Teaching Style/Lecture: Professor Wu is a brand new teacher and he simply doesn't know how to teach. He's super qualified in the math field and is definitely a smart guy, but he genuinely made this basic calculus class way too hard and confusing. If you haven't taken AP Calculus AB I can see this class being extremely difficult to follow. The material is easy to learn with other online resources like Khan Academy, but the issue is that his midterms and final are solely based on lecture problems and homework problems, so you have to attend lecture or watch lecture (since they're recorded). He made easy topics way too confusing, he moved super fast, and he didn't always finish his own example problems. Oftentimes, he'd tell us to just reference his notes (which can be found on the Canvas site) because he always ran out of time. Also, I'm pretty sure the examples he did were just found in the book, but he didn't even explain them well and he had really particular ways of doing it. If he didn't have his notes to glance at, sometimes he'd even get stuck doing his own problems.

Homework: The homework is super manageable and he pulls his test questions pretty much directly from them or from lectures. But, he never does examples in class quite like the homework, and you never get an answer key for them. He gave us extra practice problems too, but without answer keys, it's hard to check if you're really doing it right. Also at the beginning of the quarter, nobody knew if the homework was graded on completion or correctness (it was correctness).

Tests: We never got notes, flashcards, etc. even when the other Math 31A classes got them. He's also super vague when it comes to what to expect on the midterms and final. The first midterm was graded out of 100 but you could get up to 160 points, so you had 60 to spare. But the second midterm was graded on only 2 out of the 5 problems on the test, without any extra points this time. It was super random and the class average for the second midterm was a high D but he said that getting a C is really good in his class, even though most people got 100 on the first midterm (which makes no sense to me). The final had questions we had already seen on each of the midterms, and it barely tested us on the entire second half of the course (integrals and FTC).

Office Hours/TAs: His office hours were not helpful at all and only made me more confused. They were held in this little room where people sat on the floor, and some people had to stand outside the door simply because there was no room (where you couldn't even see). His class was so confusing and he communicated poorly with the TAs too. I loved my TA though, he was so helpful (until the strike occurred so we stopped getting help) but the TAs never knew what the midterms would look like and they didn't really know what we were learning in class.

Overall: I'm usually super good at math and I've taken this course before, but it was taught in a way that made it more difficult than it should've been. This class itself shouldn't be hard, but I definitely don't feel prepared for 31B. In the end, I don't know how he graded the final or whether this class was curved (because he said it might be). He also never responded to 3 emails I sent him. If I didn't get an A I think I would've been far more frustrated, I'm just glad I passed. I think he knew so many kids were frustrated and kind of handed out As at the end.

If you have taken calculus before, this should not be too difficult. The classes are recorded, and no textbook is necessary as the professor supplies the notes. Attendance is not mandatory. The professor was very understanding and easy to follow. My main comment is the dichotomy between examples. If you have never taken calculus before, it may be difficult to follow. It usually starts with simple examples to understand the rules but then suddenly jumps to difficult problems if you do not have any background knowledge. The exams are very fair, and the professor gives out practice tests similar to the exams. The homework is very simple: three questions with a soft deadline on Wednesday and a hard deadline on Friday. You get no penalty for turning it in on Friday. The questions asked in the homework are generally simple, and it is technically two problems, as the last question is regarding your study group. There are additional optional homework questions that may appear on the exam.

Decent professor, good grading scheme, straight to the point but still kind and understanding

I took Calculus AB in high school and did really well--I thought the concepts were easy to understand and it was a fun class. After taking this class with Prof Wu, I hate calculus. He is obviously a very smart man, but simply cannot convey the main concepts of each lesson in a way that is understandable. In lecture, he will refer to the lecture notes which are even more obscure, or just will not go in depth on certain topics. Now this would be fine if he didn't test on them, but the questions on the midterms are so out of left-field that you can't prepare for them. Mostly they are from extra homework questions that aren't submitted for a grade and don't have answers. Overall, the content of the class is not too challenging, but the way Professor Wu tests on these subjects is downright cruel.

I think Professor Wu is a good professor but his exams are designed to make students fail unless they have written down many problems from their homeworks on the allowed cheat sheet. The only way to get good grades on these exams is if you do this because otherwise the computations on the exam take more time than allotted.

If you haven't taken Calculus AB in high school, you will struggle with this class. The professor moves extremely fast and makes topics more complicated than need be. The workload is very manageable with only 2 questions a week, but if you want to do well you need to complete the entirety of the homework even the questions not assigned. You are allowed a paper front and back for both the midterms and the final so that will save you, as all the problems on the midterms are from the homeworks. It is a manageable class because you know that the problems on the exams will all be from the homework and you can simply copy every problem down, but the actual learning of the content is extremely difficult.

If you have the option to take another professor for 31A, please do it. I switched majors because this class made me hate math so much. He teaches his lectures quite literally at the speed of light and pauses for 0.0001 seconds when asked if we have questions. I went to every 8 am lecture and tried my best to understand the content. I did decent on the homework and the midterm but badly on the final so my grade plummeted. His exams are entirely based on the homework, practice exams, and lecture questions, and even tells you exactly where he gets them from, so I would recommend looking at those in preparation for the exam. Make sure to listen at the beginning of the course, because if not, you will be really confused by the end. Office hours were helpful but extremely crowded. He's a really nice guy but the class was so poorly taught and I would recommend you take another professor for 31A if you have the chance, especially if you are not great at math. If you are naturally good at math, though, and willing to teach yourself a large portion of the content if needed, then taking him would be fine for you.

As someone who had not taken any calc classes in high school, this course was EXTREMELY difficult for me. Wu's style of teaching was 10% explaining and 90% rushing through practice problems. He records his lectures and I found that watching them at your own pace was more beneficial than being in class.

The tests consisted of the hardest problems possible taken from worksheets. Wu lets you have a cheat sheet on the MT/final so I would recommend that you just shove in as many HW/class problems as possible on the sheet. He doesn't curve most exams despite students doing terrible on them. I will admit I could have put more effort in the class, however, I found it not worth my time/frustration and I would recommend avoiding Wu as a professor.

I was very frustrated with the fact that I had friends who completed 31A just a quarter before me and genuinely had no clue how to even help me with my 31A homework. The problems were very complex and reaching out for help from people in 32B they had no clue to how to go about solving these insanely niche and complex problems for the course. None of the further-level math builds upon any of these complex questions he would give us.

There was no textbook. The class consisted of one homework assignment each week, 2 midterms, and a final. Professor Wu was adaptable and did a lot of examples in class. He also would go over homework questions in office hours. The midterm and final questions were based on the homework. It was very easy for people who had taken calculus before, and still manageable for those who did not take calculus in high school (as I hadn't).