The class is not hard. Only issue is that the Tree part on Fall 2024 is not finished, as a CS student I have a subsequent CS 180 which may need related tree knowledge.

fun class if you like logic puzzles. All "math" is algebra I, no calc or anything even though it's a prerequisite I believe. Refreshing!

Don't know why she gets bad press for being unclear. Was very detailed and patient. The class is generally pretty straight forward. As the class progress things get harder and you can feel your brain juices flowing, but all the exams were basic (homework level or easier). Do the practice exams and bank of problems!!!! Go over those and you're 80% of the way there. Cheat sheets are allowed, please combine these and you'll be guaranteed good grades!

Only "down" side was that she lectured slower than targeted (lots of question answering in class, she's patient but may slow things down), and thus only covered ~3/4 of the material on syllubus. If you need this class as a solid foundation maybe a red flag, otherwise great bc many weeks went without or with reduced hw.

Everything was recorded, discussion not mandatory (may be helpful i didn't go), textbook online and solutions too and it's not hard to find

Class concepts are easy but proving them can be hard. Professor’s lectures are pretty unorganized and she does not do a great job at explaining the material. You will most likely have to teach yourself from the textbook. Final exam contained material that she chose to skip over in the lectures and did not say would be on the final. Overall would not recommend this professor, you would benefit greatly by taking this class from a professor who clearly explains what is expected of you and who can actually explain the material and teach it to you. Side note: the professor is actually a really nice person and she cares about her students but that still doesn’t take away from the fact that she is not a good lecturer and her lectures/class lack structure. Also don’t expect any rounding of grades or extra credit, and the TA’s grade the homework pretty harshly and love taking off points.

Your life depends on the practice problems/exams that Mariana provides!!! If you do those over and over and get comfortable with the types of problems, you will ace every midterm and final. Honestly, this class was stressing me out pretty hard because the content was difficult for me, but I did the above and did well on every exam. The lectures were okay, Mariana makes it fairly clear what we need to know or not, but you really need to practice by yourself to get your head around the content. She is also kind of bad at communicating. She doesn't respond to discussion posts and didn't show up for the last week of the quarter without notice??? While I guess the following would be implied, it would have been nice for the actual professor of the class to confirm things like what topics are on the final, when and where it is, and so on.

Good lecturer, fair exams. Very understanding professor.

I think some of these reviews are way too awful at least from my experience. She wasn't the most engaging lecturer ever but she got the point across and made things pretty clear to understand and covered the content quite well. The tests also could have been much harder but weren't so I found them fair, even slightly generous maybe as she used homework/very homework-like questions on the tests which was nice. Though there were some issues with class, Vicaria herself wasn't really that bad like some of these reviews make her out to be.

I honestly don't know what these other reviews are saying. This class was the easiest math class I've ever taken. All you had to do was read through and actually understand the slides (understanding the idea; not just memorizing the proof for particular questions) and maybe redo some of the harder HW questions. Also, the thing about her belittling students is patently untrue. All you needed to do when you ask a question is show her why you're stuck, what methods you've tried, and why those attempts failed.

LMFAOOOO PLEASE PLEASE DONT DO IT 💀 💀 💀 Don't get me wrong, the midterms are alright if you study the homework and past exams closely as a lot of questions are similar to the ones from there, but this class overall was not a good experience. First of all, she has a very condescending attitude in general (not going to elaborate but it was bad), and exams were graded extremely strangely. People literally got major points off for tiny things like referring to a theorem as a definition, and it was impossible to know when this would happen. Also, there was a huge delay in grading homework, and most of it wasn't graded until the last week so there was no way to be able to determine our grades. I get that the homework grader was sick, but the professor was generally not receptive to emails and requests anyway. I will also warn you that she does not curve at all and grades completely on a straight scale. There are also no quizzes so 85% of your grade is based on 2 or 3 exams, with the other 15% being homework.

The final, although much harder than either of the midterms, can be done if you meticulously go through the textbook and slides and either totally memorize the proofs there or copy everything, including any homework/past exam problems onto the one single-sided cheat sheet you are allowed for all exams. I literally had no idea what was going on by week 10 and never wrote a formal proof in my life before this class, but I still clutched an A because I filled that sheet of paper with literally every problem I had seen on past exams and prayed that something similar would be on the test. If you did math competitions or have previous experience with proofs you will be fine, but if you're not just memorize all the resources and I guarantee you will at least pass.

If you need to take math 61, I encourage you to do it with Do because his class is significantly easier and better organized. However, if you must take this specific class and haven't really encountered proofs before, trust me, memorizing the homework/past exams/slides/textbook is going to save you.

I've never felt the need to write a review like many people on this. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. AVOID her as a Professor if its the LAST thing you do. She is terribly egotistical and thinks she's above her students. Instead of being a helpful caring teacher, she simply made it more difficult for anyone and everyone involved. Never graded HW and frequently said it was the "grader being ill," but they must've been ill for over 6 weeks. One of the worst professors of all time. Avoid at ALL costs.

AVOID!!! I know blah blah selective bias whatever, but TLDR: do not take Math 61 with Vicaria!!

She had beef with the class because we would ask questions a lot and because some people were chatting in class. I understand her frustration and completely empathize with her, but it is not fair to make exams harder because of that reason!
I scored pretty well on the two midterms midterms about a B- to B average, but the final was insane. I read here in the past that if the midterms are easy, expect the final to be hard and that became true in my experience. So be warned!
The homeworks were doable and I do recommend doing the optional questions, but they did not get graded for SEVEN weeks! Additionally, the grader was very harsh with the grading. Each homework was only out of five points and the smallest mistakes would land you a three already.

Math 61 is a very interesting math class and it was probably the first math class where I was engaged and saw real applications (I'm a CS major so calc was kinda meh in terms of my interest). I wish that we weren't graded so harshly for an introductory proofs class, but here we are.