Franco is the GOAT of MAE

Professor Elisa is extremely kind and cares for students' learning. This is one of the hardest classes in the MECH&AERO major but she does her best to teach it as clearly as possible. Each lecture has multiple opportunities for extra credit (only possible if you are there for the live lecture). Discussions are recorded but lectures are not, but they are not mandatory. She also offers extra credit for completing the course evaluation. Labs were pretty easy just annoying in having to make a report as well as doing the weekly homework, but there is only 5-6 labs for the total quarter, so you won't have it every week. The tests were the roughest parts, they were in theory easier than the homeworks, as well as open note, but as the topic itself is hard, the tests were still tough. Professor Elisa is super kind and I would (an am for 171A) take a class with her again!

Professor Franco is a great professor, and despite the difficulty of the class, I enjoyed the class quite a bit (or as much as you can enjoy a browbeating with control systems). Like M'Closkey (another great 107 professor) she uses a series of typeset notes, which are like a textbook but better and more concise. I read the textbook once the first week and never read it again, that's how useless the actual course textbook was.

The hardest part of the course is the homework. Each week there is a series of 3-5 problems, each of which challenges your knowledge in unique ways, and very often includes MATLAB (so make sure you know how to plot and create basic for loops). A lot of the homework sets are interconnected (i.e. they contain a continuation of previous problems with new changes). It is clear Franco put a lot of effort into curating the problems to cover the most critical parts of the content. However, the homework is almost impossible without external help, most often through office hours (both TA and professor), so utilize those resources.

Attending lecture is very important, not only because she does not record lectures, but there are also participation-based quizzes, which will provide some extra credit for your entire grade. Fair warning that the exams are hard, but if you diligently do homework, attend office hours, and prepare adequately for the midterm and final, the course is very doable.

Overall, I think Franco is one of the best professors I have had at UCLA. Her lectures, homework, and office hours are all helpful, and she is always willing to answer questions.

(Notice I didn't mention labs... that's because they're completely useless. Shoutout Jimmy though, best TA!)