Professor May is an excellent professor. Her lectures are very effective. She goes through the content in a thorough way and gives lots of examples. The homework is more challenging than her examples but it's a great way to practice for the tests. My only complaint is about the harsh grading on the midterms and final. You will get marked down on the tiniest things. Even if your process was correct and you got the correct answer May will mark you down if you don't include exactly what she wants you to. Only considering the content and workload, this class was easier for me than the other calculus classes in the series. The tests, however, are so hard to get right. Even though May is a great professor I think she needs to adjust her grading to be a bit more open ended. The tests are doable though and honestly much easier than tests in other math classes I have taken. It's just the grading that got me. Overall, an interesting class and professor May is very sweet.

This was my first and last math class of college and I'm really glad I took it with May. She gives super clear lectures and explains things well. There are two grading schemes: 10% homework, 35% best midterm, 55% final OR 10% homework, 25% each midterm, 40% final. However, she stresses that the midterms and final are going to be more than just the simple, straightforward examples we do in class and in homework. To study for the exams, I would highly recommend reviewing all the worksheets from section because the questions are VERY similar. She also posts practice exams and solutions about a week before the exams. I found the two midterms to be not too difficult and actually easier than the practice tests she posted, but the final was definitely harder than the practice test. The material also definitely gets harder as the quarter goes along. Overall would recommend taking it with her though.

First off, the amount of homework she assigned was ridiculous. It sometimes took me up to 5 hours to finish one assignment. Other than that, I thought the class was very well taught. May is very clear in both lecture and office hours, and she made the concepts in class easy to understand and visualize. The tests are long and hard, but I think they are appropriately difficult for the class (some of her discussion questions were way harder than the test questions). I would definitely take the class with May again.

I would not take this class again. I got a tutor, went to office hours, watched other teaching videos nightly,and went to the math help center and still barely passed. Professor May is not engaging or helpful. I would leave class more confused than when I came in. If you can't learn math on your own and master concepts to attempt questions that you can't even find an example problem for on your midterms and finals this is not the class for you!! I really wish I would not have taken this class with this professor, she over complicates the material.

May is very good, clear, and engaging at lecturing, and that's about it for the positives. In terms of running the class, it was unreasonable. The required homework sets were far too long—some people in my discussion reported spending close to 7-8 hours on one of the homeworks, which is simply unreasonable to juggle with other classes during the quarter. Additionally, the class is NOT curved, which is unreasonable, especially for 32B, which already has difficult material and exams. To add insult to injury in this particular quarter, one of the questions on the second midterm had a misleading hint that lead many of us to waste our time on it (far more than time than was required) and get either an incorrect answer or not finish that problem at all. When asked if she would at least adjust the scores for that particular question, she said no. The material of 32B is difficult enough as it is, and taking it with May is not the move.

She is just too mean to be a professor (she is even not a professor, just a postdoc teaching here I think). The least kind person I've ever known in this school
She's not gonna help you at all!!!

So I must say I am little puzzled by most of the reviews here. I took Dr. May Fall 2018 and thought she was excellent. Her lectures were very clear and she was very good at explaining subtleties which, though generally not necessary to know for the exams, helped me gain greater appreciation for math.

It's a little hard for me to say how difficult she really is. I got a C+ on my first exam, and started worked like crazy (close to 3hrs. a day). I made sure to do most of the challenging problems from every chapter and also worked through problems I found online. I did better on the second midterm (B+) and well enough on the final to get an A in the class. At the time I was taking the class, I considered it to be really tough, but then again, I do not know how much of it was just me getting used to the pace of UCLA classes. Furthermore, although I studied a lot for the class, I am unsure how much all my studying helped. I think I could have studied a lot less and done just as well. Furthermore, the averages on all exams were quite high. I found it pretty difficult to score above the average, though I consistently scored well above the average in 32B, so, again, while I found it hard, I am unsure how this class really matches up to other classes. I will say that based on what I was seeing from other sections of 32A, May's class was the toughest. In any event, she is definitely worth it.

Tips: VISUALIZE EVERYTHING. She loves testing whether or not you can visualize crazy functions in 3D. Really understand the practice midterms. If you understand everything really well on the practice midterms who should be able to get at least a B. She's really not there to trick you. If she stresses something in class, you definitely want to know it. If brushes over a topic, it's probably not going be heavily featured on the exam.

If you're struggling, talk to her. She is very helpful, especially if she sees that you care.

This class is super cool! Professor May is a super genuine, kind, intelligent person. She seems to truly love math. Don't hesitate to go to office hours! She'll be happy to see you and help out.
Tests are graded a bit harshly, at least in virtual learning. Make sure you don't make any simple mistakes haha. Notation counts for a lot on the exams-- use the right vector notation! Exams are reasonable and doable based on homework and worksheets, but there are some challenge problems. Overall, though, if you understand the worksheets, homework, and concepts, you'll be fine!
Homework is partially based on completion, partially on correctness, so make sure you check your work on that, too, but there's buffer since it's only partially graded on correctness. Worksheets are participation points, and they are often helpful for the exams, so make sure you study them!
This class needs a bit of visualization skills, so if you're on a break, try going to geogebra.org/3d (she'll talk about this site!) to play around with equations-- it might help you wrap your brain around these 3D graphs! And it's just plain fun.
Professor May also seems to care about our class culture. One day, we spent a bit of time talking about equity and privilege (basically anonymous polls about "how often do you think about this aspect of your identity?"), and she often encourages centering techniques, like deep breathing and naming 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, etc.
Overall, this was a super cool and underrated class. My new favorite math, for sure!

I'm mostly submitting this review because a lot of the previous reviewers got good grades and I don't want people to think they're over-exaggerating how miserable this class actually was. I just want to clarify that I full-on flunked this class. I did pretty well in the rest of the math series, so I don't think this was just me slacking off or something like that. Avoid this class. I found her teaching style extremely condescending. When I got questions wrong, I had a hard time asking for help because she was very much a fake 'tough love' teacher, where it felt like she was going to put you through hell for getting it wrong so you could learn from it. My TA had a similar attitude, so not only did I fail miserably, I hated going to class and I hated asking questions in office hours. I did about average on every test and was going to be perfectly content with a C (I needed about a 2% curve for that) but, as others have mentioned, no curve at all. Her averages were also a little deceiving because it seemed like people were either doing very well, or they were doing very very poorly (so on one I think the average was a 75, but not very many people were in that 70-80 range). hours and hours of homework meant I ended up taking shortcuts to get right answers, which meant I didn't know the material (my fault, but still). I think she will get better as time goes on, but I really would not recommend her to anyone. I cannot think of a single redeeming aspect of this class.

DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS!!! As you have seen by the other reviews this class with this professor is awful. Many other students who took Clover May with me also had to repeat this class because of their grade. I am now a 3rd year engineering student and my GPA is a 3.65 for reference. I have not gotten lower than a B in any class and no lower than an A- in any other math class at UCLA and I have taken up through 33B. When I retook this class with another professor i received an A while I got a D with Clover May. PLEASE save your time and sanity and take a different professor or even wait a quarter to take this class with a different professor. She gives out a ridiculous amount of homework each week that is required. it is not realistic to complete the homework each week because you are graded on correctness. Also her tests are unnecessarily long and difficult. I was not able to fully complete any of her exams. She gives around 5 problems per midterm each with multiple sub parts and you have a strict 50 min time limit. I strongly Advise you avoid this professor for this class (and her other classes) at all costs. I do not normally leave reviews on bruin-walk but after taking more math classes since I took this class I realized how awful this class was. it ruined my freshman spring quarter and wasted my time so please don't make the same mistake I did and avid this class.