MA 5102: Basic Algebraic Topology (2019-20)

MA 5102: Basic Algebraic Topology (2019-20)

Course Instructor: Ronnie Sebastian

Course Name: Basic Algebraic Topology

Credits: 6

Course Type: Elective

Prerequisites: General Topology


Course Content: Covering Maps and Lifting Theorems, The Fundamental Group (including Van Kampen theorem), Galois Correspondence for covering maps, Homotopy equivalences and Mapping Cylinders, Singular Homology 

Other Topics Covered: Higher Fundamental Groups (covered in tutorials)

Books: Hatcher, Professor has his own notes online here: http://www.math.iitb.ac.in/~ronnie/Fall2019/Lecture-Notes.pdf

Lectures: No Attendance Policy (but he doesn't appreciate it when you skip classes), blackboard lectures. I find Prof. Ronnie to be more concerned about getting the overall picture about proofs and other things across rather than caring about trivial details. The quality of lectures was good however, it was difficult to follow courses if you hadn't prepared for the class(read up previous stuff).

Assignments:  Ungraded assignments were given and a TA was assigned to help with them towards the end. The questions in tutorials were more application based and fun to solve. 

Exams: Only Midsem and Endsem. He had some marks assigned to finding mistakes in his notes. His grading policy is shady and not really clear. The endsem was entirely from tutorials as he had no hopes from the 5 students who attended his class.

Online Study Material: none

Advanced Follow-up Courses: PhD Level Algebraic Topology. The topics that could be studied after the course are simplical homology and cohomology

Pro Tips: Ronnie is not one of your regular math profs. Attend a few classes of him to get a feel of what this means. Try to keep up with the course.


Respondent: Keshav Janyani

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