Marengon is an absolutely horrid professor. I did not understand a single thing spoken in lecture. When I went back to teach the material myself, a lot of the material was painfully easy to understand, yet his explanations obfuscate even the simplest things. His explanations went by really fast, and he made jumps in logic that he didn't explain. After every lecture, I would leave incredibly confused. He could have written Egyptian hieroglyphs on the board and spoken in R'lyehian, and it would have been equally as effective. As for the people saying the bad reviews are too hard on him because of an accent, it's not about that. I understood his articulation but not his explanation. If Marengon taught the same group of kids throughout elementary school, they would enter middle school not knowing basic addition.

He would stop and ask if anyone had any questions, which I appreciated, but I was so lost that I didn't even know which questions to ask. I have had to essentially ignore my other classes in order to teach myself the material from this class. This could have been the only class I had the entire quarter, and I still would have struggled. The amount of stress and confusion generated from this class has been greater than any other class I have ever taken in my life by several degrees of magnitude. That’s saying something considering I have had drug addicts as teachers before. I always wondered what pain caused them to turn to drugs. This class has given me a better idea.

I would tell anyone I know that plans to take this course to stay away from taking it with Marengon. If you do, it is guaranteed that you will have a stressful quarter. He will suck out anything interesting about any of the material, and he will make you hate anything to do with math. You will dread going to lecture, and you will have to slave yourself for the smallest possibility of a passing score. This class was a harrowing experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

In addition, his tests were unnecessarily hard. On top of his inability to explain anything, there were types of problems that we didn’t encounter at all in class, and the practice final that he gave us was noticeably different than the actual final. That final was the hardest test I have ever taken despite the fact that the two weeks before test I focused solely on that test.

I find it appalling that a place like UCLA would let such an abysmal educator anywhere near one of their students.

I don't think the material is very difficult. I was juggling my other upper div classes. I regret not taking a stats computing class. I feel like I wasted my quarter on this class. If you can't give this class your all, just pass.

I thought his lectures were detailed and he tried his best in explaining the concepts.
The midterms were pretty fair leaning towards easy.
The final was a bit harder, but I think doable ( I personally did not do too well on the final, but still got a B in the class)
I watched his lectures on BruinCast, which was very useful for this class.
As someone mentioned, only material from the lectures appeared on the tests.

I felt his class was not bad at all. His explanations were clear and exams weren't too hard. Just go to his lectures, do the HW problems, and do the mock exams before every exam. If you do these, you can get A in this class. On exam, he doesn't really give us problems that he didn't cover in class so just review his lectures and you'll be 100% fine. Don't give him a too harsh review just because that you couldn't get a good grade in the end...

When I saw the reviews Prof Marengon has on bruinwalk, I was scared to death to take his class. But, in my opinion, the reviews are not a good representation of marengon as a professor as ( i think) the low rating is due to the material being hard for some people. It is a demanding class, but it can be managed very well. Everything is in the textbook and all the questions on the exam look exactly like the one's in the textbook. I adored this class because I thought the topics were super interesting and really fun in comparision to 31A. Yet, I am quite good at math so this might not be true for everyone. At the end, all I'm saying is that Marengon is a very acceptable professor. yes, he is not the best (If hear "can you hear me?" one more time I'm going to lose it), but he is very fair. Nevertheless, this class is curved like any math class, so it can get tough. Just do the question he assigns and ask friends to help you if you're struggling.
all in all great experience and I am going to miss sequences and series haha

Selling Textbook PDF (required for HW & Quiz):
text: **********

the class is doable overall. the homework workload is decent: 20 textbook questions per week, but only 10 are necessary the other 10 are completely optional but usually useful questions to do for the hw quizzes/midterms. there are two hw quizzes, which are very easy especially if you do all the homework problems, and two midterms, which were ok difficulty, the averages were around 75-80. prepare for the midterms by doing the mock midterms he emails you and prepare for the final by doing the mock finals he sends they are usually very similar if you can just do the mocks well you’re chilling. also try to stay on top of the hw and do all 20 questions, you don’t need to know how to do a few of the most difficult ones so don’t stress but if you can do all the hw problems you’re probably going to do ok on the midterms/final. i fell asleep during almost all of his lectures and relied on the hw and textbook to learn the material, but i still felt like the lectures were worth going to to know what he covers since the syllabus isn’t 100% accurate and the stuff i was awake for was helpful sometimes though usually i didn’t get it until i did the hw, the tb is ok but not great. also he can be p funny to observe bc of the way he talks and moves idk how to describe it you have to see it yourself if you wanna nap too his lectures will lull you to sleep asap. discussion is not really worth it if you don’t want to go don’t bother unless your ta is good but i don’t think there were any good tas this quarter, go to his office hours if you need help he will usually do a similar problem if it’s a hw question and it really helps clarify if you’re confused but it’s only 30 min so there’s not a lot of time if you need a lot of help. the class isn’t easy but the other reviews and marengon’s p low rating makes it seem worse than it is. there were two grading schemes and one dropped your lowest midterm, he also drops your lowest hw grade, the two schemes don’t really make a difference unless you fail a midterm but he will take the highest grade of two. the curve for the class isn’t thicc at all though; for reference i got a b+, a-, and a- on the two midterms and final respectively and ended with an a, so there is a curve but it only bumps you up a little. in general the class was ok, the hw does take awhile and the material can be difficult but the professor is a decent and competent lecturer, the practice exams prepare you for the midterms/final, and the workload is manageable

Overall, Marengon is a great professor who has improved a lot. He is a little awkward at times during lectures, but he presents the information in a very clear and easy to understand way. He would frequently stop during class to make sure he was going at a speed in which everyone could understand and would encourage questions. His office hours were very helpful, and he would offer additional problems to ensure a student grasped the concept. His midterms were reasonable, but his final exam was very difficult. Study hard, and you should do fine!

Marengon is not that bad. I don't know why he got a low score on Bruinwalk. I guess this class may be hard for some people. However, if you do all the homework problems and do his practice midterms/finals, you'll be fine. He doesn't test on materials he didn't cover in class/hw. Some people find this class hard because they DID NOT do the mock midterms. Practice exercises on the textbook for more practice definitely helps. At least for me.
Lectures may be slightly disorganized sometimes. I suggest to copy the things down first, read the textbook, and then you'll probably know what he's doing.
He has a cute Italian accent btw. I find it cute but some people find it hard to understand what he's saying.

OKAY here’s the tea kids. This math class was NOT easy. I’ll warn you, I’ve been told I’m a really dramatic person. But I died and left my soul in this class.

The thing is, I literally have no clue as to why it was so damn hard. I love Marco. I think he’s so funny and so smart and so pleasant and so organized and so AWESOME. But there was something super odd about this class. First off, it was 99.99999% focused on series (which are just relatively difficult to deal with, no matter how much of a genius you are). They call the course “Integration and Infinite Series”, and it seems like the name held true for some of my friends in the other professors’ classes. HOWEVER, Marco’s class should be called “Lots of Series and Infinite Series and Guess What Even More Series”. There were so many concepts that he covered that other professors teaching the same class didn’t even mention. Basically, this class had me staring at some homework problems for 30 minutes or even an HOUR just trying to figure them out, and no one else knew what was going on either. I dedicated all of my finals midnight screamies to this class.

I’ll admit, I actually did pretty well in the class. I got 100% on the first midterm, 100% on the second midterm, and a 93% on the final (idek at this point cuz he said that there was a mistake grading the final so it hasn’t been updated). BUT DON’T BE FOOLED! THIS WAS STILL THE HARDEST MATH CLASS I’VE EVER TAKEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! The midterms were both easier than the homework and mock midterms (in my opinion), but the final was HARD AF AND I USED ALL 3 HOURS TO THE LAST SECOND. I have friends who aced the midterms and literally failed the final. Like straight 50%. When I was studying or doing practice problems, there were so many moments where I genuinely had no idea what to do, and I lost a whole lotta sleep trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Like. I really really do not recommend taking this class with Marco if you don’t need to do it. Sorry Marco dude I love you and appreciate you but this could have been a whole lot easier on my brain if I had taken like ANY of the other professors.

SO YEAH. This class is doable. But BARELY. I can definitely say for sure that I understand the material very well now, but it takes a DAMN lot of work and discipline to fully understand what’s going on. If you’re willing to put in that work, I say go for it. Learning is good. But if you care more about your GPA, stay away.