I thought this class was alright. Dr. Padilla is an okay lecturer but his lectures can be confusing sometimes. The homework was on the lighter side and the lowest grade is dropped. The first midterm was easy. However, the second midterm and the final were tricker. It was still straightforward mostly but there were one or two questions that were tricky. Despite this, I still managed to do well enough on those to earn high grades on the exams. I would highly recommend Michael Johnson as your TA he was very nice and very helpful. I also heard he did curve grades at the end a bit.

I took Math 31B with Padilla Winter Quarter 2020-21. While obviously remote learning hinders the ability of professors to actively teach and engage students, I felt that Professor Padilla made effort to help his students during lecture, and especially being extremely available and helpful in office hours.

The grading in general was significantly more lenient than I have heard it typically is - 24 hour exams and dropping lowest HW grade helped. I feel that Prof. Padilla taught an often challenging and unintuitive class quite well.

Professor Padilla is super funny and seems like he genuinely cares. With that being said, maybe I'm just bad at math, but I finished with a C despite trying hard. Found the lectures not to be helpful and had to pretty much teach myself.

Professor Padilla is a very pleasant and engaging professor. His midterms are not too difficult if you study and go to discussion. I never went to office hours, so I can't vouch for how valuable they were, but based on his helpfulness answering in class questions, I assume they would be good. Two things to consider before taking his class. 1, he has a strong Spanish accent. I had no trouble understanding him, but some might. 2. his lectures occasionally are a bit disorganized, so you might have to read a textbook chapter here or there. Overall however, his class was a bright spot in an otherwise challenging quarter, and I would definitely recommend him for this course

His tests can be tricky, but he curves like crazy. He also gave multiple choice questions on our midterm and final??? Take that as you will, I felt like it just showed how little he cared about teaching. I never went for his office hours, so I can't vouch for how he is as a person. If you can take Tim as your TA, he really helped me out

Jose is a really nice person but his lectures are far from clear, concise, or understandable. More importantly, his tests are really difficult, and he doesn't allow calculator for midterms and no review sheets for any of his tests. DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASS if you want to have a tolerable GPA.

The professor goes over the broad/general points while the TA's are the ones who will actually help you understand the details. In that regard, I learned most of the material by constantly going to my TA office hours and SMC. I didn't go to Madrid's hours, so I can't speak to their quality. But from the questions that I did ask in class, he is quite good at explaining concepts. Madrid is a very fast speaker and has a strong Spanish accent, so it can be hard to understand.

In regards to the tests, he always gives out a study guide from previous exams. However, those exams are usually from other professors. His tests are fairly different from study guides that are from other professors so do not go by them; you should practice the homework problems instead. One time, he did give out a study guide that he himself made and the midterm was basically exactly like it. But I'm not sure if that will happen in the future.

Overall, I would say that you get what you put into this class. If you just practice your homework problems one time before the exam and go over the concepts, you'll probably not do well. The curve does help.