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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Simulation and modeling of natural processes by University of Geneva

4.2
stars
359 ratings

About the Course

This course gives you an introduction to modeling methods and simulation tools for a wide range of natural phenomena. The different methodologies that will be presented here can be applied to very wide range of topics such as fluid motion, stellar dynamics, population evolution, ... This course does not intend to go deeply into any numerical method or process and does not provide any recipe for the resolution of a particular problem. It is rather a basic guideline towards different methodologies that can be applied to solve any kind of problem and help you pick the one best suited for you. The assignments of this course will be made as practical as possible in order to allow you to actually create from scratch short programs that will solve simple problems. Although programming will be used extensively in this course we do not require any advanced programming experience in order to complete it....

Top reviews

DM

Apr 4, 2021

Great course, it presents mathematical models and implementations to simulate behaviors of natural systems with the right level of difficulty. It offer awesome insights to solve and optimize code.

SM

Sep 2, 2020

I really enjoyed this course. This course has motivated me to learn more computational tools to apply in any field of sciences. It was thoroughly designed and challenging.

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1 - 25 of 99 Reviews for Simulation and modeling of natural processes

By Qingfeng L

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Feb 18, 2019

I really doubt about whether those lectures have carefully prepared this course or not.

First, there are several typos in the slides.

Second, sometimes the logical connections from one section to another section is weak. I can understand the content of each section, but when I ask myself why they introduce this section... I lost...

By Martin B

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Jul 24, 2019

Very poor presentation of the course.

By Luigi N

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May 12, 2020

This is one of the worst courses I have ever attended. The topics are interesting, but not well explained. The lecturers do not teach during the lessons a lot of things, missing essential steps are missing, and the student realizes this in the moment of the assignments. Furthermore, there is no assistance, in the forum, thanks to some brilliant contribution, the student learns a lot, and this should not be the case. The code many times, present problems so that when executed, it does not work and the support offered by other learners in the forum is vital. I would recommend not taking this course or updating it, making it better. I realized halfway through, but I wanted to finish just to finish something that I started. It is deplorable that courses like this one are still around.

By Sean B

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Sep 4, 2019

Overall a good course, but looking through the forums I see that plenty of other learners were confused and frustrated about the same problems I encountered. There are too many unresolved questions and errors.

Before you enroll in this course I recommend enrolling in "Computers, Waves, Simulations: A Practical Introduction to Numerical Methods using Python". It's more introductory than this course, but it gives a solid foundation of simulation and Python.

By Persistent L

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May 2, 2020

This is a wonderful, industrially very relevant subject. The course content is good; except that the delivery is very lousy. It is apparent that the faculy are not native speakers of english. They seem like they make up their sentences in their native language and then translate it in their minds to english and then speak. This results in annoying time lag from sentence to sentece, due to which it is more challenging to conceptrate on the topic. When they are not taking this path, they are reading the slides, without much sights are explanations.

Some questions were very difficult to understand because the translation was bad. Again, first thought in or even written out in another language and translated to english with some essentials lost in translation.

All in all it was a disappointing course for me.

By Ruedi G

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Dec 19, 2018

Moocs are valid if they involve better than average teachers. The current teachers do not fulfill this criterium. In particular, some of them have very poor diction and knowledge of the English language. The texts in the quizzes have elementary language mistakes. It would not have been too much effort to at least have them checked by a native speaker.

By Simon C

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Jan 17, 2018

Much of the content is excellent. I think the introductory lectures were good for someone who hasn't studied the topic before, and I found weeks 4-6 to be very valuable. Some other parts were not so strong: lectures on Discrete Event Simulation introduced data structure that weren't explained well, e.g. Calendar Queues. On the whole, a competent first course.

Lectures were presented professionally. Participation in the forums was patchy, compared to some other Coursera courses. There doesn't seem to be evidence of Mentors/TAs getting involved when students are stuck.

I would have liked to have had more reference material for those who wish to follow up topics further.

By Johannes W

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Jan 6, 2019

Nice introduction in various topics. Further studying is required to use any of the topics in a practical way, but it helps to get started looking for more advanced literature.

Unfotunately I found the Quizes and Projects of little help to further understand or deepen any of the material. They are way to easy to solve and, in my opinion, mostly do not require a good understanding of the material to solve.

I would recommend to watch the videos and skip the quizzes.

By Zhixia L

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Nov 10, 2017

Some slides have mistakes, please review it!

Some quizzes have wrong answers, please correct them, they are confusing!

Some instructors made mistakes in the video, why not record it again?

By Lucas J

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Mar 7, 2019

Not enough challenging problems. Too many poor quality videos. The presenters didn't care, couldn't speak english, or were too shallow. Too many typos, and errors.

By Girish V

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Sep 28, 2019

Extremely good course with excellent python codes for interesting applications

By Gopalakrishna R R

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Apr 30, 2019

A very good coverage of the range of computational modelling techniques available. The lectures were both interesting and informative, and the quizzes and coding exercises well designed to facilitate learning. My thanks to the lecturers and researchers at the University of Geneva and associated organizations for developing an excellent course.

By Diego F V M

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Apr 5, 2021

Great course, it presents mathematical models and implementations to simulate behaviors of natural systems with the right level of difficulty. It offer awesome insights to solve and optimize code.

By Tyler L

•

Jun 18, 2020

Great intro into modelling and simulation. Some excellent demos were provided.

By ffpffp

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Mar 11, 2020

If you paid for the course, sorry you might find it below your expectations. However, regardless of all the language issues, errors in slides and quiz, lacking of instructor interaction, you might still be available to learn something. Take good use of the slides and make sure that you have completed all the projects. Refer to the discussion forum in case that you encounter any challenge.

By Kiril K

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Aug 18, 2019

Poor presentation of the course.

By Madhu K S

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Mar 25, 2020

I liked this course. Very well paced. All the four instructors were fantastic. I have a few years of experience in CFD, and this course gave a good overview of modeling and simulation of natural processes. For someone with fluid dynamics background, thank you for introducing me to the possibilities of Lattice Boltzmann. I enjoyed it immensely and would highly recommend.

By Prayon J

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Oct 30, 2019

This course is very informative, various instructors for various topics makes this course full of knowledge, additionally wide range of scope, from simulating the movement of bacteria to traffic.

Though the fluency of the instructors is not so good but it's understandable, all confusions are cleared from the discussion forums.

By Anastasiia E

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Jul 25, 2020

This is a good course and it is not easy. I needed to dedicate to this course more time than to other courses of same length.

I think it is a nice start for learning Python as in the end of the course you will have several clean examples of Python programs which you will be able to refer to in the future whenever you need.

By Rajdeep D

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Jul 5, 2020

Great Course, Really great course, bit tough to accomplish but in the end, it pays off. Advice--Focus more on assignments and projects instead of videos. You will learn a lot from them. Avoid other negative comments you are definitely going to learn something after accomplishment.

Thank you

By Dr. U S B

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May 2, 2020

This Course is Excellently dealt. I thank all the Faculty for their painstaking efforts to explain in detail. The Discussion Forum is really another highly valuable mentor. Overall, its a lovely learning experience. I admire the professionalism and detail. Thank You One and All.

By Shreesh K

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Aug 6, 2020

Really concise and to-the-point lectures, which encourage you to explore the modelling techniques yourselves. This course widened my viewpoint with regards to scientific computing, and computational physics in particular (my field of interest). Highly recommend.

By Lynn M

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Sep 18, 2020

The course covers multiple aspects of simulations and the projects/quizzes are pretty straightforward. The last few weeks are a little rushed and I would have benefited if it had more concrete examples. Overall a good course!

By Ekaterina M

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Nov 18, 2017

This course was a perfect match with my expectations! I think it is a perfect introduction to Computer modeling of natural processes. I enjoyed lectures and tasks. Thank you very much!

By Sohail M

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Sep 3, 2020

I really enjoyed this course. This course has motivated me to learn more computational tools to apply in any field of sciences. It was thoroughly designed and challenging.