Reviews for Wojciech Czaja
Average Rating:| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: B December 26, 2011, 4:40 pm | Dr. Czaja's grading scale was: 90-100 = A 75-89 = B 60-74 = C 50-59 = D The total class was out of 650 points made up of 4 100 point midterms(1 dropped), 19 10 point quizzes(4 dropped) and the final 200 point exam. Dr. Czaja does webassign but does not include it in the grade. Dr. Czaja, unlike many of his colleagues(Or maybe they just don't care, which is very possible) recognizes how poorly the webassign system is designed and the high frequency of lost points where a student puts in 'c' for the constant rather than 'C', among other issues. In studying for the midterms, focus on the review problems Dr. Czaja posts on his website rather than webassign, because those are more likely to be on the exam. Only after doing all the practice problems should you bother with webassign. This is the MATH department, so your success all depends on who the TAs for your lecture are and the TA you have for your discussion. And for the departmental final, the TAs for the course that semester. I lucked out with a very good TA for my discussion, Adam, who explained topics well despite the early hour of the morning, wrote helpful explanations on our quizzes as to where we went wrong, was easily approachable after discussion and in office hours. Furthermore, he took the time to write us up review packets for a few of the midterms. On the other hand, there was also a TA that was very strict on their grading, and according to some of my classmates(unconfirmed second hand), a much less valuable TA in discussion. Dr. Czaja's lecturing style is essentially basic proofs. He'll go over basic examples for each of the required concepts, and leave more difficult examples for TAs to go over in discussions. While Dr. Czaja has a fairly strong accent, it's very easy to understand, and his chalkboard handwriting is clear enough to understand as well. The textbook, the same book from Calculus 1, is useless. It is used in Calculus 2 to 'save Calculus I students money' as they continue in their Calculus track. There are better free textbooks and resourcecs online, such as <http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/> The person with the authority to assign the textbook for Calculus 1 is none other than Dr. Denny Gulick, who is the author of the textbook, and profits from every copy sold. The Mathematics department as a whole cares very little for undergraduate students, and contradictory to the goal of education, spends your tuition dollars doing its very best to minimize the # of people who succeed in their classes, which are required for every student in CMNS and ENGR. Despite all this, Dr. Czaja cares about his students' success, even in undergraduate. If you can, take his lecture of 141. |
| Hosea Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: C December 21, 2011, 6:19 pm | Calculus 2 is HARD. However, Czaja has a very forgiving grading system which makes it easier for one to get a high grade. 50% is a D, 60% is a C, 75% is a B, 90% is an A. There are 4 exams during the semester (drops 1) and 19 quizzes (drops 4). I will admit I have a very weak math background, taking precalc and calc 1 from a community college and coming here to take Calc 2. Most people I know that came to UMD after community college and took calc 2 had to retake calc 1 again. But I managed to squeak by after thinking I was going to get a D in this class. Dr. Czaja's a really nice guy, and seems to be clear when he lectures in class. I noticed that a lot of people don't seem to show up though. I think it is because he usually does examples from straight from the book. This Fall 2011 semester, Czaja did not require webassigns for hw, so that was a big plus. However, it can be a double-edged sword because you end up not getting necessary practice for the concepts if you aren't diligent enough. So I suggest you just do the problems in the book instead. Once again, I stress that this class is hard. You have to do hw daily and make sure you actually understand the concepts as they come or you'll end up with a C like me, which could have been very avoidable, especially with Czaja's grading system. The good thing though, is that its almost impossible to get lower than a C in this class. I got a 65, 50, 64, 66 respectively on the exams and a low quiz average and somehow managed to get a C. If you get anything lower it's because you blew off this class. |
| thisismygrade Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: August 6, 2011, 10:20 pm | Does professor Czaja give practice exams for 141 and how many exams are there? Thank you |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: July 29, 2011, 1:53 pm | Prof Czaja is an okay prof. His exams and quizzes are fairly easy, but I hated his teaching style. He spent half the class wiping the board. Assignments (when I took him in Fall2010): 3 exams (drops lowest), 27 hw's (drops 7), 7 quizzes (drops 2), and the final. His grading scale is on a curve (a 75 is a B and an a 60 is a C). |
| RLJ2009 Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: A January 18, 2011, 11:38 am | I heard horror stories that Cal 2 is the worst of all three of the Cals, but with Czaja is was very easy to get an A as long as you studied hard. For half the semester he was a good teacher, then when it got to chapter nine he just stopped being helpful and I had to rely heavily on Math Success Program. He drops a test, two quizzes, and five homeworks. Also his curves are so kind. I got a B in Cal and managed to get an A in Cal 2. Would definitely take if you don't mind teaching yourself and reaching out to outside help! |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: B January 16, 2011, 4:26 pm | Czaja was a very good teacher however, the final exam had problems more difficult than exams or quiz's. Czaja made us laugh just about every class. Homework was assigned on the website webassign. These problems were a real pain. The first problem on every exam was graded for either full credit or no credit. Czaja actually awarded everyone twenty points when almost everyone one of these wrong. |
| F00zball Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: B December 16, 2010, 12:02 pm | Czaja is a great teacher. He absolutely knows his shit. I can't remember a single instance of him not knowing how to do a problem or stumbling when answering a question. He comes in and starts class right away. He's got an accent but it's nothing bad, you can still understand everything he is saying. Class is generally engaging and he is hilarious when he jokes around. Some of the material is hard imo, and you will probably need to go to class and look at the textbook after. He drops a ton of the grades, curves when necessary, and his tests are pretty fair. The final was ridiculous though. I thought I was going to get a C but ended up with a B. Recommended. |
| recjra Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: December 16, 2010, 6:37 am | Prof. Czaja was easily the best math professor I have had. He was able to explain the concepts very concisely and I felt like I actually learned in his class instead of simply memorizing what we needed to know for the exams. His grading scheme is awesome and it's basically impossible to fail. Plus, he was a really nice guy and wanted his students to do well. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: B December 7, 2010, 7:29 am | He has an accent, but its not that big a deal. The biggest problem is that the examples that he uses in class are either way to simple so that you can't really study or learn from them, because the tests are much more complicated, or they are so complicated that it is impossible to understand the material. Additionally his tests are hard, yes he posts old tests to review, but usually there were not solutions posted, and he usually put s them up really, really, late the night before the test so you can't even ask your TA any additional questions about the material on the test. I took AP Calc BC in high school and not only got a 5 and I also got an A in the class. I retook Calc II so that I could refresh and get a solid A as a freshman, and no thanks to Czaja that will not happen despite working my tail off in this class. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH464 Grade Expected: B December 2, 2010, 6:40 pm | Czaja did a very good job of explaining the conceptual basis of Fourier, wavelet, and wavelet packet transforms. He also did a good job of keeping the target of any proof present in the students' minds, but sometimes proofs were a little hard to follow anyway, and some proofs left me with a feeling of "so what" afterward (that is, some proofs seemed to add nothing substantial to my understanding of the nature of the proven proposition - I would've been content with accepting a statement as true and perhaps seeing some cases of it being true or a brief explanation of the gist of the proof). It was also a little hard for me to discern what the instructor expected us to be learning at any given moment. It seemed the exams often were not clearly connected to lecture material (usually there was relevant class material that one could use to solve exam problems, but problems were often presented with notation that hadn't been used in class, such as the use of "inverse Fourier transform" instead of "synthesis formula", so some extra cognitive overhead had to be taken into account). Also, as a student who had no prior experience with Matlab, homework assignments to be complete in Matlab seemed a bit open-ended (though I scored highly on all the ones I've received back), and most of my challenge with the homework came not from my lack of understanding of the mathematical nature of any given transform but rather from particular difficulties of implementing them in Matlab (converting infinite sums over finitely supported sequences into finite sums, making sure that indices of sequences always started at 1 so that calls of values from a sequence would work, etc.). Overall, I learned a lot, and I thought a lot about transforms, but I also spent a lot of time thinking about things that seemed to have little to do with transforms. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: B November 26, 2010, 7:19 pm | This guy was a great professor up until the first test. After that, everything goes downhill FAST. The examples he offers in class are completely useless and unhelpful for studying. Overall I really didn't enjoy taking this class and thought that czaja was very unclear in how he presents the tough material, ex: taylor series, lagrange remainder. |
| Kevin Garcia Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: B November 22, 2010, 10:08 pm | Fantastic professor. Great sense of humor. Posts practice exams the night before the actual exam that are near exact copies of the actual exam. If you can ace the practice exam, you'll ace the actual exam. Has an accent, but rarely gets in the way. |
| jcywong Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: A- July 9, 2010, 3:32 pm | Prof. Czaja is a great Math Professor - if you see him in a course you are thinking about - choose his! He explains Calc quite clearly and definitely enhanced my understanding of the subject. The course IS challenging guys no doubt but if you go to every class and pay attention, do the work there should be no problem. He welcomes questions in office hours and always makes extensions prior to exams. His grading system is extremely fair - a mini-freshmen forgiveness program! Best of all is that his accent and humor, really makes Calc fun especially in that dim smelly armory. I am SO going to miss his famous "well"haha. Wish he taught Calc 3 I would so take his section. |
| BIOE Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: B+ April 8, 2010, 8:42 am | I don't understand why other people gave really good reviews for him! He does NOT explain things clearly and many people didn't bother to go to class....the only good thing is his grading system is fair! If there is a professor who actually teaches math well like margetis or justin and they are teaching this class TAKE IT WITH THEM! anyways I didn't like him take justin you will be better off! |
| mreese Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: A December 17, 2009, 6:11 am | Czaja is a very fair and respectful teacher. I really enjoyed his sense of humor and did not find his accent annoying or difficult to understand whatsoever. The practice problems he posts on his website are very helpful and he loves helping students outside of class. Although the tests can be difficult, Czaja's grading system is extremely forgiving, although the no-partial-credit question on each exam can suck if you make a careless mistake. I forgot to write pi in my answer to this question on the first exam, but he generously awarded full credit with a little note reminding me not to do it again. Czaja takes time to explain the interrelatedness between all the concepts, so stuff actually makes sense if you pay attention. I highly recommend taking his class. |
| gmichali Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: A August 17, 2009, 12:47 pm | This professor is fair. His tests are extremely polar (5 questions on each test); there will be one really, really easy question that will recieve NO partial credit because it is just that easy. Meanwhile another question on the test might be quite difficult. The other questions will be somewhere in between. Has an odd sense of humor. My test scores were a 94, 59, and 67, my quiz avg. was likewise around 78 (after dropping 2 lowest), and I got 160/200 points on the final. Somehow came out with an A-. Take MATH141 with Czaja. His lectures are average. I stopped going after the 1st (of 3) tests. He drops your lowest of 3 tests, 2 lowest quizzes of 7 quizzes, and lowest 3 (of 13) homeworks. You only need a 60% overall for a C, 50% for a D, 75% for a B, and 90% for A. Overall, this professor is very fair, much more easy going than the other Calc II profs. I mean come on, you need only a 60% for a C. Take this class if you want to avoid Francis Gulick, Ray Johnson, or even the great Denny Gulick also. |
| joepenn1 Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: B May 1, 2009, 4:50 am | Czaja has one of the fairest grading systems where 1 test, 2 quizzes, and 3 home works are dropped. Loves the theory behind Calc 2 but usually only uses examples from the book. I got a C because I only did the Webassign and no additional problems on my own. With that said if you understand the basics of Calc 2 material and do the practice problems/quizzes he puts up you will do fine. Lecture attendance is person to person basis depending on how well you know the material. I'd go though. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: A January 22, 2009, 2:46 pm | Czaja is probably one of the better professors for math141. Exams, though challenging, are actually quite fair. He has a grading system where you are allowed to drop an exam, 2 quizzes, and 3 homework assignments. He is very fair and understanding. Though his lectures may seem dull, he is more than happy to answer your questions if asked. He has a lot of safety nets for those who might fail the course. If you truly work hard and do problems from the book (not just webassign), then there should be no excuse for anything lower than a C. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: December 20, 2008, 12:48 pm | I would highly advise that you not take Calc II with Prof. Czaja. First, his accent is understandable, but can be quite annoying. Second, his lecture comes right out of the book, so you don't get the benefit of additional examples. Third, his exams and homeworks are downright rediculous. The homeworks are extremely tedious to complete, and often on topics you don't need to know. Furthermore, the tests are extremely difficult, and test the smallest details of the course. For example, one test was on the chapter involving infinite series, and there was not one problem involving Taylor polynomials/series, which is a major part of the chapter. Instead, he tested on the stupid little details that no one remembers. If you are forced to take this guy, going to class is really not necessary, just study and do a ton of examples, and you can probably scrape by with a B. |
| tallboyt Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: A December 18, 2008, 9:20 am | He is a good teacher and don't be alarmed if all you do in class are proofs b.c that's normal. He drops 2 quizzes, 3 hws (from online) and 1 test. He is helpful from the fact he gives a prac test b4 an exam which is almost alike. He gives lots of prac that will be on the final. from easiest to hardest: test -> quiz -> webassign. good class overall. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: A December 17, 2008, 10:03 pm | Czaja (pronounced shy-ya) is an interesting professor. He cares that students actually understand the material, and unlike other professors that I've had, he will step back in lecture and remind you of the "bigger picture" behind Calc II. Czaja had a fair grading system: he lets us drop an entire test (1 out of 3), 3 out of 13 homeworks, and 2 out of 7 quizes. The final exam is worth a lot, and he puts a lot of emphasis throughout the class on its importance and weight (200 pts out of 600pts of the grade). I did not find him to be an *amazing* lecturer, but I wouldn't say he was bad either. Overall, I think Czaja is a good professor, and I would recommend him for anyone looking to take calc III and higher level math. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: C December 2, 2008, 11:45 pm | Odd professor in some ways. He was a good teacher, but he made it difficult. Wanted us to learn the material on our own as much as possible, only because he truly wanted us to learn the material and this was the best way. Fairly hard exams, very hard HW, not an easy professor, but is a great professor to teach you the material and prep you for Calc III and on. |