APMA 2130

Overall, I really enjoyed taking ODE with Spencer -- she taught the class with an inquiry-based approach. This approach made us learn the reasons why the formulas we have work, rather than just giving us formulas to memorize. Spencer's mood and energy brought joy to a lot of class-time, and I found that working in groups helped facilitate learning in a positive and constructive way. If I had to criticize anything, it would be the slight disorganization near the end of the semester; however, given the circumstances, I think that this is understandable. I highly recommend taking this class with Spencer!

#tCFfall22

Although this class was difficult and extremely dense, Julie Spencer was an amazing professor. She is genuinely so kind and understanding. There are no true "lectures" but rather she starts each day by reviewing the homework that is due and then the rest of the time is used for working in groups on the in-class worksheet. There's a lot of homework but that is truly the only thing that helped me learn the material. The tests are really hard and the final was extremely difficult but she curves the class so don't worry if you're not acing the tests (especially if youre doing all the homework).

ODE is taught in an "inquiry based learning" format, so there isn't any lecture component. There are in-class worksheets, pre-class worksheets, written homeworks, and WeBWorks due which can make this class feel like a time sink. The tests are hard and the written homeworks are graded overly harshly. The material can be difficult and I hated the structure of this class for ~1 month before I got used to it and could enjoy learning the material. The tests are held outside of class which is kinda inconvenient but there's only three so it's not too bad. Overall an interesting class but definitely time consuming.

One of the worst classes I have taken at UVA. The class is structured in a worksheet based learning module, that is taught bottom up, making the class very confusing and excessively more difficult to learn than it needs to be. Also, Professor Spencer denies any claims, from other professors reports, of her 6-8pm out of class midterms being a detriment to first years with their dining hall schedules. Furthermore, this learning module has been said to limit the subjects being able to be taught to students in a given semester (than it’s regular lecture based model version). This questions what our objectives are for the Ordinary Differential Equation requirement for engineers. If the goal was to get more quality, this was clearly not achieved as there are spelling errors constantly on worksheets, students rely on other resources like Paul’s notes instead to understand the subjects in class, and a semester tuition is payed to transform your professor into a TA for the worksheets. This class is horrible and needs to be revised.

The idea for this class is that students “teach themselves” using worksheets while the prof spencer will occasionally go over something with the whole class, but while doing worksheets TA’s walk around and can help out. This idea sounds good in theory, but the execution of this class is in my opinion very poor. Julie (prof spencer) is often pretty disorganized, and the worksheets almost always have errors in the writing of the worksheets which confuse students, and seem to never be fixed between semesters. Also, Julie often wastes a lot of time at the beginning of class going over pre class worksheets instead of allowing us to work on the in class worksheet and get out of class early or when finished. Finally, the weekly written homeworks are graded very harshly and particularly, which is annoying because you seem to lose points on random things no matter what you do, but overall its an okay class.

She has no rules. No boundaries. She doesn't flinch at torture, human trafficking, or genocide. She's not loyal to a flag or country or any set of ideals. She trades blood for money. She's Julie. In my 19 years of living, I can confidently say that this is the absolute worst class and worst professor I have ever had. This class is taught so poorly that you'll be pissed with how much money is being wasted to turn your professor into a TA.

The coursework of this class is truly awful. You will meet four times a week. Before each class there is a pre-class worksheet in which you're graded on effort and correctness. Yes, you will be graded on correctness for something she hasn't even taught yet, and no, there are no helpful pre-class videos like in multivariable. Then you'll go to class and just work in groups with two other people to complete a worksheet. Yes, that is all you do in this class. She doesn't lecture. She just hands out a worksheet in the beginning of class and basically says, "figure it out yourselves, if you need help, raise your hand". She's the mastermind behind this "way of teaching", if you can even call it teaching. Whatever she was on while designing this class, it must've been some really good shit. On top of this, you'll have a WebWorK due every week along with a written homework assignment that is filled with problems that are far harder than anything you do inside of class.

All the midterms also take place outside of class. At night. From 6:30 to 8:00 pm, timed so perfectly for the dining halls to be closed by the time you get out of exam. Also she made one of them on Valentine's Day evening. Seriously? How sadistic do you have to be to do that?

But even when you raise your hand and she comes over, she has such a snarky, condescending attitude and will always make a comment about how you're not completing the worksheet fast enough. It got to the point where most groups would just wait until a TA was nearby and ask them instead because they were far more helpful and nicer than her. She also takes forever to respond to emails and most of the time you'll have to email her multiple times to constantly remind her to fix whatever needs fixing. Also damn near every single worksheet or written homework has some type of error or typo in it and your inbox will be bombarded with fixes to these errors. In fact, during one of the midterms she had to give out an entire reprinted page because the original problem in the midterm couldn't even be solved because the graphs were completely messed up. Oh, and the final even had a typo. Does she even proofread her shit? It makes you think, "well if you don't lecture or actually do a professor's job, and all you do is make bullshit worksheets, and even then you still can't even do that properly, are you really fit for the job?" And the response to that is no. She is not fit for her job.

TLDR: Avoid Julie. The class structure is atrocious. Just take it with anyone else.
#tCFS24

Get ready for your fifty minutes of hell four times a week. Spencer had no business running this course with the most poorly designed curriculum to ever exist in academia. There are NO lectures and NO textbooks. Every class is a slew of worksheets filled with vague instructions and rife with typos and you just sit there struggling over every page while the professor serves as a glorified TA rather than an instructor. Also, there is no course calendar so you have no idea what you're going to do when you walk into class each day. Maybe the other professors were more kind, but Spencer would belittle students that didn't understand the content to the point where many of my classmates exclusively went to the TAs for help and avoided Spencer in OH and in class.
The material isn't hard, but somehow Spencer make it so difficult to understand by forcing you to teach yourself on the worksheets. So, you have to spend countless hours outside of class watching youtube videos and reading Paul's Online Math Notes to actually get a grasp of what is going on. I ended this class with an A+, so the class isn't impossible, but that was only after doing an absurd amount of studying outside of class because Spencer was mostly unhelpful and extremely frustrating to deal with. My recommendation is to just find people who have taken/are taking the class to check your worksheets with/ask the student TAs because they will be much more helpful than the tyrant of ODE herself. I can't even suggest a different instructor to take the class with because all the sections are run on Spencer's terms. You can't even take this class at a community college because not all the credits transfer over. All I can say is good luck.

As others have said, the curriculum is terrible; it provides little to no actual instruction, forcing you to take the course online from a tutor or another university actually to grasp the material. There is no lecture, just worksheets; she also prevents you from working ahead on these worksheets. Sometimes, there will be in-class worksheets that are for "review," and she admits you won't have enough time to complete them in class, and if sometimes you are booked past 5 pm all the way after class, it's no tolerance; you're getting a 0. She is extraordinarily disorganized and uses her ADHD as an excuse to be exceptionally poor to communicate with, on top of her lack of any actual teaching! This class is unfortunately required for many engineering majors, and you will have to take it; it's going to suck no matter who you're with, it seems, so ideally, learn as much as you can ahead of time to do well on the tests.