An obviously biased selection of some nice things students have said about this course:

Sources: course evaluations and emails.

Season 6, Spring 2013:
  • "Charismatic lectures and deep understanding of course content. Also, great looking slides and extremely organized web content."
  • "Very excited about topic and delivered interesting lectures."
  • "Much of the information we were introduced to had practical applications. The skill set I've developed in this course is already being put to use elsewhere."
  • "Lots of fun examples"
  • "Just wanted to say thanks for a great class this semester. It was probably the best class I've taken at UVM. You made sure every class was super interesting."
  • "Professor Dodds puts a great deal of effort into making the material of which he is an expert interesting and accessible. I enjoyed the themes of classes, the homework assignments and quality of materials that he makes available to us. Through broken bones and search committees, he always made this class a priority."
  • "Enthusiasm. Posts EVERYTHING online."
  • "Lectures were very entertaining. A lot of time and effort were clearly put into the presentations."
  • "Presenting the idea of regular, repeated, physical phenomena and mathematical laws that govern its regularity, growth, and potential dynamics leading to the observed regularity"
  • "I enjoyed learning all about this very interesting area of study, and couldn't imagine a better navigator for it."
  • "Peter is a super nice guy and very animated and engaging when presenting lecture material. He definitely puts a lot of effort into preparing for the course."
Season 5, Fall 2011:
  • "I like his story telling and the ease with which he explains difficult concepts."
  • "Understated, hilarious and one of the best teachers I have ever had. He alone was the reason I took this class and I loved everything he taught and his enthusiasm on the subject. You couldn't find a more informed or interesting teacher. I liked Dodds's enthusiasm and sheer breadth of knowledge. He's very entertaining as well." 
  • "He explains the stuffs very simply based on students level of understanding."
  • "Professor Dodds treats the field of complex systems as a narrative. He develops the subject matter mostly in terms of human behavior such as happiness, networks of friends, distribution of wealth. He also relates the subject matter to biology and earth sciences. He knows the research and the researchers in this field very well, coloring the stories he tells. The stories add value - even if you couldn't understand a word of math, you would learn a lot of sociology this course. Professor Dodds was very helpful in terms of homework assistance during office hours. His lecture notes were available on-line and could be printed out in advance which helped me pay better attention during lectures and less time taking notes."
  • "Very laid back, fostered a great environment for students to learn in."
  • "Really interesting, engaging, insightful. Uses board well to emphasize powerpoint slides."
  • "Teaches with a lot of enthusiasm for this topic."
  • "Full of fun!"
  • "Lectures reflect great breadth and depth of knowledge. Engaging speaking style."
  • "The assignments were difficult, but in each case I felt like I had to stretch my skills to meet the demands of the problems. Many questions had answers that were provocative or insightful, so it made it a type II kind of fun. I think this class really expanded my quantitative number sense."
  • "Class was always entertaining. I learned a lot of subject matter I didn' t even know existed."
  • "The ability to learn a tremendous variety of interdisciplinary information relating to just about everything anyone would be interested in."
  • "Interesting and difficult. Rewarding."
  • "We learned about so many awesome things."
  • "Fascinating material across many fields. Demonstrated rigorous methods of study."
  • "I like that it is a good sample of what complex systems involve and the group approach to do homeworks."