MATH 263

Welcome to the homepage for McGill MATH 263 Ordinary Differential Equations for Engineers at Jacob’s Math Help Desk!

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About the Weekly Mastery Lectures for McGill MATH 263

The weekly Mastery Lectures for Math 263 are 2-3h, small-group, sessions that aim to clarify the concepts and theory presented in the class lectures in an easy-to-understand approach that will help you both master the content throughout the semester, so that you have a solid understanding of the material, and make it much easier to succeed on your quizzes, WebWork and final exam.

The sessions include detailed, fully-developed solutions, meant to illustrate different aspects of the material in a systematic, structured way that makes it really easy for you to focus on understanding (instead of just copying notes), so they can identify and understand the core concepts. Solutions are even colour-coded to make it easy for you to see through the barrage of symbols and focus on the key elements. It’ll also help you learn to structure your answers efficiently and effectively, so that the logic of the solution is clear to you (and the marker!), and you won’t have to spend as much time at the end of the semester re-learning material before the final.

The sessions are also designed with a view of the entire course in mind, so you know where to invest your time both in terms of success in this class, as well as in terms of the topics that will have the greatest application in future classes.

The Math263.com Weekly Mastery Lectures will help you with:

  • Time Management: even if you’re keeping up with the class on your own, the Math263.com Weekly Mastery Lectures will help you make better use of your study time.  The notorious difficulty of McGill math classes is not inherent to the content itself; rather, it is the sheer volume of material that makes the classes so challenging. Better to spend 2h in a weekly session that will help you really understand the concepts and complete assignments yourself, rather than spending 8-10+h banging your head against the textbook and trying to decipher online resources only to get answers that don’t really make much sense to you, and have it haunt you come exam time, when you’ve got 4 other classes to study for.
  • Maintaining Commitment: despite the best of intentions to keep up with material and not use Wolfram for Webworks, Montreal has its way of always offering up absolutely, totally, 100% legitimate reasons that derail the best laid plans. So you make a financial commitment to a weekly session that helps you reach your goal. Knowing that you need help to reach a goal (& acting on it!) is knowing how to find the success you want.
  • Math Therapy: I believe that anyone who wants to learn math, can. You may be terrible at math, true – but there’s probably a list of bad math teachers somewhere in your past that would go a long way to explaining the difficulties you have, & no one wants to spend their time feeling like they just can’t get it. However, if you’re motivated and willing to do the work and practice, then you can definitely succeed. I’ve seen it hundreds of times: students go from failing in a fantastically impressive way to acing the class. The weekly tutorials will go a long way to rehabilitating your relationship with math.
  • Top of the Class: a large number of the students who attend weekly sessions don’t want to just pass the class, they want to understand the material at an intuitive level, & they want to ace the class. The weekly tutorials provide a wealth of information that help you develop general, transferable skills in mathematical literacy and reasoning, and I work hard to help students do their very best (and many have both aced their classes and finished very top of the class).

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Cost & Payment Structure for Weekly Mastery Lectures

If you have never attended one of my sessions previously, you can check out a Weekly Mastery Lecture for only $20. Simply register using the contact form above, or get in touch with me at Jacob@Math263.com – you’ll be glad you did!

  • Full 7-Week Membership: prepay for the entire set of 7 sessions and get the best price for the Math 263 sessions: $280 for everything you need to master the material and succeed in your class.

    Included in the weekly membership: not only the weekly lectures, but detailed notes at every session (4-12 pages, 9pt, colour-coded), and priority registration (as well as discounted rates!) for WebWork Workshops, Midterm Review and Final Mastery Sessions.

    This option is only available during the first 3 weeks of sessions and for the total set of 7 sessions. So if you join during the 2nd or 3rd session, the price is still $280; however, you’d receive all the previous notes and still qualify for all the benefits.

    My goal in offering this lowest price is to encourage you to join the sessions early, so that you can establish a strong foundation right from the start so you’ll be less stressed for the final and do better in the class, overall: take advantage & register right away!

  • Prepay (min.) 4 Sessions: $220, includes notes and all other benefits of weekly membership. There is always the option of getting the notes from previous tutorials, sutdents can contact me at Jacob@Math263.com for exact prices. The same benefits as the 7-week membership also apply. For complete details, get in touch using the contact form or contact Jacob@Math263.com.
  • Individual Sessions: $65/session, subject to space. Cancellations must be made min. 48h prior to the session. For additional information, get in touch using the contact form, above.

N.B. All payments are non-refundable; for additional details, please contact Jacob@Math263.com.

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MATH 263: The Long View

This is one of my favourite courses to teach: the material can appear so intimidating if it isn’t presented properly, but once you understand it, it really isn’t that difficult and is absolutely fascinating.

This course emphasizes the benefits of an understanding-based approach to mastering the material more than many others: there is simply too much material for students to succeed without really understanding the content. My advice is to get started early: the course starts off easy, but those easy topics are the foundation of later, more complicated material, so you need to aim for a high level of mastery right from the start, not just applying an algorithm for solving problems. Simple theory that seems superfluous at the start of the course turns out to be critical when you reach more advanced topics at the end of the semester (when it’s too late to back track).

Don’t take my word for it though – ask anyone who’s taken the class! Being able to solve the problems isn’t enough, you need to really understand what is going on if you don’t want to get caught off guard later in the class.

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Upcoming Sessions For MATH 263 ODEs for Engineers:

The first group is always scheduled on the weekend, generally at the same time every week. Once there are enough students for a second group, it will be scheduled during the week. The sessions will be online.

 What others are saying about our sessions:

Finding the right teacher is really important, but it’s not easy to know what to expect. Here are some unsolicited comments from recent students in MATH 263 at McGill. You can find more reviews from past students on the tutorials page. Ask around: we work hard to make sure that all of our students do the best they can!

“I know most people are probably Grieve-ing for their grades right now but I found the final difficult but manageable.

Just wanted so say thanks for the help this semester with ODES. The emphasis you put on theory was extremely useful for this class especially on the final.

Thanks again Bro-dry for the time and effort you put into the sessions and I’ll definitely recommend you to anyone looking for a math tutor. Also quiz apparently went better than I originally thought: I got 100%!”

– Laurent G. MATH 263 Fall 2014

“Thanks again for all the work you’re putting into these tutorials. It’s really making a difference as far as learning and really understanding the material goes … Jacob is an excellent instructor. He takes care to ensure we truly understand the material and can derive the equations needed on our own.

His sessions are clear, concise, and engaging, much better than any materials supplied by the professors or math texts.

I highly recommend him to anyone having issues intuitively understanding the materials in class.”

  – Zachary K., MATH 263 Fall 2014

“Just wanted to keep you updated as you asked about my grade! I ended up getting an A- which I am extremely happy about so thank you again so much for your help, would have never been able to do so well without it!”

  – Cassie E., Winter 2014

“Got an A! Thanks for the help I’m so relieved woooooow!”

  – J. Arnette, Winter 2014

“Comparing my Calc 1 results (C) and Calc 2 results (B+) all I can say is you saved by butt! and I am very grateful for that. Thank you!!!!”

  – Dana M., Winter 2014

“I passed. Literally almost threw my computer in the air I was so relieved. I’m pumped – Thanks so much.”

  – A. Singh, Winter 2014

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