I never write reviews, but Professor Andrews is too fantastic of a lecturer to not write a review on.

First of all, his lectures were super engaging and concise, and made the course material seem less dense and dull. His entire lecture notes (about 110 pages) were also available on the course website. I personally loved his lecture notes as they were almost identical to the lecture and were very very clear. He also spent the first week mostly talking about quantifiers to make sure that the students had a firm understanding of statements and proof structure. As this course was mostly about proving whether a given statement is true or false, having a strong foundation on the quantifiers and proof structure definitely helped for the quizzes and the final.

There were 5 quizzes on even weeks (2, 4, 6, 8, 10) and a final exam. All the questions from the quizzes and the final exam were based on the lecture notes and the quiz preparation problems. The solutions to each quiz preparation problem sets and the quizzes were uploaded on the course website fairly quickly, with great clarity and detail. Professor Andrews was also extremely helpful during office hours, and he would answer any questions that come up very thoroughly and made sure the students resolved their questions and were content when they left his office.

All right. You’ve heard the fantastic reviews below mine, as well as the glowing recommendations on the UCLA Math major Facebook group. Your first pass, even after declaration of the math major, was also thankfully (but barely) good enough to land you a spot in Andrews’s lecture.

Now that you made it, what to expect? Your grade is determined by 5 quizzes and the final. Quizzes? Hard as flying &$@£, but do not fear. The grading scheme makes it so that you always have 100% on your quiz category, but the worse you do on the quizzes, the more your final matters. So you could get a 70 average on the quizzes but if you get a 90 on the final, you’ll get about a 93 in the class. The averages/medians were low on all exams (<= 60), so it’s important that you get ahead of the curve. No oral final for this quarter and probably subsequent quarters because the math department didn’t follow through with having oral finals.

Lecture-wise, you really can’t ask for much better. What I will say has already been said in the other reviews.

As for how to do well? A general pointer: you have to BREATHE the material presented to you in lecture. Every major concept, you must be able to manipulate and command swiftly. Study the quiz preparation materials as deeply as you can, and try to develop a strong intuition by solving the problems yourself as quickly as possible. If you do not understand a concept, you will be heavily punished for it. For instance, he did this thing with true/false questions where you would get NEGATIVE points if you guessed incorrectly (so the questions could potentially dock points from OTHER questions if you put in too many incorrect responses). Since this was so stressful, I’ll offer some tips. First, you need to ingrain every major theorem and quiz prep result in your head. Every single clause/hypothesis of a major theorem, you need to play with and commit to memory so that you know if a true/false statement seems off. Draw pictures for these questions to see if you can find counterexamples. Do not use theorems in answering these questions until you are entirely sure that their hypotheses are satisfied. It is immensely painful to realize that you got negative points for a question because you accidentally cited a theorem or thought you were right when in reality you weren’t.

And lastly, the final, I would argue, is a fair exam, aside from those damn true/false questions, as knowing the concepts and studying the quiz prep should allow you to do well. Since a good score on the final will ENSURE success in the class, you really want to take the time to, again, learn how to breathe the material in 131A. Understand the workings of epsilon delta proofs, as well as when/why you would use max. Same thing for limits of sequences. Hammer the formal definitions of differentiability and integrability into your head. I know it’s going to be tough, but by really developing that intuition and learning as much as you can from your quizzes, you can pull greatly ahead of the curve on the final. Andrews is an amazing professor, but to do well, you must put your best foot forward and push yourself to master the material. 131A is a juggernaut, so take advantage of the lectures and the resources that Andrews gives out to you.

Andrews is definitely the best math professor I've had at UCLA. He's a terrific lecturer, keeps you awake at 8:00am, pretty funny, and clearly explains concepts that are known to be difficult in Math 131A. When you are having trouble with any concept, he is more than happy to help you out during his office hours. You can tell he really cares about his students' learning and is very passionate about teaching.

I really enjoyed his grading layout of no homework and no midterms. Your grade depends entirely on 4 quizzes and the final. The quizzes are structured in a way that force you to stay up to speed in the course and are graded harshly, BUT, you are rewarded heavily for learning from mistakes on your quizzes and performing well on the final. Basically, points missed on your quizzes doesn't dock your grade but determines how much of your grade is determined by the final.

Regarding the final, Andrews tried a new thing this quarter where a written final made up 75% of the final and if you scored above 70% on the written final (which I think a little over a third of the class did) you got an oral final. He gives you the problems of the oral final before-hand, so you know exactly what to prepare, and he helps you out A LOT during the actual oral final through hints and suggestions. To do well in the class, you gotta stay caught up and really understand all of the lectures and quiz preparation problems because there is no homework that forces you to turn work in. Take advantage of his office hours and learn from your mistakes on quizzes because the final is really what your grade comes down to.

Michael is absolutely awesome! He's from the UK so he talks with this really sexy deep voice and makes some really hilarious jokes in class (as well as lame puns). But really, his style of teaching this class is unlike any other professor here who teaches 131A. While other professors simply go through the textbook, Michael uses his own set of lecture notes and goes through the importance of proofs and quantifiers in the first couple of weeks. He does this so well and really breaks down many of the key ideas of formulating proofs and he helps you to understand them fully during his office hours.

Also, he doesn't set any homework and also doesn't have any midterms! There's a catch though, he has 4 quizzes and all of them count, although dropping points on a quiz will not reduce your overall score, it only reduces your overall weightage on the quizzes and increases the weight on the final exam (this means that you can always do well on the final to get a good grade regardless of how you do throughout the quarter).

The final exam was very manageable and stuck very closely to his lectures and quiz preparation material so be sure to go through them over and over again and understand why every line of the proof is there and why they are necessary so that you can score a good grade on the final.

Finally, there is an oral exam. Now, don't be intimidated! Michael posts oral exam questions right after the final and you have free choice to choose 1 question out of 6 to present for your oral final exam. It's essentially like a presentation of what you found out about the question at hand, and following which you may be asked to answer follow-up questions based on the question you chose.

Michael is VERY helpful during his office hours and often spends a lot of time on each student, making sure that they fully understand everything there is to know. Also, he is VERY prompt in responding to emails, even on the weekends, and you can tell that he really has a passion for teaching and listening to what his students have to say about the class and about the topics at hand.

Overall, Michael made 131A, which is supposed to be a HELL of a class, into something very enjoyable, and I recommend that you don't miss a chance getting into his class and taking Real Analysis with this heavy metal mathe-musician!

Michael is a very nice guy! He play around with us students, and he always talk some funny things, but I sometimes cannot catch the point, because I am a international student...... And he has a lot of office hours. However, when you asked him some questions, he would broaden the topic to some extent like philosophy??? I have no idea of what he is talking about sometimes. But definetely go to his office hour. Ask him exactly which point you don't understand, or he will just like talk to you something really really abstract... and kind of deviate from what you are asking.
In sum, he is a very good good lecturer. Desfinetely go to his lectures. I missed one of his lectures, and it just fked me up... So lectures are really important for his class.
And his handouts are awesome, and you can give him advice on how he clarify some concepts. He will listen to you and revise some of his teching.
His tests are just pretty fair, or somewhat very easy... Just memorize and understand all the concepts, and the homework problems. Then, you are all set.
This is not a hard A.
I screwed up in my first 4 quize. And get a full mark in the last one, and do pretty well in the final, and obtained an A. You can drop like 2 quizzes.
Andrews should be your choice for MATH 131A.

Professor Andrews makes his lectures very very clear for us to understand instantly before class is over. His teaching methodology emphasizes both on math intuition and on reasoning. His twice-weekly office hours are more than helpful. Having a wonderful TA partner as well. His personality is brilliant and amiable and he is the professor we all love.