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Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.
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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.
I thought this class was honestly pretty chill. Professor Wu moves fast but I expected that considering that the topics being taught are exactly like AP Calc AB but condensed into 10 weeks.
The best thing abt the tests (idk if he still does this since I took him last year) was that all his problems were from posted practice problems on bruin learn, his lecture notes, homework problems, or examples we went over in class. So basically, I just made sure I had a really good understanding on how to do every single one of them and I was completely fine for the tests (time consuming but it worked). There's homework problem sets every week, 2 midterms (week 3 and 7) and one final. We got a cheat sheet for the final.
I think that if you really struggle with math (like me), as long as you sit down and do practice problems over and over again, you'll get the hang of it and be fine. Ended the class with an A which is crazy considering how horrible I am at math lol. If I can do it so can u
Relatively good professor and an easy A if you have a good calculus foundation, may be hard if this is your first time learning calculus. Pretty fast paced, but manageable if you stay on top of it
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.
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.
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.
I thought this class was honestly pretty chill. Professor Wu moves fast but I expected that considering that the topics being taught are exactly like AP Calc AB but condensed into 10 weeks.
The best thing abt the tests (idk if he still does this since I took him last year) was that all his problems were from posted practice problems on bruin learn, his lecture notes, homework problems, or examples we went over in class. So basically, I just made sure I had a really good understanding on how to do every single one of them and I was completely fine for the tests (time consuming but it worked). There's homework problem sets every week, 2 midterms (week 3 and 7) and one final. We got a cheat sheet for the final.
I think that if you really struggle with math (like me), as long as you sit down and do practice problems over and over again, you'll get the hang of it and be fine. Ended the class with an A which is crazy considering how horrible I am at math lol. If I can do it so can u
Relatively good professor and an easy A if you have a good calculus foundation, may be hard if this is your first time learning calculus. Pretty fast paced, but manageable if you stay on top of it
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.
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.
Based on 39 Users
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