MATH 31B
Integration and Infinite Series
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 31A with grade of C- or better. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 3B. Transcendental functions; methods and applications of integration; sequences and series. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Winter 2016 - Denomme is a new professor and very young. I took this class after not even looking at calculus since junior year of high school and not taking 31a since I passed out of it, so the class was personally annoying for me because I had to simultaneously teach myself 31a. As a professor I think he is very helpful. The class grading is as follows Homework: 15% Midterm 1: 25% Midterm 2: 25% Final: 35% It is a bit annoying that his homework is worth so much. My TA was actually very helpful during discussion, but I can't speak about other TA's. Before each exam Denomme posts a very helpful study guide that sums up the notes needed. The study guide is only a supplement though, so I would still go to lectures because he gives hints about exams. He also posts a practice exam that is somewhat helpful, but kind of easier than the tests so not really helpful. I'm pretty sure it was his first time teaching this class, so no previous exams were available, but I'm sure exams should be posted in the test bank after this class, so go and check. All his exams were free response with not multiple choice. The midterms were around 5-6 questions, and the final was 8 questions. The first midterm was pretty easy, and it was the Wednesday of week 4. The second midterm was a lot harder (he had to give at 23% curve), and it was the Friday of week 8. Don't go into the second exam thinking it's okay if you do bad because he will curve it. Again it was his first time teaching this class, so he very well might change it. The grades to the final exam have not been released, so I can't tell you how it was. It was definitely easier than the second midterm. I think he is fair. Not easy, but not too hard. I ended the class with a B, but it is the only B I ever received, and as I stated previously I had not taken calculus since my Junior year in high school. The low grade was my fault, and I'm not mad at the professor. I'm sure my grade would have been lower with some of the other professors offered.
Winter 2016 - Denomme is a new professor and very young. I took this class after not even looking at calculus since junior year of high school and not taking 31a since I passed out of it, so the class was personally annoying for me because I had to simultaneously teach myself 31a. As a professor I think he is very helpful. The class grading is as follows Homework: 15% Midterm 1: 25% Midterm 2: 25% Final: 35% It is a bit annoying that his homework is worth so much. My TA was actually very helpful during discussion, but I can't speak about other TA's. Before each exam Denomme posts a very helpful study guide that sums up the notes needed. The study guide is only a supplement though, so I would still go to lectures because he gives hints about exams. He also posts a practice exam that is somewhat helpful, but kind of easier than the tests so not really helpful. I'm pretty sure it was his first time teaching this class, so no previous exams were available, but I'm sure exams should be posted in the test bank after this class, so go and check. All his exams were free response with not multiple choice. The midterms were around 5-6 questions, and the final was 8 questions. The first midterm was pretty easy, and it was the Wednesday of week 4. The second midterm was a lot harder (he had to give at 23% curve), and it was the Friday of week 8. Don't go into the second exam thinking it's okay if you do bad because he will curve it. Again it was his first time teaching this class, so he very well might change it. The grades to the final exam have not been released, so I can't tell you how it was. It was definitely easier than the second midterm. I think he is fair. Not easy, but not too hard. I ended the class with a B, but it is the only B I ever received, and as I stated previously I had not taken calculus since my Junior year in high school. The low grade was my fault, and I'm not mad at the professor. I'm sure my grade would have been lower with some of the other professors offered.
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Winter 2024 - taking 31b with professor ding lowkey saved me 🙏 he was a pretty fair professor and although 31b itself is quite difficult (imo) his class was manageable. his recorded lectures were kinda hard to understand sometimes but not bad enough where i had to attend lecture. as he's a new professor, he was very receptive to student feedback and adjusted the difficulty of exams according to our previous performance and feedback. i got a 96% on midterm 1, an 84% on midterm 2, and an 85% on the final. he didn't allow a cheat sheet on the midterms, but allowed index card(s?) on the final which was super helpful with all the sequences and series content. because he was new, he also made a policy that final grades that were 90+% were considered As but i'm not sure if he'll continue to do that. homework is basically a guaranteed 100% so just do very well on the first midterm as the content is much easier and try to get around an 80% on the final and you'll be fine
Winter 2024 - taking 31b with professor ding lowkey saved me 🙏 he was a pretty fair professor and although 31b itself is quite difficult (imo) his class was manageable. his recorded lectures were kinda hard to understand sometimes but not bad enough where i had to attend lecture. as he's a new professor, he was very receptive to student feedback and adjusted the difficulty of exams according to our previous performance and feedback. i got a 96% on midterm 1, an 84% on midterm 2, and an 85% on the final. he didn't allow a cheat sheet on the midterms, but allowed index card(s?) on the final which was super helpful with all the sequences and series content. because he was new, he also made a policy that final grades that were 90+% were considered As but i'm not sure if he'll continue to do that. homework is basically a guaranteed 100% so just do very well on the first midterm as the content is much easier and try to get around an 80% on the final and you'll be fine
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - (Updated in December) Note: this is a COVID-19 review. Grading: Homework 20%, 2 Midterms 25% each, Final 30%. — I think the fact that the other reviews are pretty mixed is indicative of how I felt about the class; I felt there was a mix of negative and positive aspects. Koffi Enakoutsa is absolutely a kind person, but it was his first quarter here at UCLA after having been at a few CSUs before, so I think he took some time adjusting to the school and the pace of the quarter system. Lectures were ok, not the best nor the worst, and he has a slight accent so it's sometimes difficult to understand him, but not impossible. For the most part, they followed the textbook, though he sometimes posted supplemental videos that built onto the lesson a bit more. He definitely tried his best to be accommodating of online learning. He extended our last few homework deadlines and was tolerant of late work. Lectures were recorded and he didn't require attendance, though he did give us a big scare about potential "live quizzes" to try to boost attendance mid-quarter due to declining numbers (which was a ruse, there didn't end up being any live quizzes). Homework was rather difficult, however. Towards the beginning of the quarter, we only seemed to get about 15 problems per lesson but it slowly ramped up as time went on, and many of the questions were from the "further insight" portion of the textbook's problem pool making them more theoretical, abstract and, in my opinion, difficult. — He later added on multiple choice quizzes which weren’t originally listed in the syllabus. These quizzes ended up accounting for 10% of our exam grades, so in a way they weren’t super high stakes (if you got a 0 then you’d still be able to get up to 90% on exams, and with random guessing you’d probably get greater than a 0). It’s just that some of us were just taken aback by the sudden addition of the quizzes. As stated the quizzes were all multiple choice, but were timed and tended to be very conceptual and abstract, much like the homework questions from the ends of the chapters. Your performance on them really depended on your conceptual understanding of the material. Of course, they were also open book much like everything else in the math department during Covid. — Exams were also tricky. Due to covid, we were given exams with 24-hour completion windows, but it was stated that the exams should've been possible to complete in the typical time frame that we'd usually have without covid. This did not feel entirely true for me personally, as some of the questions felt a bit too conceptual, similar to the homework. The more computational questions ended up being rather long and complex, and I used up quite a lot of space just showing work for them. That said I did ultimately end up getting an A on most of the exams, so I can't say they absolutely horrible. This may have been down to the extra time I had from the 24 hour policy, seeing as I used it to think more about the problem and construct a much more thorough answer than if I were working on the typical time limit. Koffi provides review sessions before several of his exams which are helpful since several of his examples reflect exam questions, so be sure to attend them whenever you can. — I think one reason people might experience varying degrees of difficulty is definitely due to experience with the material. Some people are coming in already knowing most if not all the material because they took AP Calculus BC and are only taking the class due to getting a 3 or 4 on the exam rather than a 5. People who did not take Calc BC but have something of a natural aptitude for math may also find this course not to be too challenging. People who are less of the mathematically thinking type or who only took AP Calculus AB (I fall into the Calc AB category) will be more likely to struggle due to lesser exposure to the more complex aspects of the class such as series. This brings me to another point that relates to my mixed feelings about this class: pacing felt very off - lessons on series were only covered the last 1-2 weeks of class. Personally, I found series to be the hardest topic in calculus, so the fact that we spent so much time on log and trig integration and so little time on series was what made me struggle the most on the final (there were numerous problems on series). — Personally, it's hard for me to say if I'd take math with Koffi Enakoutsa again. He really did try his best to accommodate us and he seems like a genuinely nice person. However, a lot of the assignments felt rather unnecessarily difficult and long. That said, some of that could be chalked up to the subject itself being hard to understand; the professor can't really take all the blame for the difficulty of the work. I do think a few of the homework problems and exam problems could've and possibly should've been changed to be more reflective of what we learned in lectures, but at the same time, I can't say they were impossible seeing as I ultimately figured things out and ended up with an A. I guess my recommendation would be that if you're good at math or are familiar with the material already, feel free to go for his class. If you aren't and there's a more highly rated professor teaching that same quarter, try to go for the other person. If the alternatives all seem to have worse reviews, or if there's a time conflict with the other sections of this class, or whatever situation makes it hard for you to choose another professor, go ahead and take this class and try not to feel too scared or worried. Go to office hours and ask your TA for help and put some time into studying for this class. You may struggle a bit, but I believe you'll be able to grind it out and make it through with enough effort.
Fall 2020 - (Updated in December) Note: this is a COVID-19 review. Grading: Homework 20%, 2 Midterms 25% each, Final 30%. — I think the fact that the other reviews are pretty mixed is indicative of how I felt about the class; I felt there was a mix of negative and positive aspects. Koffi Enakoutsa is absolutely a kind person, but it was his first quarter here at UCLA after having been at a few CSUs before, so I think he took some time adjusting to the school and the pace of the quarter system. Lectures were ok, not the best nor the worst, and he has a slight accent so it's sometimes difficult to understand him, but not impossible. For the most part, they followed the textbook, though he sometimes posted supplemental videos that built onto the lesson a bit more. He definitely tried his best to be accommodating of online learning. He extended our last few homework deadlines and was tolerant of late work. Lectures were recorded and he didn't require attendance, though he did give us a big scare about potential "live quizzes" to try to boost attendance mid-quarter due to declining numbers (which was a ruse, there didn't end up being any live quizzes). Homework was rather difficult, however. Towards the beginning of the quarter, we only seemed to get about 15 problems per lesson but it slowly ramped up as time went on, and many of the questions were from the "further insight" portion of the textbook's problem pool making them more theoretical, abstract and, in my opinion, difficult. — He later added on multiple choice quizzes which weren’t originally listed in the syllabus. These quizzes ended up accounting for 10% of our exam grades, so in a way they weren’t super high stakes (if you got a 0 then you’d still be able to get up to 90% on exams, and with random guessing you’d probably get greater than a 0). It’s just that some of us were just taken aback by the sudden addition of the quizzes. As stated the quizzes were all multiple choice, but were timed and tended to be very conceptual and abstract, much like the homework questions from the ends of the chapters. Your performance on them really depended on your conceptual understanding of the material. Of course, they were also open book much like everything else in the math department during Covid. — Exams were also tricky. Due to covid, we were given exams with 24-hour completion windows, but it was stated that the exams should've been possible to complete in the typical time frame that we'd usually have without covid. This did not feel entirely true for me personally, as some of the questions felt a bit too conceptual, similar to the homework. The more computational questions ended up being rather long and complex, and I used up quite a lot of space just showing work for them. That said I did ultimately end up getting an A on most of the exams, so I can't say they absolutely horrible. This may have been down to the extra time I had from the 24 hour policy, seeing as I used it to think more about the problem and construct a much more thorough answer than if I were working on the typical time limit. Koffi provides review sessions before several of his exams which are helpful since several of his examples reflect exam questions, so be sure to attend them whenever you can. — I think one reason people might experience varying degrees of difficulty is definitely due to experience with the material. Some people are coming in already knowing most if not all the material because they took AP Calculus BC and are only taking the class due to getting a 3 or 4 on the exam rather than a 5. People who did not take Calc BC but have something of a natural aptitude for math may also find this course not to be too challenging. People who are less of the mathematically thinking type or who only took AP Calculus AB (I fall into the Calc AB category) will be more likely to struggle due to lesser exposure to the more complex aspects of the class such as series. This brings me to another point that relates to my mixed feelings about this class: pacing felt very off - lessons on series were only covered the last 1-2 weeks of class. Personally, I found series to be the hardest topic in calculus, so the fact that we spent so much time on log and trig integration and so little time on series was what made me struggle the most on the final (there were numerous problems on series). — Personally, it's hard for me to say if I'd take math with Koffi Enakoutsa again. He really did try his best to accommodate us and he seems like a genuinely nice person. However, a lot of the assignments felt rather unnecessarily difficult and long. That said, some of that could be chalked up to the subject itself being hard to understand; the professor can't really take all the blame for the difficulty of the work. I do think a few of the homework problems and exam problems could've and possibly should've been changed to be more reflective of what we learned in lectures, but at the same time, I can't say they were impossible seeing as I ultimately figured things out and ended up with an A. I guess my recommendation would be that if you're good at math or are familiar with the material already, feel free to go for his class. If you aren't and there's a more highly rated professor teaching that same quarter, try to go for the other person. If the alternatives all seem to have worse reviews, or if there's a time conflict with the other sections of this class, or whatever situation makes it hard for you to choose another professor, go ahead and take this class and try not to feel too scared or worried. Go to office hours and ask your TA for help and put some time into studying for this class. You may struggle a bit, but I believe you'll be able to grind it out and make it through with enough effort.
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Most Helpful Review
Alright so professor Fernandez is probably the nicest, sweetest and the most caring professor. He really will help you out with whatever question or concern you may have. Even if he needs to stay a few extra hours in his office. Plus he is very goofy too =). His tests are pretty fair, not super hard. And he gives you options when calculating your final grade (either count one midterm out of the two and have the final be a bigger percentage of your grade, or if you did good on both of the midterms, you could just count both and have the final be only 40%, otherwise it wouldve been 60%) The problem is i don't like the way he explains the material, he can't explain it very clearly, most of the time i would not even go to lecture because i just had to teach myself eventually, so i didn't waste my time. He cares though, during lectures if you ask him a question he will explain he won't ignore you at all. hes also very encouraging!! if i had to give his class a rating on a scale of 1-10 i would give it a 9, his teaching skills probably a 7. He isn't bad at all, he's not a nightmare like some professors really could be. Basically don't run away from the guy.
Alright so professor Fernandez is probably the nicest, sweetest and the most caring professor. He really will help you out with whatever question or concern you may have. Even if he needs to stay a few extra hours in his office. Plus he is very goofy too =). His tests are pretty fair, not super hard. And he gives you options when calculating your final grade (either count one midterm out of the two and have the final be a bigger percentage of your grade, or if you did good on both of the midterms, you could just count both and have the final be only 40%, otherwise it wouldve been 60%) The problem is i don't like the way he explains the material, he can't explain it very clearly, most of the time i would not even go to lecture because i just had to teach myself eventually, so i didn't waste my time. He cares though, during lectures if you ask him a question he will explain he won't ignore you at all. hes also very encouraging!! if i had to give his class a rating on a scale of 1-10 i would give it a 9, his teaching skills probably a 7. He isn't bad at all, he's not a nightmare like some professors really could be. Basically don't run away from the guy.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - Everything in this class could have been fine. The weekly quizzles consisted of homework questions from the previous week with different constants. The midterm exams were very fair and rather simple if you reviewed the homework problems beforehand. Then there was the final. Oh boy. To put it simply, this was a very, very misleading statement: "if you have been on top of the homework, and felt that the midterms and quizzes were do-able, there shouldn't be any big surprises on the exam!" -Professor Flynn, 2023 I honestly feel like the questions on the final were reasonable for this kind of class, it's just that the material taught and assigned did not accurately reflect what was on the exam. I'm just glad Patrick ended up curving at the end.
Fall 2023 - Everything in this class could have been fine. The weekly quizzles consisted of homework questions from the previous week with different constants. The midterm exams were very fair and rather simple if you reviewed the homework problems beforehand. Then there was the final. Oh boy. To put it simply, this was a very, very misleading statement: "if you have been on top of the homework, and felt that the midterms and quizzes were do-able, there shouldn't be any big surprises on the exam!" -Professor Flynn, 2023 I honestly feel like the questions on the final were reasonable for this kind of class, it's just that the material taught and assigned did not accurately reflect what was on the exam. I'm just glad Patrick ended up curving at the end.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Gannon is a really, really great professor. I took him during his first quarter at UCLA, but it's clear that he is excellent at teaching and seems to enjoy it as well. He's very willing to clarify concepts during lecture and office hours, and his lectures are well-structured and clear. He gave 2 midterms and a final, all 24 hours, with a mix of computational and conceptual questions--all of which were very reasonable. Homework was assigned weekly (sans midterm weeks), consisting of 15-20 questions each, of which you only had to submit 6-8 for grading. I highly recommend taking 31B with Gannon and would definitely take him again.
Fall 2020 - Gannon is a really, really great professor. I took him during his first quarter at UCLA, but it's clear that he is excellent at teaching and seems to enjoy it as well. He's very willing to clarify concepts during lecture and office hours, and his lectures are well-structured and clear. He gave 2 midterms and a final, all 24 hours, with a mix of computational and conceptual questions--all of which were very reasonable. Homework was assigned weekly (sans midterm weeks), consisting of 15-20 questions each, of which you only had to submit 6-8 for grading. I highly recommend taking 31B with Gannon and would definitely take him again.
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