Although I liked Dr. Keranen as a person, his lectures were incredibly confusing and often only covered vague conceptual material rather than example problems. He even acknowledges student complaints about how he doesn't use enough examples. This aspect of his class makes it tough to prepare for exams; the first midterm had an average of 60% and a low of 5%. He purposely made the second exam easier to balance it out, but since you can use a grading scheme selecting only one midterm, this made a mess of the overall curve. The homework assignments were long and tedious, and usually required me to do outside research for certain techniques and ideas. My TA was also very unhelpful. The one good thing about this class was that if you consistently went to office hours Jukka would basically tell you everything on the exam. I went into the final with a good idea of 60% of the questions. He also has practice exams that are somewhat representative of the midterms and final (i.e. they are very difficult).
My final scores:
Midterm 1: 43/50
Midterm 2: 49/50
Final Exam: 96/100
Final Score: A

Jukka was funny and engaging, though his midterm was slightly difficult!

Jukka has an accent that can be hard to decipher, but overall it is not too distracting from learning the material in lecture and it honestly made the lectures more fun. Jukka is so funny in his lectures. I attended one of his office hours and he was communicative to me, and he is fair with tests and wants students to really learn. He communicates well through the CCLE announcements page and through emails. I was sad having him as my professor when most of my peers had Garfinkel, but I think having Jukka was not a detriment to my learning experience. I really really studied the practice exams he uploaded before finals which was good because the final was basically that exam with different numbers. Always always do the homework. Get people's phone numbers in your class to help out with the lab because not doing labs or not understanding them will really hurt your great at the end of the quarter.

This is for Math 174E (a bit of a jump up, I know, but it's not listed here.) Jukka is an incredibly entertaining yet informative lecturer. He explains concepts very clearly and has slides that are easy to follow, using intuitive examples to guide understanding of those concepts further. Despite what some people might say, he is extremely approachable and more than fair in his teaching. There was a conflict during our class that I couldn't remember, around the time of one of the midterms- I think it had to do with him having to cancel several office hours before the midterm, as he would be away on a business trip. He actually offered his students individually the choice to take the midterm either on the regularly scheduled day, or the Tuesday after, and would have held extra office hours before the "makeup" to help struggling students. This shows that he is willing to go above and beyond what's expected of him as a professor despite him really not having to do this just for a few missed office hours.

Despite this, the class did have flaws. It is far too easy, with each midterm, and even the FINAL, being extremely similar to the practice midterms (although no answer key was given out). In fact, you could predict half of the final just by looking at the practice midterm questions that were not similar to what you got on the actual thing. Math 174E is supposed to be an "easy" course, but you pretty much didn't even have to put in effort to get an A here. If Jukka made the class a tad bit more challenging while keeping everything else intact, it would have been one of the most valuable classes I've taken at UCLA. But as it stands, it is still a good class with a good professor.

Jukka (as he preferred us to call him) is one of the best professors I've had. He may not be the most engaging lecturer, but he makes sure that you are well equipped to do well on exams. He applies an advantageous grading scheme, and drops the two lowest of your 10 homework assignments, which were not that much because people claimed that it was too much, when it really wasn't. The material can get confusing, and it may be hard to find help because what you learn in this class is somewhat unique, but Jukka is extra helpful with his office hours, actually cares about his students, and it is evident that he tries his very best to ensure your success. He offers review sessions (asks when works best for his students) and individual appointments where he offers insight on what you need to do to better yourself. He provides comprehensive study guides for the midterm and finals, and makes everything super comprehensible. Jukka truly cares about you as a student, and will go out of his way to ensure that, something I greatly appreciate.

I feel like Jukka is one of the best professors I've had at UCLA. He is very engaging and incredibly invested in the subject, making him an even better candidate for a math class such as this one. His tests are pretty challenging, but he definitely tries to guide you through them with multiple parts in each question which all sum up to the final answer. Took him for LS30B as well, where he was a hundred times better since he took to heart the student's feedback, making his tests slightly easier and lowering the workload of the homework. Definitely would take over the Math series to fulfill the Math requirement for LS majors.

I feel like Jukka is one of the best professors I've had at UCLA. He is very engaging and incredibly invested in the subject, making him an even better candidate for a math class such as this one. His tests are pretty challenging, but he definitely tries to guide you through them with multiple parts in each question which all sum up to the final answer. Took him for LS30B as well, where he was a hundred times better since he took to heart the student's feedback, making his tests slightly easier and lowering the workload of the homework. Definitely would take over the Math series to fulfill the Math requirement for LS majors.

Jukka (pronounced like yoo-ka) has been my favorite professor so far at UCLA. He's an extremely intelligent individual, and truly cares about the success of his students. He holds multiple office hours a week where he takes student questions and does practice problems to clear any confusion with the course material. He also has a great sense of humor and cracks jokes all the time during lecture– he makes class super fun and enjoyable. The LS 30 series, although it holds the name mathematics, is not the same kind of math one is used to coming out of high school. It's mostly modeling dynamical systems in LS 30A, then an introduction to linear algebra in LS 30B. It's hard to adjust at first, but once you get the flow of the class it should be a breeze. As for the homework, you'll normally be expected to turn in one assignment of textbook problems a week. In LS 30A, Jukka did tend to assign a lot of homework, but after students talked to him about it, he ran a poll in class and after finding out that the majority of students felt this way, actually lowered the amount of problems he assigned weekly (and from that point on, the homework was very reasonable). He loves student feedback and is always looking to improve and make our lives easier if he can. I took Jukka for both 30A and 30B and I'm so glad I did! He's an awesome professor and if you ever have the opportunity to take a class with him you definitely should.

The book for this class is honestly shit. The LS 30 series is fairly new but the book is often unclear and has a lot of typos. Labs were pretty annoying but once you get the handle of coding the lab exam is easy and it becomes free points. Jukka is honestly such a G. I was a bit bored in lectures at times but Jukka is a really awesome guy. He cares about his students and wants everyone to succeed and get an A. He said he understood the book was bad and even asked for our feedback in improving the course for the future. He also gave us midterm and final exams to help us study. The midterm was way harder than the final. Jukka gave us his previous year's final to study for and the questions were literally the same except for a few changes that helped make the questions clearer and easier. I didn't always understand the concepts Jukka was talking about in lecture and I stopped reading the book at some point. But make sure to go to review sessions he goes over everything you would need for the exams. Jukka's the best.

This class was very very easy. Jukka's lectures are very interesting and engaging. He often tells jokes and finds places to slide in sarcasm, making lecture very fun. He gives a fair amount of homework and has clicker questions nearly every lecture (aka attendance is important). In terms of midterms and finals, they are very straightforward. If you utilize the materials/practice problems he provides, you should be well prepared. Additionally, you should attend the review sessions he holds before big exams because he gives a lot of useful information about what WILL be on the exam. The only thing that most people struggle with in this course is the lab section. Personally, I didn't struggle much. However, if you find yourself struggling with this class, you can always go to office hours/ ask your TA/LA. They are very helpful. Since this class has a lab exam portion, it is important to truly learn how to do the code. Overall, this class was probably my favorite class of my fall quarter. Choose Jukka if possible!