This is definitely not an easy class. To get a good grade, you need to do lots of practice (he usually assigns a ridiculous number of practice problems right before the midterms, and I tried to do some problems daily). The tests mostly involve concepts that can be found in the practice problems, usually with one or two curveball questions that are nothing like the practice problems. I found doing his practice midterms from 2019 (which can be found on his website) was really useful in preparing. The 45-55% allocated to the final was stressful, and should not be taken lightly.

Luckily, his curve is generous. I bombed one midterm but it was dropped. The final was technically out of 60 points but he took the score out of 55, giving everyone a 5 point buffer (no extra credit though). He tried not to fail anyone.

It is possible to get a good grade in this class, but know that your grade will be the result of the performance on two or three massive tests.

This class really put me through it. I took AP Calculus BC in high school and it was my favorite class of all time, but for whatever reason I just could not do well in this class. Maybe it was because the tests were hard and worth the majority of the final grade, but I think I have to attribute it to the professor's teaching style. Because the lectures were online and only a mere 50 minutes, lots of the content that was necessary to know for the exams was covered during office hours. There was always some little trick that would cost you an incredible amount of points if you didn't know it. As the quarter went on, we started to fall behind on the teaching schedule, so he taught us like 4 units worth of stuff the week before the final. Occasionally, he'd make an out of pocket comment that'd make us feel bad about ourselves, but I'd like to think he didn't mean it. Don't get me wrong, Jose is a great guy, I just don't think this year's teaching format was for him.

Jose isn't a terrible lecturer though he gets very theoretical at times, and it gets difficult to follow. As a result, he has poor time management when it comes to lecture schedules and it feels as if he's rushing through the material right before the midterms. I feel that most of what I learned came from self-studying the material and doing additional practice problems besides the homework.

Overall, however, he's quite generous with grading (drops the lowest homework grade and curved the final). The exams are mostly fair, but they're much more difficult than the homework problems. One drawback is his grading system where the final exam is 45-55% of your grade, just pure insanity.

Pros:

- The lecture material itself is pretty interesting. I don't know about previous reviews, but even though the prof. was sometimes unclear in his pronunciation of a few concepts and definitions, I believe he taught pretty well. I found his teaching to be pretty easy to follow along to (apart from a few instances where he made things more complicated than they had to be and I had to rely on my TA for an explanation).

- You don't have to buy the textbook, an online PDF is easily available.

- The homework problems aren't too bad.

Cons

-It takes a long of work to get an A in this class. While the content isn't difficult, Padilla gives pretty difficult tests so you need to review his lecture problems, textbook problems, and past exams (if you can find any) to help prepare yourself. If you do all of this, you'll be fine.

- He isn't really responsive but seems helpful during office hours (though, I didn't really go to one).

Note: See if you can get Steven Truong as your TA, he was great and answered all my questions over email super quick, even during the weekend.

I hated this class. The lectures / material are honestly not too bad and the homework/weekly workload is minimal. The tests are hell. Way too hard for what the class is supposed to be teaching and it feels like a personal attack against you every time you take an exam (there are 2 midterms and a final). Padilla clearly loves math, but he is hard to understand and goes on tangents. In the end, I'm unsure if there are other professors that will give you a better experience but be prepared for a rough class if you decide to enroll.

I took IB math A&A HL in high school and took this class as my first math class at UCLA. I thought it was at a good level and I did decently despite what everyone said about it being really challenging. I didn't find it too hard since I already knew about half from high school. I don't think the professor is very good at explaining the material, but he definitely tries his best. The nice thing about this professor was that the exams were very similar to the textbook problems, and before each exam he would write a list of problems to practice. I found that if you did the problems, the exams were very doable.

What helps for tests is going to the discussions!! Many people found the questions on the exams unrelated to hw problems or problems Professor Padilla went over, but I personally was familiar with them because they had been discussed during discussions. Besides that, lectures mainly consisted of the professor going over problems the textbook went over. I think the professor explained concepts clearly and his accent was not a hinderance at all. I liked how the professor consistently expressed asking for help during office hours; I never went but it seemed like he really cared about students learning.

Overall, this class was decent. It was a little hard to understand professor Padilla at times, but it was manageable. Sometimes he goes off on a tangent/goes over stuff that isn't really relevant to the course material. However, his tests were really straightforward and easy. Due to COVID these were also 24 hrs, which made it better. He wasn't the best at responding to emails, but all of the TA's were. He may not be the BEST math professor, but he is pretty decent.

i took calc BC in high school and i managed fine not even going to lectures. the tests weren't hard and my TA wasn't a bad grader so it wasn't too bad. but supposedly most of the TA's grading was pretty awful and since the tests were only out of 40 points little mistakes knocked your grade down a lot. the professor was also so hard to reach and never responded to his emails so it was pretty hard to communicate about anything. probably not a good idea to take this class if you haven't taken calc in the past or have a strict TA. definitely take it with Michael Johnson (TA) if you can he was super helpful.

Overall, the materials for this course wasn't hard, however the exams made it quite difficult for people of all skill levels. Personally, I struggled due to exams being AP style grading (meaning that you had to be super specific in your answers, show a ridiculous amount of work, and spell out every single step you took or else you wouldn't get full credit). Normally, this would have been ok, however the midterms and finals were out of only 40 points. (If you took calc BC in hs like I did and are taking the course because you got below a 5 on the exam, you have to act as though you've never learned calc before on the exams in order to get 100%. Any knowledge you have from calc BC will not count as credit on the exams.)

Lectures were helpful. Padilla explains what you need to know then teaches by example. Then the TAs would give further examples/the ability to ask questions during discussion sections which helped to solidify any knowledge. I can't say anything about office hours, as I didn't attend any.

For the first midterm there was a problem taken directly out of the textbook with a given formula for the solution. I ended up losing 13% on the midterm due to knowing a formula from the textbook. When I brought this up to the grader, I was told that I didn't show true mastery of the material, even though the textbook gave me the formula to use. Furthermore, I continuously lost points for not showing simple calculations, such as a one-step u-substitution. This would normally be fine, however once again the midterms and finals had such few points available that losing any would drastically harm your grade. Lastly, the exams were significantly harder than the homework, and would often times include questions with complex solutions that the class had zero exposure to either within lecture, homework, or the textbook.

However, some positives are that there is quite a light workload when it came to homework and homework is pretty easy overall. Furthermore, Padilla/the graders gave you all of your grades by the end of the class, including the final exam grade (which is something previous math teachers I've had failed to do). With any grade on gradescope Padilla and the graders would regrade any requests and give you adequate responses to your request, should you ask for it. My TA was wonderful in explaining questions in depth and in teaching us needed material when class slowed a bit. Lastly, the class was curved really well in the end. Raw percent wise I would've landed pretty squarely in the C range, however I ended the course with a B which is nice. I can't explain how much of a curve was given, but it's pretty generous to boost my grade a whole letter.