Professor Ma was not the most exciting professor. The lectures were 2 hours long and I often found myself drifting off to sleep during class. He posts the slides but pretty much reads off of them completely. The homework worksheets are not too bad and usually you can just use the examples in the textbooks for help. Exams were take-home (remote and timed) and were not too hard. Discussion sections were extremely helpful, and sometimes reading the book in lieu of attending lecture works just as well.