This course was slightly painful. It is not that the content is inherently difficult, but the course structure resulted in it being primarily self-taught. In some cases, the lyryx platform was actually super beneficial! I really liked how you were able to get partial marks for questions even if you made a minor error in your calculations. However, this really only helped when it was a more basic/computational error. For understanding errors, the feedback provided was not helpful at all. Therefore, I frequently found myself being discouraged by the course. However, overall, the class was difficult but not the worse! A benefit to having it be primarily online and asynchronous was that it added a lot of flexibility to my schedule when working around other courses.

The interesting thing about the content in this course is that it is very different from the typical math you have been doing throughout your previous education. You are introduced to the idea of matrices, which helps in solving multiple equations when you have multiple variables to work with! I found the Rn vectors unit to be a little more difficult (it was significantly more visual and abstract). The key is to focus on the reasoning/why behind each example, as opposed to understanding *how* to do it. Some of the other concepts such as determinants, transformations, and complex numbers were very interesting and slightly fun once you understood what was happening! Throughout the course, lots of real-world applications were provided too, which helped a lot.

I gave up watching Bezdek's lectures in about the middle of the semester when I realized I was just wasting time watching them. I found that he went too fast, and they were not helpful in increasing my understanding as he would just read the examples off the slides as opposed to walk the class through each step. Overall, I found the lectures not engaging and very monotone. Additionally, they would only make sense if you had foundational knowledge from teaching yourself. Therefore, I did not find the lectures beneficial in my personal learning experience. However, he seems like a really nice person!

Get ready to teach yourself! Do as much practice as possible, and do not let yourself fall behind in the content. There is a lot to work through, and it can easily become overwhelming if you fall behind!

Bad. Very very bad. I’m so tired this semester that I’ve ran out of steam writing this short review. Please read below :)

Bezdek’s lectures are useless to 90% of the students assigned to his lecture. If you have the option to watch Dinh’s lectures instead, I would highly recommend it. Bezdek simply reads out lines of equations written out within a powerpoint. He does not acknowledge the chat at all. He doesn’t read questions, and he sure as hell does not respond. He does not expand on the information he’s giving much and often does not explain why he does what he does. And let’s all talk about how fast this man talks. Try absorbing every piece of information from an ochem Crash Course video and you will begin to understand what it’s like attending a Bezdek lecture. The only difference is that the linear lecture is drier than the parsley in my cupboard which I purchased in 2009.

This math course is a completely different type of math than you have ever seen in your entire educational career (perhaps not if you were an IB student who has dealt with matrices before). After you hit “liner combinations” in the Lyryx App, it’s all downhill from there. Google and Khan Academy is now your best friend. Don’t wholly rely on the material they give you or the lectures provided; their descriptions are bad and reading over a chapter a billion times will not help you succeed. Join a class Discord server and fend for yourself as hard as you can. Lastly, do not let yourself fall behind. I repeat, DO NOT let yourself fall behind.