Mike Olinick

This is a very challenging course. Professor Olinick is a nice person, but his lectures can be very difficult to follow. He often moves quickly through conceptually difficult topics while lingering on easier ones, and it’s difficult to discern what's important and what’s a tangent or him entertaining a wrong idea. Homework was due 3-4 times a week, and each assignment took me 2-3 hours. Exams were also very challenging and made up almost your entire grade. Sample exams are provided to help you study, and you should know how to do everything on the sample exam, even if it hasn’t been taught in class or come up on the homework. Some variation of what was on the sample exam almost always appeared on the actual exam, even if the sample exam was the first time I saw it.

This is a very challenging course. Professor Olinick is a nice person, but his lectures can be very difficult to follow. He often moves quickly through conceptually difficult topics while lingering on easier ones, and it’s difficult to discern what's important and what’s a tangent or him entertaining a wrong idea. Homework was due 3- …Read more

This class was difficult, but Mike cares about his students and has a unique charm when teaching. Expect this class to push you, but it is worth the effort. The exams are difficult, and you need to keep up with the reading to be successful. But it is clear that Mike has a passion for teaching and mathematics, which comes through in the way he teaches.

Professor Olinick is definitely up there are far as individuals go—humorous, kind, involves the class with jokes—but as a professor, he is unfortunately assumes students have both the same interest in and knowledge of math as himself. Because of this, it can be very easy to fall behind and if you do not understand the material from textbook readings the night prior, you likely wouldn't understand lecture as Olinick is prone to tangents or focusing on specific portions of the content. Two things to note: he was not particularly accommodating in finding time to meet outside of his normal office hours and did not respond to several emails sent over the course of the semester; one exam had content he said would not be included and did not contain content he said would be included.

Professor Olinick is definitely up there are far as individuals go—humorous, kind, involves the class with jokes—but as a professor, he is unfortunately assumes students have both the same interest in and knowledge of math as himself. Because of this, it can be very easy to fall behind and if you do not understand the material from t …Read more