This is a review for Math 170E. March is a great prof who gives extremely clear lectures that relate directly to the homework and the exams. He gave us practice midterms and a practice final that were super helpful. The tests are extremely fair and the grade distribution was set in the syllabus (60% guaranteed at least a C and 90% guaranteed an A), so no surprise curve. He's really nice and helpful. One of the best profs in the math department.

One of the best professors i’ve had in UCLA. Teaches us actually useful material with lots of examples unlike other professors. Tests were also extremely fair.

His lectures are not very engaging, but he presents the material in a very straightforward way so if you pay attention in lecture you should be fine. His tests are on the hard side. He also does not add pluses or minuses to your letter grade at the end D:

Warning: Math Department will make Math170A a harder class starting from this quarter.

March is definitely a smooth professor to take 170A with. His lectures are not very engaging, but he presents the materials clear enough, and I guess that's all you need for a math class. His homework heavily relies on the examples in lectures, and his exams heavily relies on the homework. So, if you always keep up with everything, you should be fine.

One difficulty might be that the students in classes at this level tend to be highly competitive, so you definitely need to perform your best to secure an A. Another thing is that math department is making this class more difficult by cramming more materials into it. So starting from eighth week, we kind of take an abrupt turn and focus on some rather different topics, which are unexpected and more challenging.

Overall comment: A doable class, regardless of where you are at in math.

Pros:
+ Two office hours/wk. (TR)
+ Dry humor
+ Good lecturer
+ Fair exams

Cons:
- Monotone voice
- Skips steps
- Does not post review problems on CCLE

Other Things to Know:
* Exams (2 midterms, 1 final): Study from old homework and quizzes and you should be fine for about 80% of the material. The other 20% are more conceptual questions. Review problems tend to be harder than the actual exam.
* Final: Provides exact point and topic breakdown; about 45% on probability (E.g. CDF, PDF, Markov's inequality), 45% on matrices (E.g. Markov chains, SDS, eigenvalues/vectors, numeric sequences), 10% on systems of differential equations
* Quizzes: One quiz every 2 weeks during discussion
* Office Hours: Irregular office hours! Check the Word doc on CCLE to see where the location and time of office hours are each week.

I feel like March is too smart to be able to communicate well with his students. I felt like even though he tried to offer office hours to help us understand difficult topics, I often found it hard to understand because he would skip steps/ do them in his head. My TA ended up being more helpful than him. I think if I had kept up more with the homework in this class I would've easily done better.
The final was pretty hard, and I advise you to spend more time than you'd think to study for it.

March is great. Lectures are super straightforward, and tests are mostly easy too. He just takes concepts from class and adds a slight twist to it for one or two of the problems. He's got a good sense of humor too.

While this class definitely isn't the easiest, I found that March had reasonable expectations for his students. He guarantees anyone with a 90% in the class will get an A, which really helped me out winter quarter. The workload is pretty comparable to the other Math 3 courses, and I would highly recommend Ben as a TA.

March definitely knows his stuff and provides clear and concise lectures. His tests and quizzes are fair, but you will be better off in this class if you are comfortable with probability/statistics and don't need to go to March for outside help. He is clear about what students do right and where they make mistakes, but will also encourage you to drop the class if he does not think you will do well (not my fave thing to hear from a professor). I also wouldn't recommend taking his class early in the morning because his voice is not loud enough to keep you awake.

This class is not "hard." The material and concepts covered in class are rather easy to understand. This is evidenced by the quizzes that the TAs give, I got 100% on nearly all of them. However, as you can see I was left with a B+. Not only does March not care at all about his students he is incapable of answering a single question. He doesn't understand what your asking. I mean not a single question that was asked in the lecture, by anyone, was answered clearly. He also basically whispers at the board when he lectures, so it is really hard to hear him. He also lacks any sense of empathy. I took this class during the quarter that was cut short due to COVID. I had gotten an A on my first midterm and did poorly on the second (79%) and I was banking on the final because I knew I could better and it was 30% of our grade on the syllabus. Long story short: I studied, got 100% on the final, then he changed the syllabus at the VERY LAST SECOND (I'm talking week 10) and made the final worth 10%. This made my final grade useless in bringing my grade back up to an A. He did this in the middle of everyone moving home and taking finals for the first time online. I emailed him explaining that changing that at the last second really screwed me over, he did not care and replied with one word.

Basically, I'm sure you can do fine in this class but if you have the chance to take it with Greene (the nicest woman ever & amazing professor) do it. She is so much better it is not even a comparison.