Apr 04 2009
F before D, except after C
A public service announcement to anyone taking the Math 20 series at UCSD:
I would strongly advise you to take Math 20F (Linear Algebra) before Math 20D (Differential Equations), despite how that seems alphabetically out of order. Why? Because a few classes into 20D last quarter, my Prof basically said that the current order is weird (she has taught both courses) because 20D uses matrices a lot, yet there isn’t enough time to go over them in detail in 20D, so you basically have to hope learning matrices in a rushed fashion mostly from the book will work for you (it didn’t work well enough for me and definitely affected my grade). And now that I am taking 20F, I can further corroborate this since so far (and looking a bit ahead in the textbook), 20F seems like it could be summarized as “Matrices 101″.
So, save yourself a lot of pain and:
Take 20F before 20D!
If you have any questions, feel free to use the Comments section.
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4 responses so far
Thanks bro,u saved me a lot of truble
If your IP was not from Dartmouth, I’d have taken that comment more seriously.
Multiple, completely unrelated classes have the same number, differentiated only by a letter tacked onto the end!?! No wonder nobody can ever get their classes in the UC system – the numbering system is more confusing than the Blinovich Limitation Effect!
I wouldn’t call them completely unrelated; they comprise the so-called “20 series” of math classes, which is required for several majors. What’s annoying is that the official suggested+implied order of D before F is wonky.
Props for the Dr. Who reference.