Quarter Taken:
Fall 2019
Submitted Dec. 14, 2019
Grade Received:
A
Fair warning to all people who need to take Math 32A at UCLA: I would HIGHLY recommend you avoid this professor at all costs. Please keep in mind that this review is coming from somebody who breezed through AP Calculus AB and BC in high school, got 5’s on both of the tests, and absolutely loves mathematics. If you happen to take this class with Chayes as opposed to any other professor, you are intentionally making the class over 15 times more difficult. Lest you think I am exaggerating, the content on both his homework and tests is on material absolutely not necessary for a regular 32A class, such as Convex Sets, LaPlace Equations in polar form, and in general, the hardest math problems I have ever seen in a math class. I have several friends in 32A with different professors who are less mathematically savvy than me and tell me they are breezing through their 32A classes with different professors. Know that I have heard of people who took advanced math at the 32A level or higher, and got worse grades than me in this course with this specific professor. Please listen to me when I say this: you are intentionally making the class 10-15 times harder if you choose Chayes as your professor for 32A. Aside from the ridiculous level of difficulty found in his problems, his lectures are extremely unclear and do not help at all. I learned nearly 100% of the concepts in this course from an online YouTube professor named Professor Leonard. Prof. Chayes taught me almost no concepts in this class that I ended up using on the exams. So if you take this class, it is almost 100% certain that you will be relying HEAVILY on outside help, whether it be TAs or online videos, as in my case. I can only think of one scenario in which you should willingly take 32A with Chayes, and that is if you are a Pure Math Major with goals of becoming a Math Researcher/Professor as a career in the future, and are willing to put lots of time and effort into this class. But EVEN if this is the case for you, I would still be very cautious as to entering this class, as the amount of difficulty in this class combined with the almost complete inability of the Professor to help you makes for an unpleasant experience in which you will have to rely on outside help almost completely, as in my case. It was only through complete reliance on YouTube and working through difficult homework problems with help from friends and the TA and some luck that I managed to get an A in this class. In 99% of cases, I would highly recommend that you do not take this Professor. If you are stuck in this class and can not drop it, I will give you survival strategies which helped me get an A in this very difficult class:
1. Don’t doubt yourself. This class is harder than BC Calculus, and it’s perfectly normal that you’re struggling with it. But believe that you can work through the problems.
2. Do NOT over-estimate your mathematical ability because you breezed through AP Calculus in high school and got 5’s on the AP exams. This was my case initially, and it led to an unpleasant experience in the class.
3. DO seek outside help in the class as soon as you can, whether it be from a TA, tutoring, or YouTube (for me, Professor Leonard helped a lot)
4. DO meet others in your class lecture/discussion and form a study group; it helps tremendously to work through the problems with others
5. Spend lots of time trying to understand the hardest problems on the homework; if you can get through the hardest homework problems with relative ease, then you will ace your exams. It’s just that the hardest homework problems are tremendously difficult.
To all who are stuck in this class: good luck. To all who are choosing a professor for 32A, I highly recommend that you choose a different professor unless you want to intentionally make the class 10-15 times more difficult.