This fall I'm teaching sections 7 and 16. If you're in one of my lecture sections, you should also register for discussion section 2, 6, 12, or 20 with Robin Koytcheff or James Zhao. Section registration will open on Coursework around 2:30 p.m. on the first day of classes. Try the classes site if you're looking for general information about Math 51 (syllabus, textbooks, homework, exam schedules, grading policy, etc.)
My office hours are on Monday and Wednesday from 2:20 to 3:55 in 382E. (That's room E on the second floor of Sloan Hall.) If you can't make my office hours, please feel free to schedule an appointment with me. You can email me at jelicata (at) math (dot) stanford (dot) edu, and during the week I try to respond to emails within 24 hours.
Math 51 is a fast-paced introduction to linear algebra and differential multivariable calculus. Mathematically, I think it's a great idea to cover these two topics in the same course, but the class moves very quickly. There are a lot of resources available to help you, and I encourage you to take advantage of various instructors' office hours, SUMO tutoring, and private tutoring. These Tips
were originally written for a calculus course I taught at Yale, but most of the advice applies to Math 51 as well.
I will offer optional take-home quizzes most Fridays. These won't count towards your course grade, but if you choose to complete them, I'll grade them as if they were problems on a midterm. The ``un-quizzes" are available here: Quiz 1, Quiz 2, Quiz 3, Quiz 4, Quiz 5, Quiz 6, Quiz 7., and Quiz 8. If you'd like to think a bit more about the delta-epsilon definition of a limit, feel free to try these problems and discuss them with me.
Midterm 2 is scheduled for Thursday, November 12. If you'd like to have a bit more practice on limits before the exam, try problems 18, 19, 23, 30, 31, and 34 in the supplementary text.
If you are currently enrolled in Math 51, you can download an optional supplementary book from Coursework. This is being developed as a future text for this class, and I appreciate your feedback very much. I have a list of known errata, and these mistakes have been corrected in the version available through Coursework (currently, v2). If you have comments, complaints, or suggestions for improvement, please feel free to email me or submit them anonymously here.