tl;dr 1: take the recommended prerequisites seriously. If they tell you that you need both calculus and linear algebra to do well in this class, you jolly well need it. So please don't cry in Slack and Piazza afterwards if you cannot even inverse a 2-by-2 matrix. lol.
If you are that person, please take a hard look at yourself on why you hated this course when the pre-req are so expressly stated, and are not willing to put in the required amount of effort. Indeed, please consider taking Bussy-track electives.
tl;dr 2: the prof grades very fairly, the "A" curve is bigger than you can ever imagine. Even bigger than Simulation. So please don't cry in Slack and Piazza or OMSCentral if your exam score is a 80 with the median being 70. Refer to critique.gatech.edu.
I think this course is severely underrated and its contents easily underestimated, and I can understand why low ratings were given in the past. Indeed most, if not all, of the issues that occurred in the previous semesters have been ironed out, giving you more time to really distil the course material.
That said, because you are in a class full of OMSA greats, this is the course where you get the strictest of the peer graders. On one side, I got graded 75 for making a smallest of mistakes. On the flipside, if your solution happens to be similar to that of the actual one, there would be strong suspicion that you got the solution elsewhere (i.e. broke the Honors Code) and you will be reported to OSI.
My tip is to just focus on doing the midterms & finals well - the overall effect of 75 / 90 in the HWs over the long term is < 1%, you have 2 drops too. A careless mistake on one midterm question is already worth > 1%.
Yes, the HWs are challenging, and there are people who are very tempted to cheat in the HWs. Stop it! Not only you are violating the Honors Code, you are cheating your own preparation in the midterms and finals. Moreover, you risk having an IC or NR grades at the results release day in which you have to speak to the Professor directly to clear it up.
Choose ISYE 6669 Discrete Ops as your Operations elective if you
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want to mix with the best of OMSA and possibly sacrificing your illusory perfect 4.00 GPA, even if the curves are relatively generous (read next point).
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have a very strong background in Linear Algebra and Calculus for you to be able to enjoy and appreciate this course taught by Prof Shabbir Ahmed and Prof Andy Sun. It has to be said that it's common knowledge in OMSA Study Slack community that the achievers take this course as their A-track or Ops Electives. So, better up the A-game.
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want to take ISYE 8803 HDDA and CS 7643 Deep Learning (deeplearningbook.org) in the future. Topics learnt in Optimization forms a baseline in which you will need to explore these topics.
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don't think a cheatsheet would help you - cheatsheets are banned by Prof Sun in this course since Spring 2020 in lieu of practice exams (which in hindsight is the reason why people are now liking this course).
Choose ISYE 6644 Simulation as your Operations elective if you
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want to head out into OMSA Bussiess track. In that case you only need to know how (and not why) an Excel Solver works, and taking a whole course of Optimization won't be for you.
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want an easier to score A course to get your 4.00 GPA. That said, due to the difficulty in ISYE 6669, the A grade cut-off is actually lower than in Simulation.
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want to brush up your level of Statistics. Comparatively speaking, Prof Goldsman provides more reminding/helping. Prof Sun is patient and explains well, but he assumes required knowledge in undergrad Linear Algebra. You are in a real grad class, so revisiting is minimal by default.
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think 3 double-sided A4 cheatsheets would help you. In comparison, Discrete Ops no longer allows a single piece of cheatsheet.
Choose both if you want to take an Analytics track and
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want to avoid anything by Prof. Serban (she's nice, but for any reason you want to avoid your GPA from harm because she curves little, the horrors of Time Series Analysis, etc.).
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want to avoid taking Bayes (the horrors of the new professor's midterm exams, and outdated BUGS).
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want to buff up with a whole suite of ISYE Machine Learning courses on offer (6740-CDA, 7406-DMSL & 8803-HDDA).
This class requires one to sit down, with intense concentration, and jot down explanations given by the lecturers, which themselves are well-covered. Otherwise, come revision time you will forget them easily.
People do say that the practice exams are similar to the actual exam. I'd say it's more of an illusion than a reality. Yes the questions can be structurally similar but the content can be drawn throughout the course, especially on those places where it's not shown in the practice exams. You've been warned here :). That being said, because everyone knows structurally what questions to expect, the curve has gone much closer back to 90. Don't expect the cutoff of an A to be 75, like it was in the past, just saying.
There are a few TAs in the class (due to lack of enrollment size). Even though it appears to be co-instructed, one of the professors sadly passed away recently so the other professor has to handle all the administration and setting of homeworks and exams, so do understand when you see reviews that the TAs / Instructors are not reactive enough.