I first had Professor Roper for math 3a during my first quarter at UCLA. I initially thought it was a terrible class and that Roper did not teach very well, but this is SO FAR FROM THE TRUTH. After having him for a full year now (3a-3c), I can confidently say he is a GREAT professor. I'm honestly REALLY sad I'm not going to have him as a professor again. Ngl, it takes a while for you to adjust to his teaching style. He always tries to quickly go over proofs and theorems just so you have somewhat of an understanding of why what you're doing works. But once I was able to discern which parts of his lectures were vital to doing well, it was smooth sailing. Not to mention how FUNNY he is. He's unintentionally funny. He's just naturally a funny guy which makes lecture pretty enjoyable. I might have enjoyed it even more because I like math in general, but his humor alone would definitely make the lectures bearable if you don't like math. He's also a VERY humble guy. You can literally ask ANY question and he will answer with no judgement. This man has the biggest growth mindset I have ever seen and he is always willing to admit any mistakes he has made. As for the grading, you get homework every lecture which can seem like it's a lot if you fall behind. There is one midterm and one final. If you do better on your final, it'll replace your midterm grade. Overall, 10/10 standout guy. I will miss Professor Roper, my favorite professor here so far.

I previously passed the AP Calc AB exam so I skipped 3A before taking this class. That's probably why I didn't find the class to be that difficult. In fact, I thought the whole first half of the quarter was mostly review and honestly should have skipped lecture and saved myself some sleep. That being said, I also only showed up to 2 discussions anyway. However, I do understand why people who have no experience in calculus may find the class a little difficult. Professor Roper is not exactly the best at lecturing. I even found myself confusing myself between how I previously learned things with how he taught things. I think he's just more of a conceptual teacher. Roper does really care about student learning though and is always trying to clear up students' concerns or uncertainties. Piazza is a wonderful discussion platform that is really helpful when you're stuck or confused. A lot of the class weighs heavily on homework because we have homework due almost every lecture. The class has 1 midterm and a final, and if you do better on your final, it replaces your midterm score. Overall, not a bad class.

Dr. Roper is a very kind man who cares about student learning. He is not the best lecturer, though he definitely improved throughout the quarter and is open to suggestions (i.e. holding up colored papers used as a "poll" to gauge class understanding). Sometimes, his language is confusing, which can be frustrating since the textbook (written by him)offers the same language. That being said, he answers any questions on Piazza EXTREMELY fast (usually 45 minutes or less) and engages with questions often. Do anticipate asking questions or rereading notes to fully understand the material. I had already taken AB and BC, so I found the class to be mostly review and thus really. I think this tended to be the consensus especially for students who had taken any kind of calculus in high school. The homework can be difficult at times, but usually not time-consuming (about an hour each day of lecture, and that is all the studying that I had to do!). The midterm and final were basically all examples from class and homework problems. Overall, the class is very doable and Dr. Roper is always willing to help, which makes up for his confusing lecture style.

I skipped 3A with my calc AB ap test and this class was very easy for me. I skipped every discussion after the first two and probably could've skipped the first 2 weeks of lecture. In discussion the TA just goes over practice problems of what we already learned in class. Roper already does a few problems though, plus you do more in the homework. The only challenging part of the class was the homework because the question difficulty would be a lot harder than stuff shown in class. You can ask for help on piazza though so it's not too bad. Thankfully, the test questions are more similar to problems done in class in difficulty. That being said, I saw a lot of people being confused and I could see why. The way Roper lectured was not the most efficient way in my opinion. He spoke and wrote on the board in language similar to a textbook.

Overall, this class is fine. Roper can be hard to follow when he lectures at times, and I often found myself staring at the board in a total state of confusion. He likes going over the reasoning behind concepts, and shows us proofs or other "cool math things" that we don't really need to understand for the course. I personally did not enjoy having him as a lecturer, and I would've skipped every lecture and learned from the textbook and online videos if it weren't for homework being due in class almost all of the time. I like working through examples, which he very rarely did, so if you're like me, lectures will seem like a complete waste of time. However, as long as you understand the homework you should be fine. He assigns homework after every lecture which are due the next week, which typically take an hour or two to complete. Doing the homework is a good way to determine if you understand the material or not, and will help you with the tests since the midterm and final questions are very similar. His tests are very doable (1 midterm, 1 final) and your score on the final will replace your score on the midterm if it is higher which is a plus.

I had Prof. Roper for Math 32A Winter 2017. Overall, the class was okay. Prof. Roper is decent lecturer, although it could be difficult to follow sometimes. He is really concerned about the well-being of his students, but still, the material (or the way he presents the material) is pretty difficult to understand. He doesn't give a lot of examples, so the homework problems (which he writes) can be difficult. His office hours can get pretty packed because again, the lectures are not always crystal clear. I think Prof. Roper should really describe how things work geometrically, make things simpler, etc. instead of proving formulas; this way his lectures would be clearer. We had one midterm and a final, which is pretty reasonable - not too difficult and not too easy either. Final can replace midterm score, if higher. It's a tough class, mostly because of not-too-clear lectures, but you'll be fine as long as you keep track of the material.

I thought Professor Roper was great. The only complaint I have is that a lot of the homework was based on Microsoft Excel/Google Docs, but that stuff never showed up on exams, so it was kind of a waste of time to do on the homework. He's actually pretty funny for a math professor and he always admits humbly when he's wrong (which isn't often).
Homework=20% (on the best 80% of assignments)
Midterms are 20% each
Final=40%
Your final exam score replaces one or both of your midterm scores if it's better, depending on whatever makes your grade the best.
I paid attention very little at the end of the course and I got an A.

This was my first math class at UCLA so feel free to take this with a grain of salt.

I skipped 3A but didn't take AP Calc BC so I was worried about falling behind the other students; thankfully, Professor Roper is a really nice guy. It's obvious that he really cares about his students and he's always happy to answer questions or try to reexplain concepts. He's always a jolly British dude with a great sense of humor.

However, his teaching style can be a real hit or a miss. For someone like myself, I enjoy having lots of examples to hammer down the concepts and formulas - so I despised going to lectures because Roper literally spends the time going on about concepts and really abstract (to most students at least...) examples that no one really followed. For someone who's very good at math or was taught in this style, Roper's class should be nothing out of the ordinary. Yet for students who're not that strong in math, going to lectures is a big waste of time when you can just try to teach yourself via the book. It also doesn't help that even Roper states, after spending 50 mins at the board, that a lot of the stuff he talks about isn't related and/or necessary for the class...

Grade consisted of homework assignments, discussion quizzes, two midterms and a final. Thankfully, he had a system where he compared each midterm to how you did on the final and picked the best score out of the two. Meaning that if you ace the midterms then you can literally bomb the final.

Worst part of the class were the additional questions - trust me, it starts off easy but later the questions become horrible, horrible things that unfortunately make up around 30% of all the tests.

Overall, this class IS doable as long as you spend the time rigorously doing the homework assignments, self-teaching yourself with the book, and attending the office hours. Plus, your TA can be an immense help as long as you make an effort to ask questions; mine was Michael!

Selling the book for the Math 3A class along with the solutions manual. The book is by Neuhauser 3rd edition. Text me at ********** if you wish to purchase.