Professor Bao is a good professor. His grading scheme, on another evaluation here, is very generous in that you only need to do well on 1 midterm, 2 quizzes, and of course the final.

The midterms were easy if you keep up with the concepts and practice. The application problems are like the ones he goes over (he only went over 2 types) and each midterm usually has a proof which will depend on how well you understand the material. The proof was only 10 points, though, out of 100 and there were 5 other questions. The final had doable problems, but there were a few where you had to get creative and there was definitely enough time to complete everything that you could. The averages on the two midterms were around 77 and 80.

His lectures are definitely "by the book" and very straightforward. We had another professor come in to substitute on day, Aliki Mavromoustaki, who has had glowing reviews here. Her style was more creative and it worked well, but I've had a few teachers in high school who tried that and failed miserably. She definitely makes it more interesting. That being said, Bao's lectures get to the point, are very well-structured, and are worth going to. You learn what you need to. He also does a great job of answering questions. You can't go wrong if you're looking to decide between them.

If you took 33A before and did well in it, it will help you greatly. After the second midterm is basically all linear algebra in terms of the calculations you have to do. The only issue with Bao may be if he decides to make his tests tougher since he hasn't had a long history of teaching this course but it seems unlikely.

His accent is sometimes very hard to understand and because his English isn't too great, he sometimes gets flustered when trying to explain something if he can't find the right words. This makes it hard to understand any theoretical or difficult concepts. Also homework is much harder than lecture example problems, but we use Piazza as a class discussion so all students from lecture could help each other on hw assignments. His grading scale is very generous, as your lowest 2/8 homeworks get dropped and your lowest 1/2 quiz gets dropped also. And he weights the percentages 2 different ways to see which one gives you the better grade. Overall you are graded on 6 homeworks, a quiz, a midterm, and the final, at varying percentages depending on what works out best for you.

Similar to what the other reviewer said, Professor Bao has a quirky yet charming personality. I frequently found myself laughing during class because of it. His grading system is also reasonable and fair, so don't expect him to be overly generous about anything. As for the class itself, Bao tends to go through a lot of examples and proofs. I think he could have spent more time explaining tactics on how to best approach particular problems, but you will be fine if you have a good TA or form a study group. If you are not a "math" person, again, you may need to rely on your TA for help. Since I personally really enjoy calculus, I never dreaded going to this class, but I can certainly see why some people did not like him as a professor. The way I see it, as long as you put in the effort (always doing homework and completing a lot of additional problems) you will do well in the class.

Erkao is ADORABLE. He is extremely FOB-y and he wears cargo shorts with crocs every day and I love him because he makes me smile because how cute he is (I even saw him eating at Feast one time). However, he is not a great teacher. I am not great at math and his teaching style didn't work well with me (too many proofs not enough examples even though we never had to know proofs for exams) so I would say take him if you want someone who will make you smile everyday, not because you want an A (unless you have already taken BC which the vast majority of my class had so be prepared for them to have an advantage)

The lecture is very unclear and not organised, The test is very hard, Don't take him!

ridiculously hilarious :)

Bao is a perfect reason why the math department here is awful. Too many damn fobs who can't speak in ENGLISH!! Class is pretty much useless, so just study on your own.

Professor Bao may have been the worst professor I have ever taken. He was certainly the most unfair, unclear, and difficult teacher I have ever had to study under. As a guy, I'm sure he is nice; I don't want to critique the person he is. However, he is a terrible professor.

I have not met a more disorganized professional in my life. He didn't show up to the first lecture of the quarter. That would have been no problem had he told anyone -- even his TAs didn't know where he was. It wasn't until 20 minutes into the hour that a TA was finally notified that he would not be coming. During that time, we finally received our FIRST communication from Professor Bao: he emailed us the syllabus halfway into the first "lecture". Further, the syllabus was clearly thrown together hastily and lacked crucial information (textbook, TA emails, etc.).

When he does show up, his lectures are still worthless. It's not his accent that ruins the lectures -- his complete disregard for explaining concepts makes him a terrible lecturer. He writes equation after equation on the board without interacting with his students. When he does take questions, his answers are unclear and often display his low understanding of English. Further, his lectures are disorganized, presented without confidence, and confusing to students.

The professor does have a very generous grading scale. 30% of your grade is "gimmie"-points (homework and an easy quiz). However, this is entirely offset by borderline impossible tests. He evaluates his students based of the very hardest questions possible. There is no way to prepare for these tests -- his questions are magnitudes harder than the very hardest book problems. He doesn't give practice finals either. You go in blind and hope that you know enough to get some points. He loves to evaluate the very complicated, niche problems that he covers in lectures. Honestly, it's almost a waste of time to do book problems or learn proofs -- you are expected to know way more than the book can teach you. The book also sucks.

Never say the sentence "Oh he wouldn't ask that." Yes he would. And he probably will.

We had a piazza board set up for this class as well. The purpose of this board is to allow the professor to easily, quickly, and publicly answers any questions that students ask. As we speak, there are hundreds of unanswered questions on the board. He straight up ignores the questions, even urgent ones like "what sections will the midterm cover???"

Professor Bao was terrible. I actually have a solid understanding of differential equations (thanks Khan academy and other resources!) and yet I am concerned that I may have failed his final. It's such crap. Stay as far away from his class as possible.

Professor Bao's lectures are extremely easy to follow and use a lot of applicable examples which makes the homework easy to do. After taking this course I feel I have a good grasp of the material and feel prepared to move on to other math courses. My only problem with Professor Bao was his lack of organization. He never released an official list of the sections that would be on the midterm and didn't inform his TA's about what material would be on quizzes or tests. His midterm and final are extremely difficult. He puts problems on the test that are far more complicated than homework, but I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. The tests make you think and aren't just a direct copy of homework problems. Your grade is based on how everyone else does in the class, so the difficulty of the test doesn't matter. Overall, I think the clarity of Professor Bao's lectures should encourage students to take his class, and his lack of organization is not ideal but should not deter you from taking the course.

His accent is difficult to understand, and it is hard to see the board if you do not sit up close. His mat hod of grading is generous though, considering I thought I would get a D and ended up with a B. Not the worst, but definitely not the best. I used the textbook and youtube a lot to help me understand the topics.