I'm not particularly good at math (I'm ok) and this class is really tough. The pure math aspects were much harder for me than the applications. Bao is a decent instructor. He is a little quiet. He is very nice if you need help. The tests are very hard. I failed the midterm but he has a very generous grading scheme and drops the midterm. The final was also very difficult, but I ended up with a little better than average and got a B+.

Professor Bao is plain and simple horrible. He is the most unorganized professor I have ever taken. He has uses piazza but seldom replies to questions even directly addressed to him. He does not tell anyone what is going to be on the midterms orbthr quizzes so you are supposed to figure that out on your own. He stammers so much that you forget what he was even talking about. His tests are extremely difficult. The earlier reviews of him simply do not hold now. I took him based on the earlier reviews and felt completely deceived. Avoid him at all costs.

Avoid this professor. Three things about this class specifically ticked me off:
1. He spent about 2 weeks reviewing material from 33A because a lot of people had not taken it before taking 33B (don't know why it's not a prereq). I understand it's necessary to explain it to students who haven't taken 33A, but he could have gone much faster/more efficiently than he did, wasting everyone else's time who already knew about matrices.
2. In week 10, he realized how behind he was on material, so he just kind of threw everything at us week 10 and I didn't feel I had enough time to figure it all out before the final (and that last week's material made up a majority of the final). Especially considering the textbook is completely useless at explaining.
3. Such BORING lectures. I'm not saying math is the most thrilling subject on the planet, but come on, it could be far more interesting than Bao made it. He's not very clear in lectures either and doesn't discriminate well between similar topics, so they tended to all blend together in my head even though they were different.
TL;DR. Don't take Bao.

I LOVED Bao. I think he is adorable and I like his teaching style. His grading scheme is also very generous. His tests are very direct and fair. He did end up teaching something that wasnt in the book, so that was kind of tough, but I think he saw the class didnt understand it and honestly the questions he asked involving that topic were super simple. Also he does teach a lot of proofs that he doesnt require us to know on exams (THANK GOD), but I think he does this to try and give students a better grasp on the concepts. Its only my first year at UCLA but he has been my favorite professor for any subject.

Overall I feel like Bao is very middle of the road. I've had some really bad math professors, so I can guarantee he's better than a good deal of the people here, but he doesn't stand out in any particular way. I'm not good at calculus, but I worked my butt off and I got a B+. The curve was fairly generous. If I had the option of taking Conley or any of the other highly rated math professors, I'd go for it, but if not then Bao is suitable. You'll learn the material.