Michaela Kubacki

Linear is a fundamental course in pretty much any stem field, but taking it with Kubacki meant signing up for possibly the worst case of busywork I have ever encountered at Middlebury. Note that the class is proof-based and includes projects in MATLAB, which I found helpful; the volume of work, however, was way too high. Here is a list of all *graded* assignments (not including ungraded homework): 1. weekly "feedback" assignments, usually anywhere from 8-14 questions, each with multiple parts. These usually take a good chunk of time to complete, and require thorough communication for full marks. 2. "preview" assignments due at the start of every class. these are graded for completion. 3. "mini"-projects due roughly every ~4 weeks which consist of very long, elaborate MATLAB scripts requiring full paragraph explanations, 4. four long reflections (2-3-page assignment each), and on top of that we have 3 exams (the exams themselves aren't too hard.) Doesn't matter if we have an exam, Kubacki always assigns graded homework that week. It feels extremely micromanaged beyond the point of shear organization alone. A lot of the assigned homework (especially the reflections and mini-projects) I felt were unnecessary, especially considering our classes rarely consist of lectures and rather, are mostly group work. This class is a stark contrast from my class with Alex Lyford, who assigns us very few large projects/homework with room for exploration and curiosity. This results in a happier, more inquisitive class. I understand linear is of a different nature and requires thorough practice to fully understand the concepts introduced, but it feels as if Kubacki's method went too far. Our classes are dead silent. Everyone I have spoken with complains about the amount of work. I wish she would take notes from Alex.

Linear is a fundamental course in pretty much any stem field, but taking it with Kubacki meant signing up for possibly the worst case of busywork I have ever encountered at Middlebury. Note that the class is proof-based and includes projects in MATLAB, which I found helpful; the volume of work, however, was way too high. Here is a li …Read more

If you genuinely like math, or intending on majoring in math/applied math, then I'd recommend taking Linear with Kubacki, but if you are someone like me who took it as a prereq, I would highly recommend not taking it with Kubacki and instead taking it with Morris-Wright. They use 95% of the same course materials, but Morris-Wright's exams are FAR EASIER!!

Let's start with the positives: Professor Kubacki is a very nice person and you can tell that she has a lot of passion for the subject and just wants to see her students develop a love and understanding for what she teaches. She is also very accommodating–she'll stay long past her office hours to make sure you grasp an understanding of the material. The thing that I found to be most frustrating about her class was her teaching style. She does not exactly teach the material by lecturing, rather she assigns preview assignments to motivate you to learn the content via textbook before class so that you can practice the concepts with minimal instruction in class. Personally, this teaching style just does not work for me and I found that it forced me to dedicate quite a lot of my time to the class rather than focusing on other classes. In addition to this teaching style, she also assigns projects using MATLAB, which was very difficult to navigate as an individual with no coding experience. The projects are lengthy and seem unnecessary, since they often require you to solve something by hand and solve it again using MATLAB codes. It is also a very fast-paced class that you should always plan on attending, missing a class or two can cause you to fall very far behind.

Let's start with the positives: Professor Kubacki is a very nice person and you can tell that she has a lot of passion for the subject and just wants to see her students develop a love and understanding for what she teaches. She is also very accommodating–she'll stay long past her office hours to make sure you grasp an understanding …Read more