MATH 61
Introduction to Discrete Structures
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: courses 31A, 31B. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 180 or 184. Discrete structures commonly used in computer science and mathematics, including sets and relations, permutations and combinations, graphs and trees, induction. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Winter 2022 - I liked this class a lot - I thought the professor was a good lecturer, and the lectures themselves are very clear and well-organized (though unfortunately not recorded). The homework is graded on correctness but generally weren't too difficult, aside from a few tricky problems. We had two midterms and a final - in terms of exam format, the questions were all fairly straightforward and similar to those in homework/lecture, with the exception of each exam having a question subpart (usually worth ~5%) that was noticeably harder than the others. I didn't attend many office hours personally, but the professor would almost always be going over homework problems.
Winter 2022 - I liked this class a lot - I thought the professor was a good lecturer, and the lectures themselves are very clear and well-organized (though unfortunately not recorded). The homework is graded on correctness but generally weren't too difficult, aside from a few tricky problems. We had two midterms and a final - in terms of exam format, the questions were all fairly straightforward and similar to those in homework/lecture, with the exception of each exam having a question subpart (usually worth ~5%) that was noticeably harder than the others. I didn't attend many office hours personally, but the professor would almost always be going over homework problems.
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2021 - Math 61 for the Summer 2021 term was originally taught by Prof. Ozel. When Ozel left in the middle of Summer session A due to issues with his visa, Prof. Enakoutsa came in to substitute. Enakoutsa did a nice job teaching Math 61. Enakoutsa, while not the clearest lecturer (I strongly preferred Ozel's lectures to Enakoutsa's), genuinely cares about his students' learning and provides a lot of office hours for students to ask questions. He encourages students to unmute themselves in lecture to ask clarifying questions. While his answers aren't always the clearest, Enakoutsa is committed to improving his teaching ability. He takes student feedback on his teaching seriously. His tests were rather straightforward and 24 hour open note. During the end of the course, Enakoutsa sent an angry email to everyone about one of his students' evaluations on his teaching (allegedly it said Enakoutsa interrupted students in lecture ...). He could have responded in a calmer, less defensive manner.
Summer 2021 - Math 61 for the Summer 2021 term was originally taught by Prof. Ozel. When Ozel left in the middle of Summer session A due to issues with his visa, Prof. Enakoutsa came in to substitute. Enakoutsa did a nice job teaching Math 61. Enakoutsa, while not the clearest lecturer (I strongly preferred Ozel's lectures to Enakoutsa's), genuinely cares about his students' learning and provides a lot of office hours for students to ask questions. He encourages students to unmute themselves in lecture to ask clarifying questions. While his answers aren't always the clearest, Enakoutsa is committed to improving his teaching ability. He takes student feedback on his teaching seriously. His tests were rather straightforward and 24 hour open note. During the end of the course, Enakoutsa sent an angry email to everyone about one of his students' evaluations on his teaching (allegedly it said Enakoutsa interrupted students in lecture ...). He could have responded in a calmer, less defensive manner.
Most Helpful Review
Good class, he is very thorough at explaining the subject, the midterms are simple, the final a little tricky. He doesn't assign much homework but you should do them, helps a lot for the class. Overall the material is an easy concept to understand, so it shouldn't be too bad. goodluck
Good class, he is very thorough at explaining the subject, the midterms are simple, the final a little tricky. He doesn't assign much homework but you should do them, helps a lot for the class. Overall the material is an easy concept to understand, so it shouldn't be too bad. goodluck
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - Professor Gannon is my absolute favorite professor in my 2 years at UCLA. Words cannot describe how much I wish I could take every class with him. Gannon made me feel like I was attending a little “fireside chat” in every lecture. The lecturing environment was supremely chill and relaxed compared to every other math class I’ve been in. You can tell that Gannon keeps his students engaged and gives them the intrinsic motivation to learn math. It’s just his charm. Homework assignments were rather difficult compared to other math classes I’ve been in. There was one particular problem on an assignment that took me 8 hours to figure out. To be sure, though, that problem was an outlier. A few problems on each assignment are graded for accuracy, while the rest are graded for completion. He also gives extra practice problems on each assignment, and I highly recommend you do them. I probably spent an average of 8 hours on each assignment. Homework assignments are designed to be harder than exams. The exams in this class were fair but hard. Gannon finds ways to interconnect multiple concepts we learned in single problems. It is essential that you remember every theorem in class and pay attention to how the material from one lecture may connect to material from the others. I leave this class feeling like I learned a lot and confident in what I learned. Grading (there were 8 homework assignments in total): 20% Homework (Best 7 scores); 25% Midterm 1; 25% Midterm 2; 30% Final exam or 20% Homework (Best 7 scores); 35% Best midterm score; 45% Final exam And in case you were wondering, his beard is as luscious as it appears in his profile pic, perhaps even more. What a stud.
Spring 2021 - Professor Gannon is my absolute favorite professor in my 2 years at UCLA. Words cannot describe how much I wish I could take every class with him. Gannon made me feel like I was attending a little “fireside chat” in every lecture. The lecturing environment was supremely chill and relaxed compared to every other math class I’ve been in. You can tell that Gannon keeps his students engaged and gives them the intrinsic motivation to learn math. It’s just his charm. Homework assignments were rather difficult compared to other math classes I’ve been in. There was one particular problem on an assignment that took me 8 hours to figure out. To be sure, though, that problem was an outlier. A few problems on each assignment are graded for accuracy, while the rest are graded for completion. He also gives extra practice problems on each assignment, and I highly recommend you do them. I probably spent an average of 8 hours on each assignment. Homework assignments are designed to be harder than exams. The exams in this class were fair but hard. Gannon finds ways to interconnect multiple concepts we learned in single problems. It is essential that you remember every theorem in class and pay attention to how the material from one lecture may connect to material from the others. I leave this class feeling like I learned a lot and confident in what I learned. Grading (there were 8 homework assignments in total): 20% Homework (Best 7 scores); 25% Midterm 1; 25% Midterm 2; 30% Final exam or 20% Homework (Best 7 scores); 35% Best midterm score; 45% Final exam And in case you were wondering, his beard is as luscious as it appears in his profile pic, perhaps even more. What a stud.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - Honestly, best online notes available I've had yet for a math course. You can take these notes and understand the material in a rather short amount of time because of how well-written they are. Homeworks are difficult, but going into tests after them makes the tests feel easy by comparison. He also has a VERY generous grading scheme for individual tests. Overall, this class was a good experience and very welcomed given my experience with past math professors.
Winter 2020 - Honestly, best online notes available I've had yet for a math course. You can take these notes and understand the material in a rather short amount of time because of how well-written they are. Homeworks are difficult, but going into tests after them makes the tests feel easy by comparison. He also has a VERY generous grading scheme for individual tests. Overall, this class was a good experience and very welcomed given my experience with past math professors.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - Honestly, if you take Terrence you'll probably be fine. The midterms averages were around the high C low B range for both midterms so as long as you're around that you'll at least get a B+ probably. Terrence isn't that great of a lecturer but he is a pretty new teacher so maybe he gets better. Good luck, it could be worse.
Winter 2024 - Honestly, if you take Terrence you'll probably be fine. The midterms averages were around the high C low B range for both midterms so as long as you're around that you'll at least get a B+ probably. Terrence isn't that great of a lecturer but he is a pretty new teacher so maybe he gets better. Good luck, it could be worse.
Most Helpful Review
Gieseker was not a bad professor, but not a great one either. The material was taught in a semi-straightforward (if boring) way. The midterm and final mirrored the homework material and the stuff we learned in class well (no surprises). My TA was incredible and basically made the class easy (Duncan). He is accessible, there was a grading mistake on one of my tests and he quickly corrected it. There's a little confusion on whether your homework counts towards the final grade, during my class, it didn't, but it was still helpful for the tests. If you have to take Math 61, your experience will be fine with this guy
Gieseker was not a bad professor, but not a great one either. The material was taught in a semi-straightforward (if boring) way. The midterm and final mirrored the homework material and the stuff we learned in class well (no surprises). My TA was incredible and basically made the class easy (Duncan). He is accessible, there was a grading mistake on one of my tests and he quickly corrected it. There's a little confusion on whether your homework counts towards the final grade, during my class, it didn't, but it was still helpful for the tests. If you have to take Math 61, your experience will be fine with this guy
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - Professor Oleg was quite honestly one of the worst professors I've had the displeasure of having out of the 4 quarters that I've been at UCLA. Though he is enthusiastic enough about the subject matter and may genuinely want to help his students learn, he simply lacks the capabilities to be a good teacher. He fails to explain concepts properly, rushes through proofs, and stumbles over his thoughts and contradicts himself quite frequently, which only harms my ability to learn as I get confused as to what's right and wrong. Furthermore, he does not use the textbook at ALL, and creates his own practice problems for which he provides NO answers. This feels like such ludicrous behavior! Because the least the professor could do is release answers to the homework assignments after their due dates so students can check their understanding and see whether they got the answers correct or not. However, because he refused to publish answers to the assignments, my peers and I found it very difficult to study for the exams, which were whole other frustrating matters themselves. What disappointed me the most was that this is a class that is important and relevant to my major and career path, but because I had him as a professor, I did not learn as much as I could have and I found myself struggling to grasp the contents. Initially I thought I was alone in this matter, but after attending discussion I soon realized my peers and I were in the same boat. The TA, Thomas Martinez, acted more like our professor than our actual professor because my TA would do a much better job in explaining the concepts. There were countless instances where my peers and I stated "Woah, he did not go over that in lecture at all," or "now it makes sense! He didn't teach us this at all." Martinez concurred with our comments on the professor's painfully obvious ineptness when it came to teaching after he saw how clueless the students were on most days after lecture. This class was not easy. The workload was not that manageable (bc he would assign 20+ problems per week and NEVER give us answers to them). He was never clear (I had to YouTube most stuff or rely on my TA). And lastly, he was not helpful. Avoid him if you can, anyone is better than him. But if you have no other choice, good luck. It's sad because he is a good person, but I do not believe that he is a good professor.
Fall 2023 - Professor Oleg was quite honestly one of the worst professors I've had the displeasure of having out of the 4 quarters that I've been at UCLA. Though he is enthusiastic enough about the subject matter and may genuinely want to help his students learn, he simply lacks the capabilities to be a good teacher. He fails to explain concepts properly, rushes through proofs, and stumbles over his thoughts and contradicts himself quite frequently, which only harms my ability to learn as I get confused as to what's right and wrong. Furthermore, he does not use the textbook at ALL, and creates his own practice problems for which he provides NO answers. This feels like such ludicrous behavior! Because the least the professor could do is release answers to the homework assignments after their due dates so students can check their understanding and see whether they got the answers correct or not. However, because he refused to publish answers to the assignments, my peers and I found it very difficult to study for the exams, which were whole other frustrating matters themselves. What disappointed me the most was that this is a class that is important and relevant to my major and career path, but because I had him as a professor, I did not learn as much as I could have and I found myself struggling to grasp the contents. Initially I thought I was alone in this matter, but after attending discussion I soon realized my peers and I were in the same boat. The TA, Thomas Martinez, acted more like our professor than our actual professor because my TA would do a much better job in explaining the concepts. There were countless instances where my peers and I stated "Woah, he did not go over that in lecture at all," or "now it makes sense! He didn't teach us this at all." Martinez concurred with our comments on the professor's painfully obvious ineptness when it came to teaching after he saw how clueless the students were on most days after lecture. This class was not easy. The workload was not that manageable (bc he would assign 20+ problems per week and NEVER give us answers to them). He was never clear (I had to YouTube most stuff or rely on my TA). And lastly, he was not helpful. Avoid him if you can, anyone is better than him. But if you have no other choice, good luck. It's sad because he is a good person, but I do not believe that he is a good professor.
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