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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Graph Theory by University of California San Diego

4.5
stars
961 ratings

About the Course

We invite you to a fascinating journey into Graph Theory — an area which connects the elegance of painting and the rigor of mathematics; is simple, but not unsophisticated. Graph Theory gives us, both an easy way to pictorially represent many major mathematical results, and insights into the deep theories behind them. In this online course, among other intriguing applications, we will see how GPS systems find shortest routes, how engineers design integrated circuits, how biologists assemble genomes, why a political map can always be colored using a few colors. We will study Ramsey Theory which proves that in a large system, complete disorder is impossible! By the end of the course, we will implement an algorithm which finds an optimal assignment of students to schools. This algorithm, developed by David Gale and Lloyd S. Shapley, was later recognized by the conferral of Nobel Prize in Economics. As prerequisites we assume only basic math (e.g., we expect you to know what is a square or how to add fractions), basic programming in python (functions, loops, recursion), common sense and curiosity. Our intended audience are all people that work or plan to work in IT, starting from motivated high school students....

Top reviews

SU

Feb 27, 2019

Appreciate the structure and the explanations with examples. The practice tool before every lesson not makes it fun to learn but also sets the student in the context and can anticipate the concept.

RH

Nov 16, 2017

Was pretty fun and gave a good intro to graph theory. Definitely felt inspired to go deeper and understood the most basic proof ideas. The later lectures can spike in difficulty though. Very nice!

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126 - 150 of 214 Reviews for Introduction to Graph Theory

By DWARAMPUDI H A R

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Jan 16, 2021

good

By ABHISHEK C

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Jan 14, 2021

Good

By B P R

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Jan 11, 2021

good

By Sasisrivundavilli

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Dec 18, 2020

good

By 121910303040 P K P

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Dec 5, 2020

GOOD

By Akhil K N

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Oct 28, 2020

Good

By APEXA M S

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Aug 20, 2020

G

o

o

g

By MODANI H

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Jan 14, 2021

fab

By PINNAMARAJU S V

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Jan 11, 2021

-

By Kevin M

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Aug 16, 2020

I feel that I received a fairly thorough overview of Graph Theory although, there were some topics missing I'd hoped to learn more about such as adjacency lists. Perhaps a topic such as that requires a level of understanding beyond an introductory course, however, so I'm not faulting the course for not including it.

The quizzes and exercises were fair, relevant and usually at least mildly interesting. Most of the topics are not difficult when illustrated with diagrams and, fortunately, there were plenty throughout the course. I do wish there were more assignments or questions (with answers) to provide practice at using the concepts which would really help provide a more lasting understanding of the material.

All instructors are Russian except one who is French. As a native English speaker, I had no major issues understanding any of them. Indeed, the Russians speak surprisingly clear and proper English the vast majority of the time.

My only significant complaint about this course is that I've come away feeling like I still have only a tenuous, at best, understanding of "Networks, Flows and Cuts." In fact, I still don't understand the rules or procedures of Cuts at all. In my opinion, this section was not presented at the same level of quality as all the other sections. Incidentally, this is the only section in this course taught by the French instructor.

Overall, a very good introduction to graph theory.

By carlos j u

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Nov 30, 2020

Theoretical concepts of graphs and networks very well explained, friendly and informative lecture notes, but insufficient treatment of concepts from a programmatic standpoint. They use Python and networkx to illustrate some concepts at the beginning, but the examples given are too simplistic and one only learns to use "a couple of methods" of a graph object with networkx.

Certainly a good course if you want to learn graph theory from scratch and how to use it to solve some interesting problems, using paper and pencil, but this is not your course if you want to learn by coding.

By Florian P

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May 2, 2020

Things got a little bit messy in Week 5 of the course. The lecturer is very charming, but also seems like a hurricane of information at times. A few more illustrations or computing examples could help this. E.g., a step by step explanation of the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm would have helped me out a lot.

Overall a very good course which does a good job at teaching the fundamentals of graph theory and even giving an impression of what lies beyond.

By Ziad B

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Oct 13, 2018

Really cool course to take with very interesting exercises. I especially liked some of the puzzles at the beginning of topics. I thought that the week 5 material needed some more concrete examples. It was presented in the abstract straight away. However, don't let that discourage you from taking the course. You may simply need to access the odd Youtube video to supplement the material presented here.

By Dan S

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Jun 22, 2021

First four weeks were very good introduction. I have no prior experience with graph theory so it was a very gentle introduction. The labs were very good view into the software available for these types of problems.

The fifth week, however, was poorly presented. I actually stopped mid week 5 because it seemed pointless to try and follow the instructor.

By Eric B

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Feb 18, 2021

I was unfamiliar with graph theory before taking this course. It greatly helped my understanding of the subject. A few points were hard to follow and I had to look elsewhere to understand them. Also, I found it annoying for the final week that the lectures were constantly interrupted with pop up questions asking if I understood what was just said.

By Gyanesh T

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Sep 27, 2020

Thank you team for making such an exiting content on graph theory it has really encouraged me to take few more courses on discrete mathematic and computer science. Though my area is not computers and neither is mathematics but your intuitive style of teaching has kept me glued to the basic concepts of the course. Thanks once again for wonderful work.

By Ganesh P

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May 7, 2020

The course "Introduction to Graph Theory " given me to understand the different basic concepts of Graph theory through the examples,puzzles and video lectures.

One of my suggestion is to discuss solution of one more example related to Ford-Fulkerson algorithm in the Week 5 contents .

The programming assignment was also well.

By arnab n

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May 9, 2020

Course materials are very good. But explanations of the topic aren't up to the mark, mostly because the instructors aren't native English speakers. The quizzes are very easy, they could be make harder and little programming assignments could be given like that in week 5.

By Juliano P

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Jan 2, 2021

This wasn't as good as the first 2 modules, but still very informative. Lots of practice exercises but I'd say less helpful than before, as some of them seemed very easy to provide any valuable insight. I still recommend this course for an introduction to graph theory.

By Farhan F A

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Jun 18, 2020

The course content was fun but too many questions inside the lecture videos were annoying. Most of them were unnecessary and very easy. Especially the notes for mistakes. Mistakes do take place. But interrupting the class for mistakes is another mistake

By Daniel B

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Apr 27, 2020

Most of the explanations of concepts were great. One professor has a tendency to force students to draw conclusions for the main point(s) he is making, or trails off verbally so that it's difficult to understand what the main point is.

By 김한아

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Jan 12, 2021

Overall the course was designed very well and explained with care, but it would have been more enjoyable if more visual explanation in week 4 and 5. It was a bit difficult to understand compared to other weeks.

By Coursera U

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Feb 28, 2020

Great course. Only reason I give it 4 stars is because of the audio quality in week 1. It's very bad.

The same instructor that did the lectures in week 1, had drastically better audio quality in the later weeks.

By Shankhalika S

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Jun 7, 2020

Week 5 was very confusing and not well curated. Please fix this.I had to lookup youtube videos to understand the concepts and that defeats the purpose of me taking the course on coursera

By Yu Z

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Jan 1, 2018

This course is interesting, and it is a good introduction. I like the first four weeks' courses, while I feel the last week's course is not clear presented, which changes the instructor.