is not a very goof teacher. He made us learn about his made up models that were not even in the book which he valued with the most points in our midterms. he made us go the lecture before his final and at the end he said "don't worry this is not on the final" and that how i lost 1 hour just listening to his worthless proofs. He is a nice guy but his way of teaching sucks DO NOT TAKE HIM.

Took him in the fall. Definitely do not recommend! GPA ruiner. The most obscure questions on the test. Most of the questions are just like whattt????
He's a nice guy...but that really does not matter.

Professor Murfet is a nice guy whether it be making jokes during lecture, or by working with you during office hours.

But he is not a very good teacher.

There were maybe two or three lectures throughout the entire quarter that I was able to understand and follow thoroughly. First of all, Professor Murfet's teaching methods and ego combine to form a very confusing lesson; it's almost as if he needs to convince his students that he is intelligent. These "math notes" consist of 75% overly-wordy explanations and 25% bare-bones calculations. I would have read over the posted lecture notes online multiple times in order to interpret the very gist of information thrown upon us so quickly during lecture. At a certain point, I had even taken the lectures less seriously, in that there was no point in attempting to discover from beneath all of the superfluous, unnecessary information the true meaning of the lesson. I found myself looking, nay, excavating through the lecture notes for hours on end in dire attempts to grasp the near-impossible concept that is understanding. It probably didn't help that my TA didn't speak English and took points off of my homework for correct answers to tell me to talk to the professor to fix his own mistakes either, though. Multiple greek variables for the same number or idea, ridiculously lengthy steps in order to explain what should be given information, calculation models that offer more harm than good. Don't get me wrong, Murfet is smart--but why overcomplicate things when they don't need to be overcomplicated? Concepts that took the entire fifty minute lecture could have been explained in a ten minute example--the majority of which honestly didn't help on his exams.

The exams. At times I wondered if I was in the wrong exam room. At times I hoped Murfet would stop the exam midway and tell us that he was kidding, to later hand us the "real" test--the test containing information we had practiced, or even covered, to be completely frank. My scores on the two midterms and final were very mediocre, as in I've-never-scored-this-consistently-low-on-tests-in-my-life mediocre. Problems that I, nor fellow students have seen before riddled each exam--the ridiculous problems seemingly taunting me as I looked at the page in utter astonishment--almost like a sick joke. The only exam I had actually finished was the first midterm; both the hour-long second midterm and three-hour-long final ended as 90% of students scrambled to finish. Fair? I heavily doubt it, but in order to somehow "undo" these three mathematical suicide missions, Murfet imposes a somewhat generous curve at the end of the day. I scored a C average on the tests, but finished the course with a B+. My only B+. A B+ that pulls my overall GPA down, like dead weight, like a savage, greedily tugging away at my chances of success.

Murfet is a nice person, but why attempt to trick the students he tries "so hard" to teach?

Honestly, I think I only did well in this course because I took AP Calculus AB in high school (and got a 4 on the AP test). Murfet makes lectures too complicated and doesn't give enough examples to help you do the homework problems. The difficulty of the two midterms and final also didn't reflect what we learned through lecture and through the homework problems. I really don't know how he expects us to know how to solve those difficult problems on tests after he barely goes through the concept in lecture.

A word of advice: Go to office hours if you need help because he is actually quite friendly and willing to help.

Good luck.