Professor
Sucharit Sarkar
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Rethink taking this class if you are a newbie to math looking for an exposure to advanced topics, like I did. Although math 31A is the only pre-req for this class, if you want to survive it's best to have taken ALL the lower div math classes and gotten an A in all of them. Since I have done all this but still struggled, I would recommend taking an upper-div or two before as well. Each week we do a different topic in math (number theory, analysis, geometry, combinatorics, etc). I don't like the way that the material was introduced. It was incredibly rushed; all we "learn" are "tricks" to solve particular "problems" in each subject. Mathematics is not about memorizing tricks, it's about understanding what you're being asked and how utilizing different methods/theorems will bring you to the solution. This fundamental aspect is completely disregarded in this class. The nice thing about this class is exams aren't terrible, the practice exams are great preparation as the exams have questions word-for-word from the practice ones. Homework is time consuming but interesting. As a lecturer, Sarkar is the personification of chaos. Not very organized, rushes, sloppy penmanship, and always goes overtime which was annoying. Since it goes so fast, you'd be completely lost if you haven't had a previous exposure to these topics before. Class environment was not conductive to collaboration, diversity, and a growth mindset. Students got quite a negative response when sharing a proposal or idea that was "wrong". I got laughed at a couple times when trying to engage, so eventually I just stopped participating all together. And from this class I got to fully experienced the disappointing lack of diversity in mathematics. As someone of minority in the field in multiple aspects, I will just say without giving details that I did not feel like the environment was inclusive towards people of similar backgrounds to me. So if you have experience with competition math, and had an exposure to most of the topics discussed, you will do well. If you're more like me, I don't want to discourage you from taking the course if you're intent on it, but you are in for a wild ride. I barely escaped with that P.
Fall 2019 - Rethink taking this class if you are a newbie to math looking for an exposure to advanced topics, like I did. Although math 31A is the only pre-req for this class, if you want to survive it's best to have taken ALL the lower div math classes and gotten an A in all of them. Since I have done all this but still struggled, I would recommend taking an upper-div or two before as well. Each week we do a different topic in math (number theory, analysis, geometry, combinatorics, etc). I don't like the way that the material was introduced. It was incredibly rushed; all we "learn" are "tricks" to solve particular "problems" in each subject. Mathematics is not about memorizing tricks, it's about understanding what you're being asked and how utilizing different methods/theorems will bring you to the solution. This fundamental aspect is completely disregarded in this class. The nice thing about this class is exams aren't terrible, the practice exams are great preparation as the exams have questions word-for-word from the practice ones. Homework is time consuming but interesting. As a lecturer, Sarkar is the personification of chaos. Not very organized, rushes, sloppy penmanship, and always goes overtime which was annoying. Since it goes so fast, you'd be completely lost if you haven't had a previous exposure to these topics before. Class environment was not conductive to collaboration, diversity, and a growth mindset. Students got quite a negative response when sharing a proposal or idea that was "wrong". I got laughed at a couple times when trying to engage, so eventually I just stopped participating all together. And from this class I got to fully experienced the disappointing lack of diversity in mathematics. As someone of minority in the field in multiple aspects, I will just say without giving details that I did not feel like the environment was inclusive towards people of similar backgrounds to me. So if you have experience with competition math, and had an exposure to most of the topics discussed, you will do well. If you're more like me, I don't want to discourage you from taking the course if you're intent on it, but you are in for a wild ride. I barely escaped with that P.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - This course deals with some pretty complex subject matter, but Professor Sarkar made it a manageable and pretty enjoyable class. His lecturing style is a little bit all over the place, and I definitely felt a bit lost at times. That said, he is pretty good at explaining things in an intuitive way and draws a lot of pictures on the board to help understand everything. What really helped me figure out this class was reading the textbook, so I'd highly recommend doing that if you want to make it through this class. The textbook by Do Carmo listed on the syllabus is NOT the one that this class is based off of, everything in this class follows the textbook "Elements of Differential Geometry" by Millman and Parker, which Professor Sarkar listed under "Additional Reading." It took me a couple of weeks to figure this out but it really helped once I could read the textbook to get a better understanding of the lectures. The grading scheme was 50% quizzes, 50% final. There were weekly homework assignments, 10 problems each, that were not turned in. Instead, the quiz each week consisted of 1 question from the homework, and your lowest quiz score was dropped. The final was also drawn entirely from the homework (1 question from each of the 9 assignments). There were some pretty tough homework problems, but Professor Sarkar generally chose the easier ones for the quizzes and final. This class is definitely challenging, but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit and I think Professor Sarkar is a good professor to take it with.
Fall 2025 - This course deals with some pretty complex subject matter, but Professor Sarkar made it a manageable and pretty enjoyable class. His lecturing style is a little bit all over the place, and I definitely felt a bit lost at times. That said, he is pretty good at explaining things in an intuitive way and draws a lot of pictures on the board to help understand everything. What really helped me figure out this class was reading the textbook, so I'd highly recommend doing that if you want to make it through this class. The textbook by Do Carmo listed on the syllabus is NOT the one that this class is based off of, everything in this class follows the textbook "Elements of Differential Geometry" by Millman and Parker, which Professor Sarkar listed under "Additional Reading." It took me a couple of weeks to figure this out but it really helped once I could read the textbook to get a better understanding of the lectures. The grading scheme was 50% quizzes, 50% final. There were weekly homework assignments, 10 problems each, that were not turned in. Instead, the quiz each week consisted of 1 question from the homework, and your lowest quiz score was dropped. The final was also drawn entirely from the homework (1 question from each of the 9 assignments). There were some pretty tough homework problems, but Professor Sarkar generally chose the easier ones for the quizzes and final. This class is definitely challenging, but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit and I think Professor Sarkar is a good professor to take it with.
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