Professor Taylor did a fine job teaching in my opinion, and also structured his class in a favorable fashion. Other reviewers are correct in that he would seem to confuse himself at times, but overall he did a decent job at conveying the necessary information.

The grading scheme, as has been noted, is 25% quizzes, 25% midterm, and 50% final. Therefore, there is no homework, but the quizzes are based on assigned problems. However, because only five of nine quizzes are counted for a grade, and because of their very straightforward problems, these are not a concern. The midterm was fair but tough, as the problems were nothing surprising but often required some fairly messy work.

As for the final, I took mine during the COVID-19 pandemic, so this part may not be applicable to future quarters. My final was take-home, open-notes, and open-book, which obviously will be different than ensuing iterations of this class. The final was 18 pages and 12 problems, most with multiple parts. It would have been very tough to complete in three hours had it been in-person. The problems, likewise, were fairly challenging as well, but this was less due to the concepts being tested and more because of the substantial amount of steps that were required to reach a solution in most cases.

Overall, this class was alright, and Professor Taylor did an adequate job teaching. Just know that he definitely does care about "u"!

You can find the textbook online for this class, don't buy it. However, I did buy the solutions manual because I didn't understand what was going on by his lectures. He's not a good teacher, stops himself a lot and doesn't teach like he knows what he's doing. Does examples super slow and will explain proofs for the entire class and not do any examples. He does have a real passion for math, that much is clear. His grading is somewhat fair, and pretty nice since he doesn't collect homework. 25% weekly quizzes (best 5/9 count and they come straight from the homework), 25% midterm (wasn't hard very straightforward), and 50% final. Since I took this class when we were being sent home because of corona virus, the final was optional and take home. It was hard, not going to sugarcoat it. Luckily didn't matter for me, but if I had to take it on my own and have it count for 50%, that would've been a doozy. But overall not as stressful as 31B for sure, material itself is very straightforward and pretty easy to wrap your head around and practice. Take him if you're good at teaching things to yourself and don't care about attending lectures.

I took Math 31B with professor Rooney last quarter and thought that I had seen the worst in terms of testing in college mathematics. Now, I look back and laugh at such naïveté. Let me get this straight: yes, I received an A in this class. However, like the previous reviewer, I know that I would have gotten an F if COVID-19 did not force us to take the final at home. This professor's final was the most difficult test I have ever taken. We did not touch on quite a few of the concepts that made it on the exam, and some were not even in the textbook. After having discussions with classmates on Reddit, it was clear that many of them felt the same way. Like me, people spent much more time than 3 hours completing it. I spent 9 on it and still left answers blank before turning it in. I am, therefore, extremely thankful that he offered an alternative grading scheme at the last moment in which you could remove the final exam from your final grade calculation.

TL;DR: This professor's testing, in my experience, is unfair and does not adquately assess a student's achievement in the class. I do not recommend that you choose this professor for this class if you are concerned about getting good grades.

Let me be clear: this class is easy for 95% of the time. There are weekly quizzes, with two questions each, for which he always said ahead of time what would be on them. The quizzes were easy. In terms of homework, this prof does NOT ASSIGN HOMEWORK. He posts problems on CCLE but does not require you turn them in for a grade. I thought this was an amazing policy until all of the sudden midway through the quarter I realized I barely knew anything because I never did work outside of class. Don't be fooled!!!! Just because there is no grade for the homework does not make it optional. Yes, you never technically turn it in, but you should do it. The final...oh god. Let's just say I'm glad that coronavirus is going around because if I had to take this final closed-book in 3 hours, I'd have an F in the class. The final is EIGHTEEN PAGES. It's ridiculous. It's so much material for one test, and the questions are very difficult. For some, they don't even seem related to the lessons we learned. Luckily, the professor is being pretty generous because of covid-19 and is allowing for the option of not having the final affect our ultimate grade. He's a nice guy, he really is! Sometimes the lectures are boring but not any more than a regular math class. It's GREAT that he almost never goes over theorems!! Some teachers exclusively do theorems, but this professor covers the formulas but focuses on examples and applications.

I honestly can't understand all those negative review about Dr. Taylor. Yes, he is a bit disorganized and he does make mistakes in lectures and posted material. However, for me it did not affect the clearness of the material given. Dr. Taylor explains everything pretty clearly and does it with passion, so the lectures are enjoyable. He is always very helpful in the office hours and his midterms/exams have a fair level of complexity. So, if you do end up with him as a professor, do go to the lectures and do the homework, then you should be fine. I learned everything on lectures and then used only summary in the book to revise the material.

I had him for 32A. I believe it was Dr. Taylor's first full academic quarter teaching, so he seemed nervous at times and did make mistakes during lectures.

That said, I do believe he was a very decent professor. He gave examples in class that were helpful for the homework. The fact that he did not give quizzes is also a plus. Also, his exams were quite fair and mostly computational. I lost points mostly for simple mistakes like using the wrong number and related issues. Unlike the other professors (Chayes and Williams) who were also teaching 32A at the time, Taylor was not one of those professors who goes too conceptual and focuses on the theorems.

His lectures, despite his mistakes at time, were understandable, except for one on curvature, but he fixed this during the next lecture. Also, if you have Ioannis Lagkas NIkolos as your TA, he goes a bit too fast during discussion but he is a good TA.

I did go to Taylor's office hours twice and he was helpful in both cases. In the second time I went, it was during finals week, and he gave me a tip that actually appeared on the final!

Overall, he was not too hard, but do your homework and do a lot of practice problems from the book. Go to discussion, look over your notes, and read the book as well.