Question

curious on other people's exp in different classes.

Answer 1

At my uni, functional analysis is the sixth course, taken after 2 into analysis classes, 2 real analysis classes with measure theory being taught, complex analysis, then functional analysis in hilbert/banach spaces. My uni’s Graduate level algebra are classes that are often taken by mathematically mature undergraduates so yes they can be much easier

Answer 2

Functional analysis is generally the analysis that comes after basic real analysis (measure-based stuff), and is also just a pretty big field of study, which makes it daunting.

I think of it as somewhat analogous to algebraic geometry, which comes after the first grad algebra sequence :)

Answer 3

My first proof-based linear algebra course was brutal too. Felt like I understood everything in lecture but the problems were such a struggle. I guess some would argue that if you can’t solve the problems, then you don’t really understand the concepts. But man, it was tough.

Answer 4

I study mathematics in Romania and I am now in my 3rd (and last) year of college, second semester to be more precise. In my first semester of this last year I studied Functional Analysis and it was kind of a nightmare for me. It was the hardest exam from all of my exams and it consisted in 2 parts : a written exam and an oral exam and to the final grade it also contributed the grades from the weekly homeworks that I had ( and were so different from the exercises that we did at the semiars ). I consider this course more abstract than the others and it was so much theory and less practical exercises . This is why I didn't liked it. I have to mention that before this course, I had 2 courses of Real Analysis in my 1st year, a course of Complex Analysis in the first semester of my 2nd year and a course of Measure Theory in the second semester of my second year.

Answer 5

It was alright for me, I commutative algebra was harder for me