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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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.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - Disclaimer: I don't consider myself good at math. Hazel's teaching is pretty good. She's clear at showing what format she wants proofs to be in and makes sure to go over many examples that pop up in the homework, so as long as you look at her examples, it won't be too bad. I found it a lot easier to listen to lecture than try to understand the textbook for this class, while the opposite was true for my other math classes. She also recorded her lectures. She "assigns" many homework problems, but you only have to turn in three or four per section, so most of them are extra practice. The problems themself aren't hard, but because this was my first proof-based class, I didn't find them easy, either. I would definitely do the extra problems because similar ones appear on tests. The lowest homework is dropped. Her tests were pretty straightforward in terms of difficulty; there were only one or two problems where I was like "bruh". For Midterm 1 and the Final, she had a combination of open-ended questions and multiple-choice, while Midterm 2 was all open-ended. The lowest midterm is dropped. Attending discussions is mandatory because there are weekly worksheets you complete with other people. However, she drops the lowest four worksheets, so you only have to go half the quarter. Overall, I think this class was pretty good, though that might be because I took it while most things were still online. I would take Hazel's class again if given the choice.
Winter 2022 - Disclaimer: I don't consider myself good at math. Hazel's teaching is pretty good. She's clear at showing what format she wants proofs to be in and makes sure to go over many examples that pop up in the homework, so as long as you look at her examples, it won't be too bad. I found it a lot easier to listen to lecture than try to understand the textbook for this class, while the opposite was true for my other math classes. She also recorded her lectures. She "assigns" many homework problems, but you only have to turn in three or four per section, so most of them are extra practice. The problems themself aren't hard, but because this was my first proof-based class, I didn't find them easy, either. I would definitely do the extra problems because similar ones appear on tests. The lowest homework is dropped. Her tests were pretty straightforward in terms of difficulty; there were only one or two problems where I was like "bruh". For Midterm 1 and the Final, she had a combination of open-ended questions and multiple-choice, while Midterm 2 was all open-ended. The lowest midterm is dropped. Attending discussions is mandatory because there are weekly worksheets you complete with other people. However, she drops the lowest four worksheets, so you only have to go half the quarter. Overall, I think this class was pretty good, though that might be because I took it while most things were still online. I would take Hazel's class again if given the choice.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Dr. Huang is an excellent teacher. Her lectures are hard to follow if and only if the students don't give her any indication whether they understood what she meant. Whenever any student asks any questions, she is patient enough to answer the questions in details. Also, do not neglect the office hours! She is willing to answer any questions you have regarding the course material, and she can even guide you through if you have any troubling about learning math in general. She has been getting feedback from her students consistently throughout time and is making progress that everyone can see. Maybe she is not the best lecturer yet, but she has been improving a lot even in the same quarter, so I believe she will become a famously excellent teacher very soon. Also, for a non-math major, math 61 deserves one's time. As most people know, math-61 is not intended for only math majors (it is a CS major requirement), and the course difficulty has been decreased astonishingly from what one should expect from a course in discrete math, which is math-180. Math-61 covers a lot of basic concepts that were usually assumed knowledge of in a math course intended for math majors only and cannot be more friendly to non-math people. What is difficult is NOT what the professor covers but what the concepts are actually are. One should not blame an instructor simply because a course that is intrinsically difficult was taught.
Spring 2020 - Dr. Huang is an excellent teacher. Her lectures are hard to follow if and only if the students don't give her any indication whether they understood what she meant. Whenever any student asks any questions, she is patient enough to answer the questions in details. Also, do not neglect the office hours! She is willing to answer any questions you have regarding the course material, and she can even guide you through if you have any troubling about learning math in general. She has been getting feedback from her students consistently throughout time and is making progress that everyone can see. Maybe she is not the best lecturer yet, but she has been improving a lot even in the same quarter, so I believe she will become a famously excellent teacher very soon. Also, for a non-math major, math 61 deserves one's time. As most people know, math-61 is not intended for only math majors (it is a CS major requirement), and the course difficulty has been decreased astonishingly from what one should expect from a course in discrete math, which is math-180. Math-61 covers a lot of basic concepts that were usually assumed knowledge of in a math course intended for math majors only and cannot be more friendly to non-math people. What is difficult is NOT what the professor covers but what the concepts are actually are. One should not blame an instructor simply because a course that is intrinsically difficult was taught.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - Definitely one of the best lecturers at UCLA. He's very passionate about the course material and explains concepts very clearly. The workload and HW are not bad at all. The first midterm is very easy, but the second one is significantly harder. The final is not too difficult if you understand the material, and he is very generous with grading (4 different grading schemes). Overall one of the best classes I have taken at UCLA and I would highly highly recommend.
Fall 2023 - Definitely one of the best lecturers at UCLA. He's very passionate about the course material and explains concepts very clearly. The workload and HW are not bad at all. The first midterm is very easy, but the second one is significantly harder. The final is not too difficult if you understand the material, and he is very generous with grading (4 different grading schemes). Overall one of the best classes I have taken at UCLA and I would highly highly recommend.
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Fall 2019 - This class was harder than I expected. I learned that I hate proof-based math lol. The lectures were fine. Manning is an alright lecturer but there were often times when he'd stumble over his words or he'd ask a question to the class and no one would respond leaving an awkward silence for like a minute. The homeworks every week were honestly pretty time consuming and were graded pretty harshly. I'd recommend doing/attempting the homework honestly to make sure you secure that HW grade and prepare yourself for the tests. The tests were pretty hard and I often didn't have enough time to really finish at least for me (although the class averages seemed pretty decent). I think the class/final was curved significantly which ended up giving me a B (i'm not complaining tho). Don't be fooled into thinking this is an easy math class because its not calc or something. You'll have to put time in studying and doing hw for sure.
Fall 2019 - This class was harder than I expected. I learned that I hate proof-based math lol. The lectures were fine. Manning is an alright lecturer but there were often times when he'd stumble over his words or he'd ask a question to the class and no one would respond leaving an awkward silence for like a minute. The homeworks every week were honestly pretty time consuming and were graded pretty harshly. I'd recommend doing/attempting the homework honestly to make sure you secure that HW grade and prepare yourself for the tests. The tests were pretty hard and I often didn't have enough time to really finish at least for me (although the class averages seemed pretty decent). I think the class/final was curved significantly which ended up giving me a B (i'm not complaining tho). Don't be fooled into thinking this is an easy math class because its not calc or something. You'll have to put time in studying and doing hw for sure.
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