Ah...Uminsky...."YOU CAN'T STOP ME!"

I took this professor for 33A. I'll say one thing first: 33A is unlike any math class I've taken at UCLA. It's not very calculation-oriented like previous Calculus classes. It's very conceptually based and it didn't help very much that Uminsky himself was also interested in the concepts of things.

The textbook was quite poor, often giving you only the bare minimal in what you need to know and asking the student to prove/find the rest of the theorems in the homework. Uminsky's grading scheme is pretty merciful: homework counts more than 10%, and you don't need to get everything right to get full score. You just need to try, although most of the problems assigned are pretty much undoable. However, Uminsky pulls through and manages to make most of us understand the material and he kept me awake.

The tests were pretty difficult, if only because many of them asked for conceptual understanding. Maybe the reviewer below me was right in that the professor is a poor testmaker, maybe not.
The first midterm was actually very straightforward, with flat-out calculation questions and a curvesetter of 10 true/false questions.
The second midterm had half-calculations with a few tricks thrown here-and-there, and some true/false questions as well as short answers. Managing to get 20 points above the average was considered an A-.
The final had barely any calculations. Uminsky told us that he had pretty much run out of calculations and had no choice but to throw the purely conceptual at us. He actually put a proof on the final which was worth only 5 points in order to separate the As from the A-s. He would've put more, if the TAs hadn't objected to it. Still, the averages were very low but at least the curve was merciful.

Overall, I think the very nature of 33A is to blame as well as its textbook. Uminsky made the hardest math class (IMHO) doable.

Horrible test maker. Let's be completely honest as an engineer, you have to take this class and it's linear algebra (math that is done on a scale with computers that you don't even need to comprehend this stuff). This professor puts true and false on his tests on material that's conceptual black holes like finding exceptions to an infinite by infinite matrix to find an exception to the true and false. It got to the point where after the first few true and false i started questioning every term i knew in the book so that even though the problems with the mechanics of the problems were easy, i questioned every single key phrase that could help me solve that problem. I get it, some professors love their subject and what not but for students that have to go through these hellish walls of prereqs and to find a professor that gives ridiculous tests for no utter reason makes me really scratch my head at the utter illogical nature of why these professors try to rape their students for no reason. if you can choose another professor, do it. no point is destroying your gpa to learn a math subject you're not going to apply in real life if you're an engineer. if you're a math major, then get yourself raped at your own enjoyment and "learning" experience value. don't say i didn't warn you.