Professor profile for Elliott Cheney
Student reviews of Elliott Cheney
Review from a student who took M 340L
Cheney's a nice old man... who should have retired years ago. If you are a math major, you'll love this class. If you're not a math major, find another section. If you're Engr or NatSci, you're not going to touch on anything that resembles the kinds of things you're going to be expected to use this material for later on. The lectures are all theory, the homework is all proofs, and the tests are all true/false. I think the only thing I really learned from this class was to thoroughly dislike linear algebra.
Cheney's a nice old man... who should have retired years ago. If you are a math major, you'll love this class. If you're not a math major, find another section. If you're Engr or NatSci, you're not going to touch on anything that resembles the kinds of things you're going to be expected to use this material for later on. The lectures are all theory, the homework is all proofs, and the tests are all true/false. I think the only thing I really learned from this class was to thoroughly dislike linear algebra.
Review from a student who took M 340L
Cheney... I'll bet he's a good guy. Too bad I enrolled in his M340L class. This semester, Cheney decided to write a new Linear Algebra book. He decided to test it on us. I am not pleased that I am in the first semester of this experimental textbook. The copyright date on each of the Units is always about 2 days before the homework off of it is assigned, so I think something's wrong here... Grading is a mixed bag. M340L and M341L are the same class to Cheney. We get the same 10 questions of proofs everyday as M341L, and they're using the experimental textbook, too. The proctor picks a few questoins that are easy to grade and goes with those. Not bad, but it's terrible when you don't do a problem the proctor selects. I think I'm roughly 50% on homework so far, which puts my upperbound on this course at 90%. The experimental textbook is probably the part of this course that you will spend the most time with here. Those who wish to be math majors will love this. It's highly complex and writen with a math major in mind. Those of us who actually want to have concepts taught and not mathamatical formulas will not be pleased at all. I don't understand anything that's going on, so I find myself frequently referring to the David Lay book, "Linear Algebra and Its Applications". Cheney and Kincaid's book completely fails to be educational. The TA likes it. He can read it like I can read texts in subjects I know by heart. That's the problem. This book is not for those who learn by concepts. Beyond that, the book sometimes fails to mention absolutely critical details for the questions it asks of us. More than three separate occasions, Cheney has told us in class that it was impossible to figure out the homework with the text because he hadn't gone over the subjects yet. Lately, he's been assigning homework that is due by the end of the class in which he lectures about the assignment's new material. Very, very bad course organization. Lecture is where Cheney's M340L falls apart. Class starts, Cheney reads from his printout notes, and class ends. It's just that boring. I think some of the fault lies with us for not having the drive to stop him in class. However, a professor should encourage student participation. This is probably going to be one of your all time worst lecture hours in college. Most people either don't go to class and just turn in the homework afterwards or do the homework in class. The tests are True/False, but that doesn't stop the class from failing. We clearly don't know the material very well, and we get curved. I'm scoring about 70% right now, and I get curved about a letter grade. I wouldn't recommend this class unless it changes completely.
Cheney... I'll bet he's a good guy. Too bad I enrolled in his M340L class. This semester, Cheney decided to write a new Linear Algebra book. He decided to test it on us. I am not pleased that I am in the first semester of this experimental textbook. The copyright date on each of the Units is always about 2 days before the homework off of it is assigned, so I think something's wrong here... Grading is a mixed bag. M340L and M341L are the same class to Cheney. We get the same 10 questions of proofs everyday as M341L, and they're using the experimental textbook, too. The proctor picks a few questoins that are easy to grade and goes with those. Not bad, but it's terrible when you don't do a problem the proctor selects. I think I'm roughly 50% on homework so far, which puts my upperbound on this course at 90%. The experimental textbook is probably the part of this course that you will spend the most time with here. Those who wish to be math majors will love this. It's highly complex and writen with a math major in mind. Those of us who actually want to have concepts taught and not mathamatical formulas will not be pleased at all. I don't understand anything that's going on, so I find myself frequently referring to the David Lay book, "Linear Algebra and Its Applications". Cheney and Kincaid's book completely fails to be educational. The TA likes it. He can read it like I can read texts in subjects I know by heart. That's the problem. This book is not for those who learn by concepts. Beyond that, the book sometimes fails to mention absolutely critical details for the questions it asks of us. More than three separate occasions, Cheney has told us in class that it was impossible to figure out the homework with the text because he hadn't gone over the subjects yet. Lately, he's been assigning homework that is due by the end of the class in which he lectures about the assignment's new material. Very, very bad course organization. Lecture is where Cheney's M340L falls apart. Class starts, Cheney reads from his printout notes, and class ends. It's just that boring. I think some of the fault lies with us for not having the drive to stop him in class. However, a professor should encourage student participation. This is probably going to be one of your all time worst lecture hours in college. Most people either don't go to class and just turn in the homework afterwards or do the homework in class. The tests are True/False, but that doesn't stop the class from failing. We clearly don't know the material very well, and we get curved. I'm scoring about 70% right now, and I get curved about a letter grade. I wouldn't recommend this class unless it changes completely.
Review from a student who took M 341
His tests are true/false but all the homework is essentially proofs. The good thing is that in small classes he will not go on until people understand (no one asks any questions) so if you have questions, he is open to explaining them. Tests are easy as long as you study all the theorems. I would say this is an easy A but there is HW every single class day except the days of tests.
His tests are true/false but all the homework is essentially proofs. The good thing is that in small classes he will not go on until people understand (no one asks any questions) so if you have questions, he is open to explaining them. Tests are easy as long as you study all the theorems. I would say this is an easy A but there is HW every single class day except the days of tests.