Best professor you could ever have at UCLA. He is the GOAT. professor Jukka really devote almost all of his time to his students. He explain almost every problem from the homework so you probably will receive full score for the hw. He has very thorough study guide for every tests (eg, he even marks the page number of his lecture slides that you need to know for the exam). He is very very approachable and very helpful professor. You will wish to take him again because I do.

There's a lot I could say about Jukka. You can tell he is extremely fond of and dedicated to mathematics. There are a plethora of ways he shows this. He devotes extra time to student hours, and will even have extra student hours on his weekend break. He allows a flashcard on his tests because his focus is not on memorization, it's on application and understanding. He has policies that ensure that if you put in the work, you will end up with a good grade. For example, he drops the lowest two homework and drops your lowest assessment, be it the homework, midterm 1 or midterm 2. Trust that he will find time for you and your struggles, if you fail his class, all I can say is that it is not his fault.

Jukka is such a UNIQUE individual and his love for mathematics makes it easy to be engaged by his lectures. He is EXTREMELY approachable when it comes to asking questions and he always devotes a ton of time to review sessions and office hours especially right before exams.

As someone who took Calc AB in highschool, the actual course content was entirely review which made it easy to succeed on homeworks and exams, but the actual lectures were of no intellectual value to me specifically. HOWEVER, I still attended every single one as Clicker participation is factored into grades, and of course it didn't hurt to work out problems with my classmates.

As far as workload, Jukka did mention he had gotten complaints about assigning too much work, which is something I did not feel at all taking this class: There were weekly (long-ish) homeworks and worksheets to be completed in discussion, weekly quizzes taken during the first 10 minutes of discussion, and of course, two midterms and a final exam.

I would definitely recommend this class as a great intro to Calc, but even more so, Jukka as a professor in general!

Jukka is the best professor I have had at UCLA, even though I am a political science major, and this is literally a math class. He always posted lecture slides ahead of time and would record every lecture. He was great about communication, constantly sending messages about updates to the course, which helped keep me in the loop. He also used iClicker, but I would still come to class even if he didn't use it. He is brilliant, funny, and kind, and it is rare to find all of these in a single professor, even at such a top university. He was just very understanding and accommodating to all of his students. For example, I had gotten COVID-19 during the first week of the quarter. When I emailed him, he told me exactly the steps I needed to follow, but what really stood out was that he asked me how I was doing and genuinely cared. That's the biggest thing I want whoever is reading this to take away from this review. This man cares so deeply about this field, this class, and his students. He would always conduct student hours, even on weekends, to help us do our homework. He took time out of his already hectic schedule to regrade our midterms as a sort of extra credit opportunity. He took it upon himself since he knew his TAs were not paid enough and did not have the time to do it, yet he still wanted to provide us with a boost. His tests were fair, and the materials we reviewed in class were what we saw on the tests, so there were no surprises. And this was not an easy course at all. I definitely had to work at it. I'm not saying that he did all of this work to give us all the answers. No. He knew the class would be challenging, especially since so many people in that class were humanities majors looking to add a STEM minor (like me!). He knew it may have been a while since our last math class or that we might find math daunting. And he made me believe that the subject isn't so bad. He believed in us. I really appreciate him and plan to take another course with him in the future.

TAKE JUKKA! Truly one of those rare instructors you wish you could have again and again. His lectures are incredibly clear and explains difficult content in an incredibly effective, simple manner. He also provides an extraordinary amount of student hours on a weekly basis and especially in the week before a midterm. Overall, he was amazing and I wish I could take him for 31B!

Funny, engaging, and informative. He hosts a near-endless number of office hours, so if you feel lost you can always stop by and ask a question. On our first midterm, the class did pretty badly overall so he gave us the ability to earn some credit back.

This class is considered the easier alternative to Math 31A but the difference was under Jukka there was a much more significant workload. For example, my roommate who was is Math 31A had a significantly lower amount of homework problems. The extra discussion every week was used to take weekly quizzes that were ok in difficulty. IMPORTANT: uses Iclicker for attendance so could not skip class and just watch the lecture recordings. ALSO IMPORTANT: Jukka overcomplicates EVERYTHING with proofs and the reasoning behind certain rules but never allocated class time for actually helpful examples. This are all my problems but there were good parts, these are warnings.

This class was a rough ride for me. Jukka is an amazing guy, but quite frankly, he is too smart to be teaching this class. He based everything on the theory of the math, and he only used the most formal definitions and whatnot, which made the class very confusing for someone who was new to calc. There is virtually no "heres the formula, heres how you use it, and heres an example problem" within the class, but there is a lot of "heres why this exists, heres the proof of how it exists, and obviously it works but that’s for you do figure out in the homework". If you're into theory it could be interesting, but if you just need to knock out the math class, it was hard.
Next: homework. Homework was HORRENDOUS in this class. He gave one assignment each week, averaging between 40 and 50 questions, which was just wild. And nothing got graded until the very, very, very end of the quarter, so you had no way of knowing what your grade was until it was posted on my.ucla at the end.
I did pass the class, but everything I learned I taught myself. In all honesty I could have made better use of office hours, I heard they were helpful, but if you didn’t understand how to do the math in the first place then going to lecture was practically useless since all it taught you was why the math works.
Jukka was, however, a great guy. He was very forgiving and understanding of different situations, both for myself and for my peers. He made sure partial credit was applied, and he even did half of our quiz for us over zoom when he was out sick with COVID. Take from this review what you will, but if C's get degrees, then someone who is bad at math (me) is able to pass this class (with some difficulty). I do know a few people who did not pass though, so... yeah.

Jukka quotes:

“I love Lego. I have always loved Lego. And I will love Lego till the day I die.”

“Folks, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve got you! You’re safe now. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

“That’s just a quick preview. If you don’t understand, relax. You’re stressing me out.”

“Folks, this would be the time. This would be the time to put down your drinks and put out your cigarettes and focus.”

“Practice midterms? Have you met me? You’ll have so many practice midterms you won’t know what to do with them.”

“Look. Let’s talk for a second. I feel like we never talk anymore these days.”

“Folks, have you ever been in the real world? It sucks out there! I hate the real world.”

“When you don’t do those pre-class activities sincerely, when you just plow through them, you hurt me on the inside.”

“Are you seriously playing solitaire? Come on man. Really?”

“Last time we introduced the two most important concepts of human civilization: eigenvectors and eigenvalues.”

“Equations text you in the middle of the night! They want to be your pal so badly!”

“And by the way, if you think that I’m sweating out of my gloves, you’re absolutely correct. It’s horrifying.”

First of all, let's denounce the first comment as I agree with the second comment:
- "I would argue that the aspect of 'support' comes from the fact that the extensive homework (which is due at the end of each week, making it manageable if you start early) actually allows you get in lots of practice."
What are you insinuating? That those who do argue that the homework is extensive are lazy? You do realize that we have other classes to attend, other essays to write, other homework to complete for other classes right? Completing 50 guaranteed to 58 questions per week and studying for the weekly quizzes is too much. Forget about the discussion work, as we only have to do some of it to get complete credit. Fix your diction and tone.
- ". . . he will take so much time out of his week to not only give extensive office hours to those struggling, but to craft study guides for midterms and finals that really prepare you for the exams. . ."
Almost every professor creates study guides. Come on now. Be realistic.
- "Jukka is the type of person to check in with you and tell you to not worry when you're stressed. (He actually cares about you as a person!)."
This person is just boosting at this point. He doesn't check in with you when you're stressed.
- "He gave us an extra credit opportunity to make up our midterm grades."
He basically had to because after the midterm, students swarmed to him asking him to curve it or make a make up one. He also reached a bunch of emails. So "gave" or was "obliged," which is the better choice?
Closing statement, this class will take a whole lot of your time. I have no idea what the first person was on. If you like learning from slides and NEVER seeing a problem being solved by hand in lecture, this is the class for you. If you like to have to go to discussion just to see problems solved by hand, this is the class for you. Essentially, this was a class to support us but no support existed. No hate to the professor, but his teaching methods are not it.