Reyes, Christian Russel

mixedMATH 51.1

Note: long read incoming The thing with Math 51.1 is that if you have a lot of high school math competition experience (PMO level), it’s the easiest math course you’ll take in Ateneo (yes, including Math 10). If not, to put it lightly, iiyak ka. Intersession classes are always fast, and this class is heavy, so don’t be surprised if you struggle to keep up. Because it’s also a very proof-heavy class, you need to write your solutions carefully and clearly, otherwise you will lose points for some otherwise minor mistakes. Therefore, expect about 5 people in the batch to get straight As in everything because they’re math contest veterans, while everyone else gets Cs, Ds and Fs. It’s that kind of class where the best thrive and the rest fight to survive. On that note, I had Sir Buot for Math 51.1 last intersession and my sister had Sir Mijares for Math 30.14 last second sem, so I think I can speak for both of them. I’ve heard from other math majors that Sir Mijares will teach the first two weeks and then Sir Buot will take over, but take that with a grain of salt. Anyway, both of them are kind and accommodating, and both give quizzes that tend to lean on the easy side. Short-term, you should get good grades in the quizzes; long-term, you might struggle in the long tests because there is a large difficulty spike. Sir Mijares loves to meme and joke around, so class discussions should be fun, and it does reach students effectively. I wonder how he’ll make his topic (likely methods of proof, logical equivalencies, basically expanded from Math 10) memeable because it’s probably the most formal topic in this highly formal course. Sir Buot, on the other hand, is more formal and structured, which imo fits better for this course, but the downside is that I feel his teaching style highly caters to contest veterans. As an element of the contest veteran set, I got the lessons quickly, and when he commented on things that I failed to consider, I knew what to do quickly. But if you’re in the complement of that set (grabe yung Math 51.1 brainrot), you will not know what to do even if he gives you hints, to the point where he had to conduct a forced midterm consultation with everyone who was struggling. In summary, if you don’t have a lot of experience in mathematical olympiads (in which case this course is child’s play and you just have to be careful not to do anything stupid), you MUST do math major habits like group studying with coursemates, drilling past LTs, and going through the textbook. Both teachers will lay the groundwork that you need to pass the course, but to excel and get an A, you need to develop your problem-solving and proof-writing skills on your own. The nature of the course means no teacher will accept sloppy work, so you really need to show maximum care and effort in your solutions to get a respectable grade. Good luck!more

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Teaching this term