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APMA 3080 Linear Algebra
Last taught: Fall 2026 Add to Schedule
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Review Summary Updated April 05, 2026

The instructor is consistently praised for being highly supportive and generous with extra credit, though some students note her pacing can occasionally feel rushed, making independent review and TA hours essential. The material is heavily conceptual rather than computational, requiring steady memorization of interconnected theorems since no formula sheet is permitted during exams. You will manage a consistent stream of daily worksheets, weekly online problem sets, and occasional programming assignments that feel tedious but remain highly manageable with early collaboration and office hour support. While free-response exam questions are generally fair, multiple-choice sections are notoriously tricky and aggressively target subtle edge cases, demanding precise conceptual clarity. Stay engaged in lecture, consistently verify your worksheet answers with TAs, and you will likely walk away with a solid grade from one of the department’s lighter math electives.

15 Reviews

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Fall 2022
4.0
Average

Professor Li is very sweet and funny. She also cares about her students, and provides detailed lecture notes that are extremely useful for doing the coursework and studying.
Here's how the grading was for this semester:
Worksheets (15%): These are meant to be done in-class after she's done lecturing, but her lectures often leave only 5-10 minutes to work on the worksheet, which is never enough time. They're not due until the next worksheet is released (typically before the first section of the next class date), but in order to avoid having extra homework, I worked on the worksheets while she was lecturing, which I recommend. Be careful, though, since she loves to randomly choose people to answer questions, so also pay attention to lecture if you choose this route. You're assigned to a group of 3-4 that will change halfway through the semester to work on these with.
Homeworks (10%): These were released and due weekly via WebWork, with about 8-15 problems per set. Most of the problems were straight out of the lecture notes with different numbers. There were several problems, however, that were incredibly frustrating, even though I knew the concepts well, since there were about a million math computations, so one small math error would result in the whole problem falling apart. This part should be an easy A. I recommend just using MatLab for some of the longer problems, even though we're technically supposed to do them by hand.
Projects (15%): Five in total, these were released once every three weeks, and were due right before the next one was released. Similar to the homeworks, although a higher percentage of the problems were frustrating math computations, and there were only four problems per project.
Midterms (30%): Two of them, weighted equally. The first one is pretty simple, since we didn't cover the tough material yet. The second one was made much easier than it could've been. Since all of the content builds off of the previous content, the second midterm should be thought of as cumulative.
Final (30%): Basically a longer midterm. She could've made it much more difficult, but didn't, which is much appreciated.

Overall, I recommend Linear Algebra with Professor Li.

#tCFfall2022

Instructor 4.0
Enjoyability 3.0
Recommend 5.0
Difficulty 2.0
Hours/Week 6.0
Fall 2022
5.0
Average

This was the best math course I've taken at UVA by far. Professor Li is the nicest person and spent the time to learn every students name and make it feel like she actually cared about our success. The lectures are scheduled so that no lecture is ever too much information, and she gives group work at the end of every class to practice on what we just learned. She also is very generous on giving bonus points and pushing back deadlines if you talk to her.

Workload was a webwork each week that took anywhere from 30-90 minutes, and a MATLAB project due every ~3 weeks that would take like 2-3 hours of work, but again we only had 5 scheduled. There is also an in class worksheet due after each class but half the time you'll finish in lecture and the other half it will just be a question or two left over.

I don't have enough good things to say about this course and have to recommend taking it.

Instructor 5.0
Enjoyability 5.0
Recommend 5.0
Difficulty 1.0
Hours/Week 3.0
Fall 2022
5.0
Average

Prof Li is the kindest professor I have ever had. She cares so much about her students and gives bonus points just for coming to class and improving on exams. APMA 3080 is an easy APMA elective and Li teaches it really well. I would definitely recommend taking the class in general and taking it with her specifically. She teaches everything in class and gives time for groupwork, so the workload is light but you actually retain information. The webwork is not as challenging as it is in other APMA classes either #tCFfall2022

Instructor 5.0
Enjoyability 5.0
Recommend 5.0
Difficulty 2.0
Hours/Week 5.0
Spring 2022
2.7
Average

I think Professor Li cares a lot about her students success. However, at times it felt overbearing - she would repeatedly tell us to come to class. Every lecture involved her lecturing us on why it was extremely important to understand rather than memorize. The class overall was pretty straight forwards and as long as you paid attention to lecture and did all the assigned homeworks, labs, and projects, getting a A-B in the midterms wasn't hard at all.

Instructor 3.0
Enjoyability 3.0
Recommend 2.0
Difficulty 2.0
Hours/Week 6.0
Fall 2020
3.7
Average

Course is very straightforward and provides lots of opportunities to bring up your grade, which will inevitably lower with the slightly challenging exams. Prof Li is very caring about her students and you can always approach her during office hours with questions. Slight warning, there's often a communication barrier but changing how you are wording things usually fixes that. The only real place you could trip up is if you forget a concept from earlier (take meticulous notes) or make a calculation error (just be careful).

Instructor 4.0
Enjoyability 3.0
Recommend 4.0
Difficulty 2.0
Hours/Week 6.0
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