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
3 of 5
Most Helpful Review
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.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - It might just be me but I really struggled in this class. The professor is honestly really good and I felt like I understood the material more than my grade reflects (not to say a B is bad by any means). The homework was graded really harshly but hw isn't worth much so it doesn't really matter. However, it's the tests that really got me. He offers to drop the lower midterm but that couldn't even save me. I got 10% below average on the first one (yikes). 100% on the second (idk how that happened) and dead average on the final. Got a B so not bad at all. The problems with the tests though is that it isn't structured like a normal math test I've taken in my other math classes here. There are a good amount of long response and proof questions but the weird thing is that there is a good amount of multiple choice and true/false questions. So on those it's all credit or nothing which can really mess you up. Hope you get a good TA because I'm sure that would really help. In my case my TA wasn't helpful. If I asked him to explain something, he would be like "well the answer is obviously 12 raised to 4 factorial divided by n choose 7 summed to infinity" and was just unable to explain how he got there.
Spring 2018 - It might just be me but I really struggled in this class. The professor is honestly really good and I felt like I understood the material more than my grade reflects (not to say a B is bad by any means). The homework was graded really harshly but hw isn't worth much so it doesn't really matter. However, it's the tests that really got me. He offers to drop the lower midterm but that couldn't even save me. I got 10% below average on the first one (yikes). 100% on the second (idk how that happened) and dead average on the final. Got a B so not bad at all. The problems with the tests though is that it isn't structured like a normal math test I've taken in my other math classes here. There are a good amount of long response and proof questions but the weird thing is that there is a good amount of multiple choice and true/false questions. So on those it's all credit or nothing which can really mess you up. Hope you get a good TA because I'm sure that would really help. In my case my TA wasn't helpful. If I asked him to explain something, he would be like "well the answer is obviously 12 raised to 4 factorial divided by n choose 7 summed to infinity" and was just unable to explain how he got there.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2018 - This review is for MATH 31A. Take it with this professor, he explains the materials clearly and thoroughly. The concepts of this course are simple enough and he does not overcomplicate it, there are no surprise questions that are out of the scope of his lectures in the exams. Light workload with weekly homework that does not require submission and weekly 1-or-2-question-quiz except during exam week. Andrew Marks also gives out study guides prior to the exams so you'll know what to expect and prepare yourself well for it.
Winter 2018 - This review is for MATH 31A. Take it with this professor, he explains the materials clearly and thoroughly. The concepts of this course are simple enough and he does not overcomplicate it, there are no surprise questions that are out of the scope of his lectures in the exams. Light workload with weekly homework that does not require submission and weekly 1-or-2-question-quiz except during exam week. Andrew Marks also gives out study guides prior to the exams so you'll know what to expect and prepare yourself well for it.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - I really appreciated how she became more and more accommodating to people's circumstances and learning pace as the quarter progressed. She turned the weekly quizzes into SYOP where you present your own problem and solve it yourself, and is 0% or 100% only based on effort you put. You can just grab a question from the textbook (that isn't answered in the textbook) and solve it yourself, or talk about any new concept you learned or had difficulty grasping in the class. After the first midterm, she also gave extra 0.5% credit for each Zoom lecture you attend for a total addition of 5% extra credit. She really tried her best to explain the lectures clearly and you could really tell, but sometimes things can get really hard to understand especially when there is so much content to cover in 10 weeks. Sometimes, homework or test questions wouldn't even be like what was explained in class, and would have you take the extra mile to understand the lesson which I thought at first was unfair, but I guess it was cushioned by all the opportunities for leniency in other places. Overall, I enjoyed my quarter with Nina, and she is extremely friendly in Office Hours too!
Fall 2020 - I really appreciated how she became more and more accommodating to people's circumstances and learning pace as the quarter progressed. She turned the weekly quizzes into SYOP where you present your own problem and solve it yourself, and is 0% or 100% only based on effort you put. You can just grab a question from the textbook (that isn't answered in the textbook) and solve it yourself, or talk about any new concept you learned or had difficulty grasping in the class. After the first midterm, she also gave extra 0.5% credit for each Zoom lecture you attend for a total addition of 5% extra credit. She really tried her best to explain the lectures clearly and you could really tell, but sometimes things can get really hard to understand especially when there is so much content to cover in 10 weeks. Sometimes, homework or test questions wouldn't even be like what was explained in class, and would have you take the extra mile to understand the lesson which I thought at first was unfair, but I guess it was cushioned by all the opportunities for leniency in other places. Overall, I enjoyed my quarter with Nina, and she is extremely friendly in Office Hours too!
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2020 - I took this class during summer session A 2020 (things may be different because summer + covid), but the breakdown was the better score between 20% quizzes, 30% midterm, 50% final or 20% quizzes, 15% midterm, 65% final. There were 5 quizzes total and the lowest 2 were dropped. Professor Ozel is incredibly helpful and clear. He would handwrite the notes for the entire chapter beforehand and upload them to ccle so you could follow along during lectures. His notes were organized and provided clear definitions and many examples. He was always willing to answer questions and re-explain concepts. Although there were no homework assignments, he provided a list of homework questions from the textbook that you can practice from. His quizzes and exams were fair. Overall, I really enjoyed this class, and I would definitely take professor Ozel again!
Summer 2020 - I took this class during summer session A 2020 (things may be different because summer + covid), but the breakdown was the better score between 20% quizzes, 30% midterm, 50% final or 20% quizzes, 15% midterm, 65% final. There were 5 quizzes total and the lowest 2 were dropped. Professor Ozel is incredibly helpful and clear. He would handwrite the notes for the entire chapter beforehand and upload them to ccle so you could follow along during lectures. His notes were organized and provided clear definitions and many examples. He was always willing to answer questions and re-explain concepts. Although there were no homework assignments, he provided a list of homework questions from the textbook that you can practice from. His quizzes and exams were fair. Overall, I really enjoyed this class, and I would definitely take professor Ozel again!
3 of 5
