he broke me.

It was a difficult start because the professor was gone for around the first month of class and we had three different substitute professors. I took a while to adjust to the professor when he finally showed up, but he isn't bad. Someone complained about how he was speaking too quietly and he showed up the next lecture with a mic. His lectures were pretty clear but not really engaging - also his b's look like d's so that can get a little confusing... Homework is very light/minimal, which is nice in a sense that you don't have a lot of homework but is unfortunate when he gives you like one easy problem to practice with and a lot more difficult problems to solve. He gives you practice midterms/final that were pretty helpful and also reference textbook questions. He's not the most enthusiastic professor I have, but he's capable of teaching and cares that you learn.

Before the quarter even started, we get an email from him saying that he won't be around for the first month or so. Is teaching such a low priority for some professors that they won't even bother being around for half the quarter? He has two different substitutes who both do a better job of teaching and explaining the material than him. He's not a particularly effective professor, and he has a weird way of explaining and wording things; his English isn't fantastic. More on that later.

His midterms were pretty easy, and the practice midterms he supplied were very similar to the actual midterms. They had one or two conceptual questions that were doable. However, his final was absolutely awful. The practice final had no relevance to what was actually tested, and it was more than half conceptual questions. This was especially frustrating because he phrases his questions in a way that made absolutely no sense at all, asking some questions that I don't think even a genius could decipher.

Am I only writing this because I'm frustrated with how I did with the final? Maybe. But, I always say him as unapproachable, cared little for his students, and also he just spoke very quietly in a large lecture hall (we used to be in La Kretz and he used no mic).

Overall, just avoid this guy. The math department already sucks but don't make it any worse than it needs to be.