Professor Rubin is the GOAT. For the first few weeks of class, he was experimenting with the class structure and used surveys for students to voice their opinions. To say the least, he took our responses into account and reduced the amount of worksheets per week and gave us more time for quizzes. He was a super accommodating professor! He had pre-lecture videos, which introduced us to the material and he elaborated on the concepts in class. Professor Rubin was friendly and open to questions in class and during office hours. He also has the best mugs. Overall, I would recommend him and I would definitely take another class with him.
The grade breakdown was:
Optional Homework (super helpful to do in preparation for quizzes/exams)
20% worksheets (based on completion)
20% Midterms (second one was harder than the first)
40% quizzes (takes 3 questions from the hw so you are guaranteed a 7/10)
20% final

Rubin is a great teacher, very clear, helpful, and understanding. I would very happily take a class with him again. He's great!

If you have to take Math 61 with someone, try to get Professor Rubin if possible. His lectures are easy to follow and pretty standard and his humour kept me engaged. He is extremely clear of what he expects and will give multiple reminders of things such as homework being due, exams, and what to bring to exams. His homework ranges in difficulty with some homework set taking 2-3 hours and others taking upwards to 6-7. I frequently went to his office hours and he is more than happy to explain concepts. Also, he is very accommodating and often made up office hours if something ever came up. If you are experiencing difficulty with the homework, I definitely recommend using the Student Math Centre and I went there almost every week if I had questions with the homework. He also uses Piazza (online forum) which made answering questions really easy. Discussion is required for part of the grade and only 5%. I honestly did not find my TA super engaging but having a stellar TA is not a huge factor for his course. The difficulty of his exams and final are very comparable and are on the same difficulty as the homework (if not easier). As a result, averages for the exam are pretty high (80%+) and with 40 point exams, there is very little room for careless mistakes. Rubin gave us extra credit on the final but I wouldn't expect extra credit. In terms of the actual material, there is a lot to unpackage and ranges from sets and functions to counting to graphs and trees. If you have any experience with CS or competition math this will prove to be very useful for this course. Overall, I would highly recommend taking this course and any course with Professor Rubin.

His grade scheme is as follows:
5% Discussion Attendance
10% Homework
20% Midterm 1
20% Midterm 2
45% Final
(Worst Homework Score Dropped)

OR

5% Discussion Attendance
10% Homework
30% Best Midterm
55% Final
(Worst Homework Score Dropped)

I think that the quarter that I took it was Professor Rubin’s first quarter teaching, but I would 11/10 recommend him.

Lectures/Professor
Professor Rubin is extremely clear during lectures and his class was appropriately paced. He will stop to explain and answer students’ questions if there are any. He also has a pretty good sense of humor and I feel like he is funny without really trying, as in he will randomly make some remarks that make the class laugh.

Participation/Discussions
Discussions are mandatory for the attendance grade and my TA passed around a sign in sheet. For my discussion section, the TA went over the course content briefly and then gave us a worksheet to do. It’s not mandatory to turn the worksheet in, but just good practice. At the end of the last 20 ish minutes, the TA will go over the worksheet. I’m not sure if that’s how all discussion sections go though.

Piazza/Extra Help
Usually, any hw or content related questions will be answered by the TAs and they are very helpful and respond pretty quickly. Any logistics related questions the professor will also respond pretty quickly. As for office hours, I have personally never went to any, but whenever office hours are cancelled due to a holiday, the professor will offer make up office hours after break.

Homework/Exams
There is weekly homework, most of which are textbook problems, with the occasional extra problems from the professor. The homework problems are, in my opinion, much harder than his actual exams. It took me quite a bit of time and thinking and looking at Piazza to finish the problems. However, the amount is not crazy a lot and I think it was pretty reasonable for a math class. As mentioned earlier, the exams aren’t that bad and is actually pretty easy if you know the content and have attempted the problems. There is also more than enough time to complete the problems. If I remember correctly, the midterms each have 4 problems (some with multiple parts) and final has 8 problems. The problems aren’t tricky and are really just testing your understanding. Also, both midterms had an average of around 80 or 84, which probably says a lot about the exam difficulty. The only thing, though, is that the professor doesn’t give out practice problems. He will give a study guide but it’s really just a list of topics that he has covered.

Overall, I highly Professor Rubin’s class. However, although the exams weren’t hard, I would still recommended studying ahead and doing the hw/practice problems. Discrete math covers a variety of topics so it’s important to be familiar with all of them.

This was Professor Rubin's first time teaching 32A and he made the class very straightforward. His lectures are very clear, he posts recorded videos, and he posts lecture notes. In my opinion, the 2 midterms and the final were all straightforward if you complete all of the practice midterms and homework he posts. Many individuals felt the second midterm was harder but the average was still an 80. Due to COVID, all the midterms and finals were 24hr exams and very do-able. The midterms were 10% of the grade each and the final exam was 20%. The downside to this class was the quizzes. Professor Rubin gave weekly friday quizzes on CCLE which were 40% of the grade. I redid all the homework and worksheet problems as well as recopied my notes to study and found these exams fine. It is just a pain to study every week. Half of the quiz questions are homework questions so, if you complete the homework you automatically will get 50% on the quiz. I would 100% recommend taking Rubin again. Aside from the teaching, he is also a very considerate prof and adjusted the class when students complained about quiz difficulty and lecture format.

I absolutely love professor Rubin. I would take whatever future courses with him.
I took the course during the COVID period, so I don't know if things will be different in-person.

Breakdown of the course:
Worksheets: 20% (graded on completion)
Quizzes: 40% (lowest dropped, and half of the questions from each quiz were directly taken from optional homework problems)
2 Midterms: 10% each (they are 24 hr and if you do your work you will be fine)
Final: 20% (also 24 hr and not too bad)

Professor Rubin used his iPad to give lectures. Since he writes and teaches at the same time I found it very easy to catch up with the pace (and you can basically just copy down what he writes or even just use his notes bc he upload his notes separately after lecture).
Lectures are very well-paced, and he can break down hard concepts into super simple and understandable ones, and that's one of the largest reasons why I like his class so much.
He is very helpful both during lectures and office hours and would take time to answer students' questions during lectures too. He is also very considerate of the current situation so he did like a vibe check before lecture every day and he also made adjustments to the lecture according to student feedback.
I would 11/10 recommend taking any class with him. He's the best math professor I've ever had.

Professor Rubin is truly the best professor I've ever had and there isn't enough praise in the world to convey how well he adjusted the course for remote learning this quarter. It was his first time teaching 32A, but his lectures were well planned out, clear, and concise. We originally started with a flipped classroom, but after listening to student feedback during the first couple of weeks, he ended up doing traditional full length lectures. He continued uploading pre-lecture videos, which I found really helpful. It was easier to absorb the information in lecture after already having been exposed to the concepts. I really appreciated the way Rubin lectures too. He has the ability to unpack complex theorems and concepts into simpler language and easy to follow examples. I've always hated math because I suck at it, but I think this class was the first time in my life that it's actually made sense so I guess I have a newfound appreciation. We had weekly quizzes and doing the optional homework was helpful for those. The midterm and final exams weren't the easiest, but we were given 24 hours. Honestly, I would've never been able to finish them in the usual allotted times. Overall, Rubin is an 11/10 professor and I would 100% take this class with him again.

Math 32A is not an easy course. But Professor Rubin made it a very pleasant experience. This class was online and Rubin did a great job answering students' questions and clarifying problems. His tests reflected the content in lecture and the homework problems very well. There were weekly quizzes which were sometimes hard and occasionally asked for concept reasoning rather than straight numerical answers, but if you did the homework a few of the problems were straight from the homework and were easy points. Homework was not due and only contained a couple problems of each concept from lecture, so it was pretty light overall. However, discussion worksheets were due for participation points, although you didn't need to attend discussion to do them. Both midterms and final were 24 hours.

Professor Rubin makes it clear that he cares for his students' well-being and understanding, and seemed very empathetic to our stress due to protests and Covid-19. I believed he ended up curving the class more than he normally would due to the circumstances. Best math professor I've had so far (out of 31A, 31B, 32A).

This is my first time actually leaving a review on bruinwalk, but wanted to do so because Professor Rubin was just so amazing, I just have to let you all know that if you have an opportunity to take this class (or with any class with him), then do so!

I was really nervous about multivariable calculus; math was never my strongest subject, but Professor Rubin was just so clear and engaging during lecture that I was able to understand what was going on and paid attention. Professor Rubin would go above and beyond to make sure that his students understood the material. His classes never felt "rushed," but managed to teach everything he planned. He was very respectful about answering questions students had and spent extra time on material that multiple students were confused about. He never tried to "squish in" a new lesson or topic in the last five minutes of class, never go over it again, and expect us to fully understand it for a test.

In terms of workload, this class was moderate. Quizzes accounted for biggest chunk of the grade, and he dropped the lowest two. We had 9 quizzes (Week 10 quiz was cancelled). There were five problems on the quiz, 3/5 were directly from the HW, 1/5 was a True/False based on a theorem we went over in class (read the textbook and you will be fine), and the last problem was a short answer style where you would have to "prove" something (not necessarily a "formal" proof, but an explanation). In summary, just do the HW and you will do great on the quizzes. The tests were a bit tricky and required some creative thinking but were overall okay. But again, I took this class online and also had 24hrs, open notes, and open internet (but no collaboration), so it might work differently in-person. HW was optional, but HW problems were on the quiz so I did all of them.

Another thing I really appreciated about his teaching style was that he did not regurgitate the textbook. He might word-for-word write down complex theorems, but he always went over them in "normal" English, and connected them to simpler concepts we already knew. He is very talented at explaining things and can turn any complex problem into a simple one by drawing a few pictures.

He was the best math professor I had at UCLA so far, and I am so glad I took this class.

rubin is a really nice guy. he made sure to listen to students and made adjustments to the course as we went along. there was one worksheet a week that you work on during discussion. optional homeworks throughout the week too, and often they were the exact same as 3/5 problems on the weekly ccle quiz. midterms were difficult. we had 24 hours for them (two midterms) but i spend like 4-5 hours on it when it should've taken only an hour lol. spend like 8 hours on the final (also 24 hrs). this class material was difficult especially the beginning sections on planes and parametrization. lectures were recorded and uploaded so no need to attend. discussion attendance is not necessary too but helpful bc the worksheets are difficult sometimes. but overall rubin is rly nice.