Student Feedback

Princeton University GEO422 : Data, Models and Uncertainty in the Natural Sciences

2010

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "How would you describe the overall quality of the lectures?".

Frederik is engaging to the students, and has very well-planned lectures. Lecture attendance key to understanding enough to complete assignments.

I would rate the quality of the lectures as excellent. The professor is marked by an entertaining, engaging style. All presented information was presented in an application-focused context, and no time was exhausted in the completion or presentation of "busy work". The classes both stimulated my interest in the subject of data analysis and contributed significantly to my knowledge of the subject.

Frederik's lectures are performance art.

Frederik is very mathematically precise and clear with his notation, something for which I will be eternally grateful [...] and his explanation of fourier time series analysis is the best explanation I've ever seen anywhere.

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "Please comment on the guidance of the instructor(s) in preparing you to do [...] problem sets to the course."

lab experiments and reports helped our understanding very much.

One homework and 4 labs. All were very useful toward building on understanding of material, and helped students gain a working knowledge of MATLAB along the way. Workload not overbearing.

Every assignment was ingeniously developed and melded well with the information currently being discussed in lectures. Comments and advice were helpful and informative. The assignments contributed greatly to a deeper knowledge and appreciation for the subject matter at hand.

I learned a ton from these well organized and constructed problem sets. They were challenging, but Prof. Simons was ALWAYS available to discuss the problem sets.

Frederik did a fantastic job of taking many students who had never even worked with MATLAB and showing them how to do quite complicated things with the language. He always had a trick up his sleeve to help everyone improve and do things naturally, and his comments were written with care and were very helpful.

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "Please comment on the overall quality of the course."

Overall, I rate the course as excellent --- it was certainly the best statistics/data analysis course I have ever taken. No improvements necessary.

Interesting and challenging.

Problem sets were excellent and instructive; I loved learning to be more proficient at MATLAB; the lectures were well organized, though often fast and very challenging conceptually

2008

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "How would you describe the overall quality of the lectures?".

knew what he was talking about, would help you with matlab programming

Frederik's lectures were very well presented. Subject matter was presented from a variety of view points, and often left trails for independent learning outside of the class.

Professor Simons is a great teacher. He taught everything clearly. I learned a lot from him. Thank you Frederik.

Frederik is talented in teaching, and he can always demonstrate in a comfortable way for the student to understand, without going into some abstract concepts

Prof. Simons was also very nice and approachable.

This course was of top teaching quality. The subject matter was very well presented and illustrated in the problem sets.

One of the most great class I ever took!

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "What advice would you give to another student considering taking this course?".

This course is not just recommended for Geo students but for anyone studying any science. The applications of the theory were engaging and the material highly relevant. (...) I would say this class would be suitable and important for anyone who is a sophomore or higher.

I strongly recommend you to take it!

It's a great course if you want to learn to use MATLAB or some basics of inverse modeling. The workload is very reasonable. Allows you to work on your own research as a final project, which is nice.

2007

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "Please comment on the strengths of the course".

It's strongest point was the rigurously applied nature of the teaching style and the lab work. I've taken statistics and stuff before, but there was never any context. The lectures, as is all but required in a mathematical course, were dry and formulaic in structure. They were not dry in delivery, though! Classes were still fun. Furthermore, each spate of formulas fed into a quality, well thought out lab exercise.

The assignments/labs were excellent. They were well designed to illustrate the important concepts and show practically how to implement them.

Covered a lot of materiel. Lab exercises were very helpful for understanding. Very receptive to input about course.

The lab exercises were well designed and significantly contributed to my understanding of the material. The MATLAB skills gained were invaluble.

The techniques from this course were useful in writing my JP. Also, the professor was very flexible to tailoring the course to the student's needs, although this worked against me somewhat in that the course went in a more technical direction.

P. Simons is very good at explaining information clearly!