Friday, August 26, 2016

What was it like to take a class with Walter Lewin?

I took 8.03 (waves and vibrations) with Walter Lewin and I have to say that every lecture was a performance.  Almost all of them were amazing.  He really knows how to present content and make it engaging.

However, that does not necessarily mean that he did a good job ensuring that the students could apply the concepts on their own.  He explained that he believed that we should all have the discipline to do how ever many exercises were necessary to gain the mastery.  Unfortunately, with lots of other commitments pulling us in a hundred different directions, optional problem sets were ignored by several of the students.

He wrote difficult tests and one of the most difficult final exams I saw in all of my classes at MIT.  He also used a bizarre weighting algorithm to determine our final grades that gave you a headache just thinking about it.

However, there is no doubt that several of my most enjoyable moments in a big lecture hall at MIT had Walter Lewin standing in the front.


Read other related questions on Quora:

from Quora http://ift.tt/2bov7Ps

No comments:

Post a Comment