What do you like best about this course?:

Professor Zeilberger! He's so awesome. He knows the material so well and is really passionate about it. He manages to make fairly abstract concepts really understandable. Plus, he's famous. The material itself is really interesting. One thing I liked was that a lot of it is 'relatable' enough that I can share it with my non-math major friends and they'll find it interesting or they'll actually understand a little bit of it. They were interested in things like divisibility and some of the combinatorial proofs. They have 0 math background and were lost when I tried to explain modulus, but they still sort of understand. It's really cool.

I like that the professor is very enthusiastic about teaching the course and he enforces good habits such as homework and attendance quizzes.

I enjoyed everything he lectured on. The course was well organized and thorough.

Everything. Dr. Z is a great professor and I've never learned so much in a class as I have in this class.

I liked that the professor well prepared us for the hw

The professor does an excellent job of keeping students on track and making them do homework, quizzing them, etc… he makes his expectations very clear and his syllabus is easy to follow. He emails once or twice a week, posts all solutions, basically he does an excellent job.

I found the subject matter very interesting. It's been my favorite math class in years. I liked the curriculum and the all the subjects we learned.

If you were teaching this course, what would you do differently?:

- I would have had graded homework instead of quizzes. - If we absolutely had to have quizzes, we should have gotten more time. There were a couple of times where everyone (except like one person) was struggling to finish in time. - The quizzes/exams seem to rely a lot on memorization. I'm not really complaining, but I feel kind of cheated because there are people in class that never show up, but just memorize the proofs and homework problems and they wind up doing really well because of it. I've been doing well in the class, but I also feel like I understand the material really well. If you were to ask us to prove something that wasn't done in class, I feel like I could do it, whereas these people couldn't because they don't know what's going on. I hope I don't sound too whiny. I just feel like rote memorization shouldn't be rewarded in a 300 level class. I just finished another math elective last semester where we really had to understand every single concept to do even remotely well. Even doing the 'easy' computational problems required a deep conceptual understanding of the material. Going from that class to this one was just kind of a shock for me. I'm not sure how to feel. - Sometimes the grading was a bit inconsistent. Some people got .5 points off for a simple notation mistake. Others got 1,2 points off for the same mistake.

1) Slow down and carefully go over everything rigorously instead of rushing through lectures. Also structuring the class differently would allow for more lecture time. 2) Less quizzes, maybe every other week instead. Also homework shouldn't be due the same time that a quiz or test is on the material as there is no feedback or opportunity to ask questions if you had issues. 3) Not check people's notebooks as this isn't kindergarten.

I would not change anything.

Nothing.

I would be a bit more forgiving of student mistakes. Even the best students occasionally make a mistake, just as Dr. Z himself has made on his handouts and during his lectures.

I would probably give clearer lectures.

I would do nothing differently. The professor was fantastic!

Have a grader for the homework so that the students were sure they did the problems correctly.

In what ways, if any, has this course or the instructor encouraged your intellectual growth and progress?:

I found a lot of the material to be really interesting and I'm definitely going to keep learning it on my own.

The instructor is very friendly and easy to approach and I think that quality encourages students to speak with him about the subject.

Dr. Z is CONSTANTLY challenging us and makes sure that we never slack. Of particular interest are the open questions in mathematics that he will sometimes present to us with a monetary reward.

He's just plain interesting. His passion is contagious.

Because Dr. Z was so enthusiastic and lively, he made number theory fun and exciting. He definitely was very encouraging to us!

I am very interested in the open problems and am now thinking about number theory as a possible area of study in graduate school.

Other comments or suggestions::

Overall, I really loved this class. Definitely one of my favorite math classes I've taken so far. I just wish it was a bit more difficult and that there wasn't so much memorization.

Dr. Z is the best professor I have ever had and I would be honored to be able to take another class with him in the future. I did not simply run down the checklist and give him all 5's. I read each question carefully and truly believe that he deserves all of the credit I have given him.

I can't enough nice things about Dr. Z. He was so encouraging and helpful and really cares about his students! He is definitely one of my favorite professors I've had at Rutgers!