Steve Abbott

This was simultaneously the best and worst class I have ever taken at Midd. The workload was very heavy, especially at the beginning of the semester and during the "pledged assignments", which were essentially take-home exams that took absolutely everything out of me. However, Abbott is one of the kindest, friendliest, most helpful, and knowledgable professors on campus and I would recommend him endlessly. Have fun :)

This was simultaneously the best and worst class I have ever taken at Midd. The workload was very heavy, especially at the beginning of the semester and during the "pledged assignments", which were essentially take-home exams that took absolutely everything out of me. However, Abbott is one of the kindest, friendliest, most helpful, …Read more

Real Analysis is going to be extremely difficult no matter how you cut it, unless you're a math major with a special brain for this stuff (you know who you are.) Prof. Abbott is a great person to take it with, though, if you have to take it. He doesn't do exams because he said his past students found them needlessly stressful, so instead there are two verrryyy difficult pledged problem sets. He is very available during office hours, but don't expect him to give you answers. If you try but are bad at the material, he's forgiving grade-wise, but you need to really try. When you recognize the philosophical beauty inherent in proofs about the real numbers, it can be deeply satisfying.

Real Analysis is going to be extremely difficult no matter how you cut it, unless you're a math major with a special brain for this stuff (you know who you are.) Prof. Abbott is a great person to take it with, though, if you have to take it. He doesn't do exams because he said his past students found them needlessly stressful, so ins …Read more

My friends at Amherst are taking the same class using the same textbook that Steve wrote. Even they had a great time because of Steve's clear way of writing and communicating hard concepts. Even though it would be a grind, I recommend it to all who want to develop strong proof-writing skills and witness how passionate a professor can be for math.