1. Course: This class is not an easy class for students who wanted to just quickly learn it without effort. It is a hard course where just listening in lectures is not enough. Don't expect to make an A without putting in at least 6 hours a week of work besides lectures. This class makes it incumbent on you to take charge of your own learning and develop a strategy that works well for you. "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."

2. Study: This class requires daily study. Consistency in your studies and preparation is a key to your success. You can not be confident in the material and not study. If you think you've understood all of the lectures, good. You still must study the past exam problems and do homework for each section. You will not know what you do not know unless you study these things. His saying of "Study Well" is essential to this class.

3. Website: It is vital that you use the multitude of resources on the website. Dr. Tsishchanka gives you everything, absolutely everything, and then some, for you to succeed in the course. Utilize it as much as possible.

4. Practice: An important part of studying math is to do the homework intently, and then analyze any mistakes you made in order to not make them again. Work through all the example problems from each of the handouts and look over the quiz solutions to fully understand concepts. Be aware of what you’re weak on. It may be nice to practice problems that you’re confident about, but ultimately studying and practice should be a way to cover your weak points. If you don’t know how to tackle a topic, then practice on that.

5. Attendance: You should try to attend every single lecture. Attending the lectures can give you an understanding that you probably wouldn’t be able to get just on your own. In particular, lectures are very useful if you do not have a conceptual grasp on the subject. Attend classes no matter what!

6. Lectures: Be active in lecture, ask questions on everything you don't get — you'll grasp a better understanding of the material when directly asking questions during lecture. Spend at least 1-2 hours each day going over material presented in class. Review the material from the week every weekend.

7. Notes: Annotating a copy of the PDFs during class is really helpful to capture the extra information/clarifications which Dr. Tsishchanka shares during his lectures. Write out your own notes. Go through them and, if needed, update your notes. Make  flashcards with formulas.

8. Exam Preparation: Cover 1/3 of a test's material per day and leave a day for overall review. Try your best to mimic the testing environment. Give yourself 60-90 minutes to work through each of the old exams. Don't get complacent: Having a good average on the quizzes or homework doesn’t mean you can relax on the midterms and having a good average on the midterms doesn’t mean you can relax on the finals!

9. TA Sessions: TA sessions are extremely helpful and crucial for your understanding and performance in this course. They are a great platform for students to ask questions.

10. Don't be discouraged by bad performances. Make adjustments and bounce back!

1. This is a hard course: Don't expect to make an A without putting in at least 6 hours a week of work besides lectures.

2. Use the website as much as you can: One of the biggest advantages of taking this course with professor Tsishchanka is that his website has more than enough resources for you to master the materials.

3. Attendance is important: Even though you can always watch the recordings, you should try to attend every single lecture.

4. TA discussions are extremely helpful: They are a great platform for students to ask questions.

5. Be patient: If one certain topic is too hard to understand, give it some time, and it will come to you eventually.

1. Write out ALL your notes again by section to remember formulas and concepts.

2. Studying in advance helps a lot - I try to cover 1/3 of a test's material per day and leave a day for overall review.

3. Practice, practice, practice! There are so many practice problems! Do them!

After each lecture, go over each theorem and definition and do both the book problems and PR problems. He offers you PR questions from previous tests, quizzes and classes that are essential to passing the class with high marks.

Each day you should be spending at least 1-2 hours going over material presented in class.

The next tip is to engage in his lectures and talk to him during office hours or stay afterward on lectures. I was able to feel really relaxed in the class and grasp a better understanding of the material when directly asking questions during lecture and having a conversation with him after lectures. Sometimes he can seem intimidating, but it's worth your grade to get over it.

The last tip, "Study to avoid embarrassment" - Dr. Kiryl. That quote stayed with me the entire semester and I recommend having that as a motivation to do well in this class. He wants students to succeed, but only if they are putting in the effort. This is not a hard class people post online about. Good luck.

This course was one of the hardest math classes I've ever taken at UT. So don't expect it to be easy at all.
However, one of the main things you can use to help you is the website. USE THE WEBSITE. You probably don't realize it but, Dr. Tsishchanka's website is an absolute gem. He has everything there and by everything I mean everything. Literally, every knowledge I got in this class was from the website. Use those PR problems, the past quizzes, the tests. Utilize everything. I never did the homework for this class but every weekend I would attempt the PR problems for the sections we went over that week and that definitely prepared me a lot for the midterms and the final. Although that might not work for you exactly, that is something that helped me a lot.

Also, ask the TA and attend his discussion sections. Believe it or not, he helped a lot. Especially with problems that I had with the PR problems. Also, don't miss a lecture. I know there are tons of videos explaining the sections and the concepts online, but I think Tsishchanka did a pretty good job with lectures and usually what he says during lectures shows up on the tests. So don't miss that.

All in all, I think the course is fair if you put in the amount of work for it. Definitely review the material from the week every weekend, even if it's for a little bit, and you should be set. But most important of them all, USE THE WEBSITE.

I believe creating a routine is of utmost importance in order to do well in this class. A routine leading up to every quiz, every midterm, the final, etc. My routine before every quiz was rewatching every lecture on what's on the quiz, doing all the practice problems, and looking at past quizzes covering the same subjects (some might show up on your quiz!). ADJUST your routine based on the results you produce. If your quiz grades aren't cutting it, add more or change something in your study routine to help yourself. Personally, I got complacent after the first quiz and crammed lot of my studying into one night/the morning of the quizzes, and got 19/25, 18/25, 19/25, and 20/25 for quizzes 2, 3, 5, and 6 (personally considered lackluster results, aiming for A). I made the adjustment to split up rewatching the lectures and doing practice problems across 2 nights rather than cramming into one day, and proceeded to score 23/25, 25/25, and 25/25 for quizzes 7, 8, and 9. There are a multitude of ~10 quizzes in this class over the semester, it is vital that you use the large number of quizzes as well as the multitude of resources on Dr. Tsishchanka's website to create a routine for yourself that WORKS by the time the final rolls around. Don't be discouraged by bad performances, make adjustments and bounce back.

I developed certain preferences and a routine that worked well for my own learning style. That might be the best advice that I can give, but I'll use myself as an example:

I'm a more methodical person. I often need to think things through step-by-step to understand them, while balancing that with efficiency.

The notes were especially helpful, because they were so thorough. I went through them on my own time and updated my own notes. If I still had questions, I could turn to Dr. Tsishchanka and the Internet, both of which are fantastic resources. For half of the semester, I made flashcards with formulas and their derivations.

For practice, I primarily relied on the practice problems, tests, and quizzes on the website, since they align well with assessments. Managing my time by doing practice a little at a time as opposed to cramming all at once was both more effective and more pleasant.

When I started practice problems of a new topic, I initially included more steps and procedure than I needed, in order to reinforce the concept. Later on, I started to winnow away redundancies while keeping key steps.

This class makes it incumbent on you to take charge of your own learning and develop a strategy that works well for you. As some smart person once said, "knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." If you know yourself and put in the effort, it will pay off.

At the beginning of the semester I was really slow at doing my math. For the first midterm I didn’t even get the chance to work through all the problems and ended up guessing at the end (and my grade definitely reflects that). As I studied for the second midterm I tried my best to mimic the testing environment. I gave myself 90 minutes to work through the old exams and when I finished I checked my answers with the answer key and worked to understand where I went wrong and ensure I wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

Practice problems will be the biggest help when it comes to learning the material. Work through all the example problems on the handout, do the homework and look over the quiz solutions to fully understand concepts.

Something I did to improve my grade tremendously, is I started doing all the practice problems and exams. It forced me to really test whether I really knew what I was doing and it also just gave me good practice with a variety of problems. It also turned out I would encounter similar ones on the actual exam and be like "oh I have encountered this specific situation before, I know what I need to do".

Utilize the website as much as possible. Professor Tsishchanka promotes his website very often and how useful it is, and he’s not lying. If there’s a topic that you’re weak on, then go to problems and practice until you’ve gotten the feel. There’s also the practice problems from the textbook, but I would highly recommend the practice problems from the “Problems” tab since they’re test problems. Practicing those problems will give you a better feel for how that concept will be formatted on the test.

Attend classes no matter what. I know plenty of people who didn’t attend classes because professor Tsishchanka usually reads the lecture that’s accessible from his website. They think there isn’t a need to attend lectures since they can read the lectures and understand the topic on their own time. However, attending the lectures can give you an understanding that you probably wouldn’t be able to get just on your own as well as providing a step-by-step process on how to face a problem.

If the problems that professor Tsishchanka goes over during lectures isn’t enough or isn’t very helpful to you, be sure to attend the discussion sessions since they’ll go through similar problems in a slower, more detailed fashion. They can also provide plenty of shortcuts on how to face certain problems.

To practice, there’s the problems in the “Problems” tab but the tests available in “Tests” tab can also be good practice. Be aware of what you’re weak on. It may be nice to practice problems that you’re confident about, but ultimately studying and practice should be a way to cover your weak points. If you don’t know how to tackle a topic, then practice on that.

Don’t know how to do it? There’s plenty of resources to help you, like the TA and online guides. However, if you’re seriously confused, then don’t be afraid to ask the professor or the TA in their office hours. Don’t consider a question as stupid.

Something I'd like to say to future students taking this course: You must work on an individual level to be successful in this course.

As Dr. Tsishchanka says all the time in class, you will not be successful if you never ask questions. This is not a class where just listening in lectures and taking notes is enough. You must reread the lecture pdfs and make sure you truly understand and memorize the theorems and remarks to be successful.

The thing I learned the most about this class is that you can not be confident in the material and not study. If you think you've understood all of the lectures, good. You still must study the past exam problems and homework for each section. You will not know what you do not know unless you study these things.

The TA sections are incredibly helpful as well. There are not many examples of questions in lecture, so these are crucial to being able to apply the knowledge from lecture to actual problems.

All in all, Dr. Tsishchanka is a hard professor, but he is hard because he makes you actually learn the material. Individual studying, asking questions in lecture, and attending TA sessions are crucial for your understanding and performance in this course.

Dr. Tsishchanka expects students' to put in enough work on his course in order to be able to get a good grade. This is coming from someone that failed his first exam with a 36, indicating that I am not particularly on the team of students that were able to get the hang of his course right off the bat.

I have changed the way that I go about my student routines a lot since then, and as a result, I have slowly but surely started improving. I soon realized that Dr. Tsishchanka gives you everything, absolutely everything, and then some, for you to succeed in the course. I started using his website to teach myself linear algebra, not just differential equations because his lecture notes from his past courses are just that good.

He willingly stops the class to beg students to ask questions. There is no such thing as a stupid question with this professor.

This class was not an easy class for students who wanted to just quickly learn it without effort. It requires daily study and making sure to communicate your questions to the professor. His saying of "Study Well" is essential to this class.