I had him winter quarter 2011, and I must say his class was really difficult. His voice is really quiet and it was hard to understand him, but besides that his lecturing style wasn't too bad. He was really nice during office hours and was willing to help. I thought the first midterm wasn't that bad coming out of it, but I only scored around the average (70% or so). The second midterm was ridiculous, avg was 45%. I would say the final was around the same difficulty as the second midterm. To do well in this class, go above and beyond the homework; do all the extra problems and chapter reviews. Also, go to all the TA sections the first week and see who is the best, I got stuck with a not-so-great TA and it would have helped my grade so much if I had gone to another section. Again, I would say he is a very difficult professor, but if the alternative is Mess I would definitely take Martin.

Professor Martin

Pros:
-Organized when he lectures
-HW is like 15-25 problems due every Friday, so doable and the problems are fair
-Useful discussion sections if you have a good TA

But that's pretty much all of the positives for this guy. He has a monotonous voice that can make lecture boring. He showed up 3-5 minutes late every lecture and immediately leaves once he's done. He also has a bad temper with cell phones and class disruptions. The only entertainment that came out of this class was watching somebody literally run down the lecture hall stairs in order to catch him before he left at the end of lecture, or when he kicked people out of class for various reasons. He kicked out 3+ people throughout the quarter. The class itself is not too difficult. I was able to do the majority of the homework without a solutions manual and no multivariable class in high school. But the tests were bad and often unfair. Averages on midterms were 50% and 37%, and 42% on the final. You have to really study since he gives you no formula sheet to use on exam. And partial credit is limited.

Professor Martin is very organized in his lectures, by far one of the most organized in his writing on the chalkboard. He's very monotonous and has a bad temper if you disturb the class.
His tests are very hard, but there are ALWAYS some questions that are from the textbook. As long as you do ALL the homework problems, especially the harder ones toward the end of each chapter, you'll be fine. The average for his midterms and final were 50%, 39%, and 40%.
Lectures were VERY confusing and FAST-PACED but follow the book. I came out of EVERY lecture having a "WTF" moment. And pretty soon I skipped the last 3 weeks of lectures and 6 weeks worth of discussion, which I regret. I recommend reviewing your notes/asking TAs for help after lectures.
Discussions are really good for you to UNDERSTAND the material because lectures and PRACTICE problems.
Don't fret if you mess up on the midterms and homework because most of your grade comes from your final. I forgot to hand in one homework and got 5/10s for a couple of homeworks. I got 24% on my second midterm which was thankfully dropped. I worked my butt off for 2 whole days and scored way above average on the final and got an A- in the class.
I recommend you DO the homework IMMEDIATELY. DON"T CRAM like I did because I literally fainted after my math final when I got back to my room. FIND YOUR TA. DON"T DISTURB him during lecture because he'll scold you (don't walk into class late and hand in your homework while he's lecturing because that's what I did ).

Martin will not be the worst math professor you will ever have.

Unlike some of the previous reviewers, I never had any idea what was going on in lecture, probably because his monotone voice lulled be into boredom -- which is of course, not his fault. But when I did pay attention I found that some of the concepts were simply jus not very well explained.

I always taught myself the math later when I was doing the homeworks.

Thats another thing actually -- the homework. I actually really enjoyed his pace on the homework. Having had a professor who only enjoyed proof problems the previous quarter, most of Martin's assigned problems were straightforward. What I appreciated the most was that he didn't assignment homework the first week of class or 10th week. So thank you Martin, that was nice of you.

To get an A in his class, you just need to be able to do the hardest problems in each of the sections -- if you can do that, and actually understand the material at least somewhat, you should be fine and way ahead of the rest of the class.

I think the curves are pretty generous, especially when I thought I failed the second midterm and ended up coming out with a score 11 points over the average.

I don't know what the minimum requirements for an A were, but for the first midterm I had 15 points over the average, second 11, and for the final, 64 points above the average.

The best advice I can give you is do not get low scores on the the midterms! If you do, then the final will end up being 65% of your grade, and thats a chance you probably don't want to take.

I thought his tests were rediculously hard and the problems were a little obscure. Luckily, the curve helped and I still pulled off an A.

Like others have said, he's quiet and he can be pretty boring, but if you pay attention, he's actually a really good professor for the most part. There were some times where I left class thinking "WTF?!" but he does a good job explaining most concepts.

I screwed up in the class though. I don't blame him, although I don't necessarily think I'm fully to blame either. I worked pretty damn hard and I thought that I understood every Calculus concept completely. I was able to do pretty much every problem in the book/HW assignments with ease. I still failed some tests miserably, and I think it's because he takes the Calculus problems and makes them unnecessarily complex with difficult algebra. This screwed me over. I still ended up passing the class ... barely, but I don't think that grade is representative of how well I actually understood the core concepts of the class.

Martin is a pretty decent prof. It's true that lectures are not very exciting and he doesn't talk loudly, but if you sit in front and can manage to stay focused, he does a pretty good job of introducing the material. Homework was always useful - I thought he did a good job of picking out relevant problems. Other reviews complain about the midterms being overly difficult, but I couldn't disagree more. The midterms were challenging (as a curve needs to be established), but definitely very fair. Many of the problems were straight out of the book and from numbers very close to problems assigned for homework.

The best way to study for this class - do problems. Do all the homework, do extra problems, do old or practice midterms. Once you've seen most problem types, you'll do well, since his tests simply have the more challenging book problems. The curve is also quite generous. I got close to 15% below the average on the first midterm, but ended up with an A in the class.

If the alternative is Mess, I would definitely recommend taking Martin.

Goes very slow in lectures and usually takes a long time explaining easy content and not getting to hard content (gets a bit dull around 10 minutes into lecture). Does not speak loudly so you should sit in the first half of class if you want to hear. Other than the first midterm, test problems were overall difficult to sometimes downright impossible, save for a few problems. The only major gripe I have with this class is the tests, which sometimes feature questions that nobody has ever seen before. I guess it should be expected but still it's very irritating when you're looking at the test and thinking where did I see this? If you can take a different professor and learn more from lectures then by all means do so because I personally did not get much out of the lectures.

I don't think the previous reviews were very fair to him.
True, he's a very dull professor and it can be hard to focus while he's talking, but his lectures are actually pretty well structured and well paced. The exams were reasonable and the curve seems to be generous too.

D