2.5
Quality4.3
Difficulty31%
Would Retake92
Reviews31%
Would Retake
92
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
10
4
15
3
18
2
27
1
22
What Students Say
“gives fill in the blank definitions on the tests and the material on the test is too much with respect to the time provided”
MAT21C - 1.0 rating“The worst teachers I have had at Davis by far”
MATH168 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
57%
Textbook Required
80%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
+0.03 avg changeRatings by Course
MAT21
5.0
(1)79819
4.0
(2)MATH21A
4.0
(1)MATH21B
3.6
(7)MAT145
3.0
(4)Difficulty by Course
MAT17A
5.0
MAT21C
4.5
MAT21B
4.5
MAT021B
4.4
MATH21B
4.1
Reviews (92)
He is a very good maths professor. He has a rough German accent, but is easy to understand. He also explains the material well. However, his presentation slides may be confusing at times...
Lectures vary from homework greatly. Does very few examples in class and uses powerpoint to teach theory with the majority of the class... perhaps a poor way of teaching as the material is lost on several fellow students. I know students who have stopped attending class as of the second week of class to go see a different lecture.
Hard professor. Show homework problems to students in Vazirani and Dad-del's classes and they stop complaining about their "Impossible" homework. It comes down to student effort, but this professor requires much more work put in to ensure a good grade.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS. I absolutely love calculus and math in general, but this professor has made me come to hate it. Not only is the textbook very unclear, but the professor doesn't even go over examples in the lectures! He'll just derive some equation and say something like, "oh, this integral is easy to solve" and stops mid-example. Not helpful!
His homework assignments are challenging and require a lot of thought and a lot of paper. On exams, he stresses memorization of theorems and definitions too much and in many problems the work required is very long and complicated with a very high chance of error given that you get under 50 minutes to do the entire test.
Tests have fractions. Hard to finish on time (a mile long line after the test). Doesn't curve until the final is graded!! His lectures are somewhat waste of time since he goes really fast and expects everyone to keep up with him... Avoid if you can.
Do the assigned problems/reading, go to office hours if you don't understand something. Koeppe explains all concepts very well and has a great sense of humor. If you're not keeping up with the material, his lectures might be hard to follow, but if you put in the work, the lectures are great. Exams are reasonable if you're prepared; could be shorter
Professor very new, accent understandable, but he makes weird analogies. Lectures rigorous & not always helpful or useful. HW impossible w/out cal & tests impossible to finish in 50 min without a calculator-huge fractions, long problems, and theorems. Curves at end, causing undue stress. Course requires A LOT of work. AVOID until he teaches better.
Horrible professors all he goes over is theory. Insufficient examples and really bad analogies to top it off. Disks are not banana chips in math. Disks are disks.
Bad sense of humor and makes bad analogies. We can do revolutions of surfaces without the need to have a student show his apple or orange. Does not give chances for students to ask questions and talks like a baby. Useless professor. Hard tests with you expected to memorize definitions.
useless teacher. AVOID THIS PROFESSOR. the class is VERY HARD. homework and tests are VERY HARD AND LONG. even the TA said to finish the problem with wolfram alpha.
Bad teacher, AVOID
This man is a horrible teacher. I went to every lecture, discussion, and office hour. I could not learn anything from this class. He makes poor analogies and grades very hard. The tests are long and hard to finish without the use of a calculator, as are the homeworks.
Uses a legit bell curve for a LOWER DIVISION math course (in other words, 10 A's total out of 300 students). His lectures are hard to follow if you don't have a passion for theory. VERY tough professor. Yeah, he's smart and willing to help, but if you want a grade from A+ to B+, you have to have superb math to compete.
Even though he is a very tough professor, he is very funny and engaging. He teaches heavily on theorems which can make it more difficult to process the information; however, any student can still easily learn the material presented if they dedicate the time.
Helpful, friendly, wants you to learn. However this does not make up for the fact that he is not very good at teaching. I passed easily just by doing the homework and reading the book.
First of all, he writes hard exams. Webwork homework allows many attempts. Lecture not boring. Quite humorous and speaks like a sir. Do the optional exercise he assigns. Again, really hard exam, otherwise he is perfect.
As a professor he really isn't helpful. Overcomplicates things that could be easily understood.
He is not as bad as everyone says he is. Yes he does spend most of his lectures proving the formulas used in class but these help you understand math at a deeper level an you soon will be able to derive your own. Dont take if your not willing to put in effort to learn math and would rather blindly plug and chug into equations. Tests are reasonable
Avoid, his tests are so difficult. I used to like math, and now i hate it because of this professor. He's in love with proofs but never tests you on them, so he will spend 40 minutes in class deriving a formula and only showing you one example of intermediate difficulty, then later on, when you take the test you realize he did not prepare you.AVOID
Reaally difficult professor. The tests are extremely difficult and he does not curve the grades until after the final. No one knows what their grade is... Lectures are very bad as they do not address the problems on tests or webwork but rather focus on proofs that are irrelevant.
No review sheets, no practice exams, lectures are hard to follow. Loved math before, hate it now cause of this guy. Grades ridiculously hard, if we all have a solid understanding of the subject, he'll still figure out a way to take off points on exams and curve at a C.
One of the worst professors I've ever had. He puts up random examples on the board and then tests you on different material. He provides no help when asking him for problems to study. The final is IMPOSSIBLE. Koeppe should resign as a teacher, due to incompetency and he has pure ignorance of the correct manner of teaching.
Bad professor. Webwork problems look nothing like the problems on the tests, even though he says the tests would resemble them. First midterm avg=58%, second midterm avg=54%, and the final is expected to be even lower.No practice tests, so tests are always a surprise. no matter how much you study, nothing can make you feel prepared for the tests.
Understand one thing: the only reason I made an account for this site was to warn you about Koeppe. This guy's tests were all incredibly difficult, and the averages were all F's. Webwork was also pretty hard, and he spends the majority of lecture proving things that aren't necessary for the exams. Whatever you do, do not take this class!!
I think some of the ratings here are being harsh. Prof. Koeppe is a nice man who makes an effort to convey the material to his students. He obviously teaches more advanced math students more often. If he finished more of the examples that he started in class, he might be more effective. Won't deny the hard exams. If you work hard, you will do fine.
Very tough professor! Over 70 students had D or F.
He was a really smart professor, and encouraged students to go to OH since the class was kinda difficult. Don't be afraid of people who complained about the curve; it's just like every other class. Don't try to memorize theories he talks about; just know how to do problems and memorize simple definitions in the book. You'll be okay.
Definitely not a easy class....but as long as u are willing to spend time with it, u will beat the low curve
Worst math teacher I have ever had. Try to avoid him and his impossible curve. Very unclear in his lectures and not very motivated to help students out.
He actually was a really good professor. The class was the hardest I've taken so far at Davis but Prof. Koeppe was super helpful in office hours. Class has a nice curve: C = an A basically. Was very engaged and passionate about what he was teaching. Very approachable and eager to help the students out. He also has a really thick German accent.
Lectures are impossible to stay awake in. It's better to study from the book. He uploads his notes online anyways, so I never went to class. The 2 midterms and final were hard, but the curve works in your favor. I've never been to his OH, but I hear he's helpful if you go. He gives annoying weekly webwork assignments that are pretty hard.
Fairly good lectures but the exams were impossible. Homework was autogenerated to the point where the integration could not be done with out computers and elliptic functions.
If you care about your GPA, DO NOT take any lower division math class with him! Your grade will suffer. Exams are insanely hard, lectures are boring. Near impossible to stay awake in class.
Even with tutoring and homework, the exams were still really difficult. Be prepared to put a lot of time into this course if you want an A. He encouraged his students to 'compete' and calls his grading a 'soft curve'. Koeppe wasn't the best, and wasn't the worst, but if you have the opportunity to take 21C with another prof, go for it.
If you can take this class with a different professor, please do! While the webwork hw was manageable and going to class wasn't exactly required (he posted lecture notes, plus lecture was so boring), his tests were INSANELY difficult! Definitely needed to put double the work you think you'd put in a lower div math class. You're lucky if you pass
Terrible professor, seriously. I had to retake this course and let me tell you I could have taught the class better than he did. He is very confusing during lecture, discussion is not much help its pretty much the time for quizzes, web work is always easy but doesn't give out any sample exams. 1010 do not recommend
He's a great professor, friendly, smart, humorous. I really like his lectures!
A very dedicated and helpful professor who really knows his stuff. The subject matter was difficult, but he provides LOTS of resources and really wants his students to succeed. Would take a class again with him for sure!
Amazing professor with a great sense of humor! I've never get bored at his lectures. The course is not easy, but he explains things very clearly. He is probably the most well prepared professor I've had at UC Davis. The various resources that he provides are extremely useful. Always willing to help. Charming smile; interesting class; hard exam.
Students basically have to read from the textbook before lectures in order to understand what he is trying to say. He mostly just go over some questions during lectures, attempting to let the students who read the textbook to understand the concept better. Not really my favorite class but it is not the worst.
Overall, a good professor. Make sure you read the textbook before class, because he assumes you do so. He pays a lot of attention to theory (definitions and such) and test you on it. Sometimes his pace of solving problems in class seemed too slow and made it boring. What I liked is that he posted notes online. I'd say 710 recommend.
Very friendly, quite humorous and you can tell that he really wants his students to succeed! Expects you to know definitions and theory. Stresses on reading the textbook. There were two midterms- and the one with the lower score was dropped. The final was a lot harder than the midterms though.
Took his Mat 145. His homework have nothing to do with his lectures,I google everything in his homework (I did go to his class). His crazy grader even took off points for wrong grammar (This is a math class!!!!!!!!) in written homework. Exams are very hard, midtrm 1 avg: 3470 midterm 2 avg: 2860, Final avg 91.57200. Avoid him for math!!!!
The worst teachers I have had at Davis by far. Lectures make no sense and have nothing to do with the homework. The homework is out of a different book, so if your trying to read through the required book to do the homework you are wasting your time. The most homework I have been given in a class at Davis, at least 2 assignments a week. Stay away!!
Avoid him if you can
Programming homework, modeling homework, calculation homework, proof homework always keep you busy. Test seems easy but grader is very harsh.
I think this course has a fair difficulty as a university level math course. He indeed assigns a lot of homework covering varies aspects, but most of them are kinda fun. Take with him if you want a hard-core course for intellectual entertainment.
Horrible Professor.
gives fill in the blank definitions on the tests and the material on the test is too much with respect to the time provided. barely gives partial credit on the tests and over all you have to read the book WORD BY WORD to do well on the test !
Koeppe is absolutely good lecturer!!! He is good at explaining concepts , proves and derivations. Also, the lecture goes fluently with some small hilarious points energizing everybody up. Finally, he answers questions on class briefly and clearly. However, the tests materials are hard and the grading is tough, umm... really tough.
Koeppe is definitely enthusiastic about math. He can definitely improve on clearly explaining concepts, but he gets the general idea across usually. Perhaps the class covers too much material, but sometimes he tries to stuff a lot of information into a single class. He is generally nice, but touch grader.
He tries to pack too much material into short lectures and sometimes is unclear in explaining concepts. His midterms are hard and the online homework can be tedious.
extremely dependent on ones ability to teach themselves BEFORE the lecture, unless you came to class essentially already knowing the material It's VERY hard to follow along. His teaching style did not fit me, or evidently many other people (high fail),dedicated a lot of time to this class and will maybe just barely pass, expecting a D, avoid!!!!!
He has a very advanced understanding of logic and mathematics-- and expects you to as well. He can be vague during lecture and doesn't give enough clear-cut examples of how to solve problems. Tests contain very abstract versions of the material, so very hard to study for. Got easy A's in 21A&B, hoping for a C in this class. Avoid if you can.
Professor's practice exams are generally more difficult than his actual exams. Nonetheless, do all of the recommended practice problems out of the book - shouldn't take too long if your motivated enough. Exams get you to think, but there is a LOT of extra credit (up to 20pts on the final) and curves well. Just practice, practice, practice.
This was a hard class, but Koeppe is a great teacher. If you want to do well in this class, you have to keep up with the readings and practice exercises he gives. I found it helpful to read before each lecture because it was easier to follow along when he explained the concepts. His tests were generally fair, just know definitions and theorems!
As you can see, more than 1/3 of the class failed, but it's rather due to the difficulty of the subject. Grading was reasonable and lectures decent. However you really MUST STUDY BY YOUR OWN to learn calculus. Grade dist: A+ 2.46% A 4.92% A- 6.97% B+ 4.10 B 7.79 B- 10.66 C+ 6.56 C 7.79 C- 9.02 D+ 8.61 D 6.56 D- 3.28 F 17.21
Mat21C was not an easy class. Professor Koeppe is definitely a tough grader. One little mistake on a problem will result in the whole problem being wrong. My TA (Sam Fleischer) is great and deserves a raise/promotion! He was my force towards passing this class. Lectures needs a lot of revamping . Koeppe is a nice/funny guy though! Ask for help!! :)
Lectures are not clear at all, very monotonous and boring, tries too hard to be funny. Assigns weekly online homework, but doesn't really prepare you for them so you basically have to study by yourself from the textbook. Pays too much attention to theorems makes you memorize them by heart for every exam. It's hard to get partial credit. Avoid.
Lectures were good but not great. The examples were written pretty clearly, and he posts them online so they're easy to refer back to while working on homework. Tests are hard, but with the curve anything over 50% is passing. Few homework problems, but they were difficult. It was a hard class, but it's not as bad as other reviews say.
His only suggestion after the first midterm (average of 45%) was to read more and he added extra credit problems. Midterms were cumulative but not balanced (only one vector problem although we spent two weeks on the chapter) Places too much focus on proofs. Lectures were uploaded online but I relied on TA and SASC tutors to understand concepts.
Koeppe depends HEAVILY ON the concept of teaching yourself before lecture. It did not help that the material is difficult to grasp in a 10 week period. The hw is essentially useless in preparing you for the exams, but is a valuable grade booster. STUDY THE BOOK, HIRE A TUTOR, GO GET HELP. I wish he wasn't as blind and I found him to be in empathy.
Amazing teacher! He is so under-rated but actually he is the complete opposite. He helps a lot if you go to office hours. To pass his class, you should try to do most questions in the textbook. Curves the class!
Only thing he does in lectures is writing proofs and theorems, but doesn't explain or show enough examples to help you understand them. No practice MTs and each MT (3 total plus final) are all cumulative. Gives a very vague study guide which just says read XYZ sections. Barely gives partial credit and expects you to memorize every proof & theorem
Can't give a fair review of skills as a lecturer as nobody ever went to the 9am lectures. Recorded lectures were just the professor running through the topics the whole time. But as long as you read the book along with the lectures you'll be fine. Fair grader. Generous about dropping lowest HW and Test Scores. Very helpful in OH. Would take again.
Solid professor he gets far too much hate tbh, I assume those who leave bad ratings except an easy A. He is a very cool guy and you have a lot of chances to succeed in the class. There is a small curve, cheat sheet on the test, and he personally helps you through his discord server. Not an easy A type of class but very much possible to get an A.
Professor Koeppe has 6 midterms, that's like 3 full terms! Jokes aside, they are very hard. His lecture is hard to follow, but attendance is mandatory. If you're going into math major, taking this will be beneficial in the long term because he is harder on his students than another professor that I fell off of waitlist from, it forces me to learn.
It felt like he didn't always plan his lectures very thoroughly- or at least they were incredibly difficult to follow, and made me even more confused. I attended tutoring co-classes twice a week, and I feel that was the only way I was able to learn the content. The optional/ungraded homework was decently helpful to prep for exams though.
Lectures are all over the place, they're super hard to follow and the prof practically mutters to himself while "lecturing." Your grade is based on only lecture attendance and SIX tests. You don't have much time to review your mistakes from previous tests before you attempt the next one.
This professor takes the cake and just about seals the deal for me to drop out of this godforsaken school. Koeppe is a wholesome dude but he is disconnected from the minds of students. Doesn't upload lectures creates hard-to-decipher notes, and makes tests such that the average was always below 50%. I only beg for you to get a better mathprof
DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR IM WARNING YOU IGNORE LITERALLY EVERY GOOD COMMENT HERE THIS MAN IS CRAZY. The exams are exactly how he says it is, IMPOSSIBLE. Lectures are a joke and there is barely any help given. I just took the final, don't know what I got but its for sure in the negative range .I dont even know if I like math anymore.
TBH it's not that bad. Prof. Koeppe's lectures were mandatory and they were very hard to follow, so it was definitely a self-learning. However, discussions were very helpful for test prep. Coarse was all online, so attending lectures were not that bad. 6 exams were all very tough, but again, it was through zoom so take what you will with that.
Professor Koeppe is a really good lecturer. I really appreciated the way he was able to build a concept up from simple to more complex in his lectures which made even complex topics much easier to understand and apply. His tests can be difficult to study for on the occasions where he does not provide a practice test.
This class was insanely difficult. Lectures were focused on theorems rather than example problems. Your grade is based on six hard exams which had below a 50% average. You are allowed a cheat sheet on the exam but it won't help. Some topics were barley or never discussed in class, yet appeared on the exam. Exams were graded very late.
If I had the choice, I would avoid this professor. His lectures were all online and participation was mandatory. He gave 6 exams throughout the quarter, and although there was no final, it was stressful having to prepare for exams that were 1 to 1.5 weeks apart. The practice tests that he gave us were not very helpful. Do practice problems instead.
Do the homework and a TON of practice problems to prepare for exams. The tests are accumulative and they get progressively harder as the quarter ends so set aside time to really focus on the material. The professor deleted our discord server right after the last exam so no one would ask him questions so he doesn't care too much about his students
Lecture was online and participation was mandatory (lowest 3 scores dropped), office hours 3x a week. There were 6 pretty hard exams but you do get a help sheet, and the class is curved. He offers extra credit, DO IT bc it makes a big difference. Practice problems are more helpful for the exams than practice exams.
Overall, Professor Koeppe is a nice guy and definitely take advantage of office hours. His lectures are confusing and I pretty much taught myself everything. Get a tutor if you can and watch lots of youtube videos to succeed! 6 tests is a lot, so you pretty much have to start studying for the next test 2-3 days after the last one to do well.
Overall, this class felt like an afterthought of the professor. The lectures were unorganized and obvious at some points that the material was not planned and went out of order, according to the TA. Expect to self-study all the concepts and disregard the extremely proof-heavy, theorem focused lectures. The 6 tests force you to be creative.
All the negative reviews are true. The class consists of 6 tests meaning you basically have a test every 1.5 weeks. He is a funny and wholesome guy but it's unfortunate that he makes the tests so hard. Averages for some tests were 40%.
Avoid at all costs. Whole grade is 6 exams, and we did not even have our grades for exams 3-5 before taking exam 6 so planning how to study was out the window. Attendance is mandatory but lectures are hard to follow, he will either ramble or use a pdf where he has already done the work and graphs and just go in writing the answers.
Dropped the class even though I was on pace for an A. You might think huh why? Well I don't wanna take a frickin exam every 2 weeks especially when it's 3 questions parts A to Z each with like i,ii,iii,iv,v,vi,etc. Avgs for exams were like a D/F lol. Save yourself the trouble you don't deserve this punishment nor does the worst criminal on earth.
Prof. Koeppe focuses heavily on seemingly random topics while ignoring important ones, which really comes to bite you in the back in future math classes. The discussion TA regularly struggled to understand and explain his test questions, of which there were many. Avoid at all costs.
Class was difficult, but professor offers a resources from the textbook for additional guidance. Professor is pretty understanding, as he also drops one homework and one exam out of the 3. There was also a curve applied along with extra credit for participation.
Class was difficult, however professor was pretty understanding and dropped one homework along with one exam. There was also a curve applied and extra credit for participation.
Great professor
The professor is clearly brilliant when it comes to optimization, however I don't think he realizes that this class has a very minimal pre-requisite fort he class. On lecture one he's discussing the geometry of hypercubes without even asking the class if they're familiar. Generous curve and grading policy, however I don't think I learned much.
Professor Koeppe was extremely difficult to work with. I emailed him multiple times throughout the quarter and he never emailed back once. He never posted class engagement assignments other than the article reports so nobody had the opportunity to get 100% on class engagement. He was really hard to understand during lectures because of his mask.
The class's requirements are a lot higher than I thought. There's so other class resource for AMPL besides the book so rely on Python if you're already proficient with that. Homework problems are really lengthy and both HW and Exams are 45% of grade. Professor is lenient in extending deadlines and drops 1 HW and exam which are both worth 45%.
Couldn't hear him during lecture because of his mask, super disorganized class... was just waiting for the next assignment to be posted. Posted a 10% participation grade assignment on the last day of classes? and a whole reading assignment on the last day of class? Just overall stressful and homeworks/exams took HOURS to complete.
I think the grader is really harsh and make no sense. Before the exam, please give out the citeria, otherwise, I don't know what to write and the grader always grades international students a low score in hw or exams.... plan to report him to the university
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
57%
Textbook Required
80%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
+0.03 avg changeRatings by Course
MAT21
5.0
(1)79819
4.0
(2)MATH21A
4.0
(1)MATH21B
3.6
(7)MAT145
3.0
(4)Difficulty by Course
MAT17A
5.0
MAT21C
4.5
MAT21B
4.5
MAT021B
4.4
MATH21B
4.1