MATH 33A
Linear Algebra and Applications
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisite: course 3B or 31B or 32A with grade of C- or better. Introduction to linear algebra: systems of linear equations, matrix algebra, linear independence, subspaces, bases and dimension, orthogonality, least-squares methods, determinants, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, matrix diagonalization, and symmetric matrices. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2018 - The only bad thing about his lecture is he spends too much time at the easy stuff (before midterm 1) and goes super fast afterward for the difficult topics. His class is pretty clear and involves much proof rather than calculation, but the homework is extremely challenging. You should expect to see the homework requires as hard proof as he teaches on lectures. Fortunately, only calculation parts of homework are graded and the exams consist mainly of calculations. EDIT: After the final, I changed Overall score from 4 to 2. The final exam is not difficult in terms of analyzing and prooving, but it involved INSANE numbers in 3 of 8 questions, each requiring 4-digit multiplying 4-digit for about 30 times. I actually finished the equations 80 minutes ahead of time, but still couldn't finish the calculations by the end of exam. Apparently, he did not do a single step to solve the questions after making the exam paper, or he would have discovered how absurd are the numbers he gave.
Fall 2018 - The only bad thing about his lecture is he spends too much time at the easy stuff (before midterm 1) and goes super fast afterward for the difficult topics. His class is pretty clear and involves much proof rather than calculation, but the homework is extremely challenging. You should expect to see the homework requires as hard proof as he teaches on lectures. Fortunately, only calculation parts of homework are graded and the exams consist mainly of calculations. EDIT: After the final, I changed Overall score from 4 to 2. The final exam is not difficult in terms of analyzing and prooving, but it involved INSANE numbers in 3 of 8 questions, each requiring 4-digit multiplying 4-digit for about 30 times. I actually finished the equations 80 minutes ahead of time, but still couldn't finish the calculations by the end of exam. Apparently, he did not do a single step to solve the questions after making the exam paper, or he would have discovered how absurd are the numbers he gave.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - This class is a major pre-req for me and I took this before I took Math 32 series. Honestly, it wasn't that bad. The component of this class is pre-lecture quizzes (often reading based, he assigns you a chapter and a quiz that goes with it to do for homework), homework (he gives a fair amount of textbook problems as well as his own problems), midterm 1 + midterm 2 (they are both very fair tests. He would only test you on stuff that he already went over), final (which I found the hardest out of all things I did in his class but he does curve it). Also, if you are ever unclear about certain concepts or homework questions, go to his office hours or his TA's office hours. I found those pretty helpful!
Fall 2022 - This class is a major pre-req for me and I took this before I took Math 32 series. Honestly, it wasn't that bad. The component of this class is pre-lecture quizzes (often reading based, he assigns you a chapter and a quiz that goes with it to do for homework), homework (he gives a fair amount of textbook problems as well as his own problems), midterm 1 + midterm 2 (they are both very fair tests. He would only test you on stuff that he already went over), final (which I found the hardest out of all things I did in his class but he does curve it). Also, if you are ever unclear about certain concepts or homework questions, go to his office hours or his TA's office hours. I found those pretty helpful!
Most Helpful Review
He is a pretty clear Lecturer, and his tests are not hard. But I did not understand why he cared about brackets and those details so much! I missed two points during the whole quarter because of not writing the brackets and not indicating which one is Q and R for QR factorization. Because of this I missed A+ by 0.3%!!!! He is a harsh grader, he made 94% to be A and 98% to be A+. Just be careful about those brackets when you take him he is a fun of brackets!
He is a pretty clear Lecturer, and his tests are not hard. But I did not understand why he cared about brackets and those details so much! I missed two points during the whole quarter because of not writing the brackets and not indicating which one is Q and R for QR factorization. Because of this I missed A+ by 0.3%!!!! He is a harsh grader, he made 94% to be A and 98% to be A+. Just be careful about those brackets when you take him he is a fun of brackets!
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Spring 2018 - The lectures moved fast, so at times students were scrambling to keep up/write stuff down. The average for the first midterm was a 35/40, and was in the lower B range for the second midterm and final I think. Her exams were generally reasonable, the hardest part was the True/False, which required a deeper understanding of concepts and applications of theorems that one would not know unless they had spent a significant amount of time working through many problems (and even then, one might not completely get the problem). There was an issue with how she graded the second midterm's true/false section, giving 2 points for a correct answer, 1 point for no answer, and -1 points for an incorrect answer. According to her, the reason behind this was to discourage people from simply choosing an answer without truly knowing the reason behind it, but it actually punished the people who may have put effort into studying but just arrived at the wrong answer (tricky questions) and benefited those who may not have put in the effort to study, did not know the answer, and therefore just left it blank. There is no way of distinguishing those who simply circled an answer for the sake of guessing and possibly earning points from those who knew their shit and just arrived at the wrong answer for any other reason. Still, the final was reasonable if one truly knew the material, and she was very generous with the final grading (generally rounding people who were in between grades up; the grade distribution was better than that of the average math class at UCLA). Out of the homework that Bhaskar assigned, only a few (generally trickier problems that required a lot of thought) were mandatory to turn in weekly. No quizzes. Would recommend!
Spring 2018 - The lectures moved fast, so at times students were scrambling to keep up/write stuff down. The average for the first midterm was a 35/40, and was in the lower B range for the second midterm and final I think. Her exams were generally reasonable, the hardest part was the True/False, which required a deeper understanding of concepts and applications of theorems that one would not know unless they had spent a significant amount of time working through many problems (and even then, one might not completely get the problem). There was an issue with how she graded the second midterm's true/false section, giving 2 points for a correct answer, 1 point for no answer, and -1 points for an incorrect answer. According to her, the reason behind this was to discourage people from simply choosing an answer without truly knowing the reason behind it, but it actually punished the people who may have put effort into studying but just arrived at the wrong answer (tricky questions) and benefited those who may not have put in the effort to study, did not know the answer, and therefore just left it blank. There is no way of distinguishing those who simply circled an answer for the sake of guessing and possibly earning points from those who knew their shit and just arrived at the wrong answer for any other reason. Still, the final was reasonable if one truly knew the material, and she was very generous with the final grading (generally rounding people who were in between grades up; the grade distribution was better than that of the average math class at UCLA). Out of the homework that Bhaskar assigned, only a few (generally trickier problems that required a lot of thought) were mandatory to turn in weekly. No quizzes. Would recommend!
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2017 - I was in his math 174E, but couldn't find a page for that course, so I'll write here. I have had lot of math courses as a third-year math major, and Bonk is hands down the worst math professor I've ever encountered in UCLA so far. His lectures are fast-paced, and always lack explanation. His homeworks are ridiculously impractical and largely not related to his lecture contents, which means you have to self-learn loads of stuff and end up messing up the scores (yeah, the grading is harsh). He posted practice midterm and asked students to work through it, but he wouldn't give solutions in lecture or online (what's the point then mate?). The course materials are actually very easy, but he made it so much more difficult than it really has to be.
Fall 2017 - I was in his math 174E, but couldn't find a page for that course, so I'll write here. I have had lot of math courses as a third-year math major, and Bonk is hands down the worst math professor I've ever encountered in UCLA so far. His lectures are fast-paced, and always lack explanation. His homeworks are ridiculously impractical and largely not related to his lecture contents, which means you have to self-learn loads of stuff and end up messing up the scores (yeah, the grading is harsh). He posted practice midterm and asked students to work through it, but he wouldn't give solutions in lecture or online (what's the point then mate?). The course materials are actually very easy, but he made it so much more difficult than it really has to be.
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