Y'all I'm going to be wildly honest.

1. I am not good at math (was openly the worst in my high school, luv that).
2. I did not attend lecture.
3. I did not attend discussion.

Oleg Gleizer is AMAZING. He's so nice, funny, and he's one of those professors where you can tell that he's truly passionate about what he's teaching. If you get the chance, I really recommend attending lecture. He often goes completely off topic, and I know that bothers some students.

However: he always remembers that this is a class, and it's unfair to constantly give us random tidbits and test us on different material. So, he often includes the fun little examples from lectures on his tests and quizzes.

Having barely ever attended lecture, and having never attended discussion, I was able to get close to 100 on all three exams just by looking at examples in his notes and in the textbook. I highly recommend taking this class with Gleizer, because his tests are so fair. Find the question on the test, look at his notes, look at the textbook, look at similar homework problems and find their solutions. You got this.

lowkey a glorified physics class

LEAST FAVORITE PROFESSOR I'VE HAD THUS FAR AT UCLA

His lectures were basically useless to me - I just sat there confused and overwhelmed. He's too smart to explain anything, and he just can't fathom how we don't understand. The worst part is how pretentious he is about it - everything is "so easy and fun." The homework was basically 20 problems per week that took me AT LEAST 8 hours, at most 20, because I had to get help for almost every problem, which definitely got hard when the TA strike started.

He made fun of me in office hours for being stressed about the class, and he was very dismissive other times about mental health as well. I get he doesn't want to be taken advantage of like with extensions and stuff, but I feel like especially with such a huge workload he could've been a little kinder.

The midterms were take-home, open note/book, and allowed collaboration. That's the only reason I did well, and then Gleizer seemed upset we did well on it :/

Oh yeah, and the final, which was a normal final, was worth 50% of the grade. Guess what the average was? 52%

He assumed we would do as well on it as if it were like the midterms, which is just lacking in common sense. He made no adjustments due to the TA strike, and the exam wasn't really based on what we "learned" - just problems he "liked."

Honestly, I could say more, but I don't want to be too excessive. I'm just really disappointed with this class - it kind of made me hate math :(

I had mixed feelings about this class. Gleizer was clearly passionate about mathematics, but this class's lack of organization made 31A my most stressful course this quarter. Grade breakdown was initially: 50% homework (6 homeworks, lowest score dropped), 10% midterm 1, 10% midterm 2, 30% final. It was eventually changed to: 50% homework (5 homeworks, lowest score dropped), 16.6% midterm 1, 16.6% midterm 2, 16.6% final.

We were initially supposed to cover 6 chapters, but by Week 4, we were still on Chapter 1. In the end, we only covered 5 chapters, and this ended up changing how final grades would be broken down. To compensate for our falling behind, Gleizer decided to post 2 one-hour-long lectures every Friday. On top of somewhat rushed, very long homework assignments, I found the content of this class very overwhelming. Gleizer actually managed to lose one entire lecture and part of another, and he didn't rerecord the content. He told us that some of the lost content wouldn't be on any exams, but it ended up being on the midterm. For the first midterm, he actually gave us less than a week's notice regarding when the exam would be, which I found inconsiderate. I guess while Gleizer is a very witty, passionate instructor, I can't help but admit I was disappointed with this class. Neither Gleizer nor his students could have known we would fall behind, but the rushed nature of this course, on top of the addition of extra lectures, made me feel I was forced to commit more time to this course than initially described. I unfortunately don't feel prepared for MATH 31B.

I think I would probably die in this class if it were in person but open book tests really helped out and were quite similar to problems he did during lectures, so if you're taking this in person I'd probably recommend really studying his lecture problems. He was a bit ranty at times and went on tangents but honestly as not a math major it was still pretty interesting. He's enganging and really kind and sweet and cared for his students- often moving hw and quizzes and stuff if people asked for it. Also, if you're a math major he's incredibly accomplished it seems so I would probably recommend going to his office hours.

Overall, lovely man with an incredible background. You'll need to put in some work but I think you'll enjoy the final product :)

~During Covid~

Doesn’t like when the class passes take home midterms so in returns he makes the exam impossible which is 50% of your grade. They have easier professors go take them.

Take this class with a different professor!! Professor made the final very challenging just because the class did well on TAKE HOME, COLLABORATIVE midterms. The average for the 3-hour+ final that was worth 50% of the grade was 52%. Around 44% on the final was needed to pass the class if all other points were earned which most people did.

1. Hands down one of the best lecturers I have encountered at UCLA. Incredibly engaging and fun.
2. Simultaneously, THE HARDEST final. The average was around 50%, he refused to curve it. He's strict and adamant about his straight scale grading policy, and around HALF the class had to retake it. His final was 10x harder than any of the HW problems or midterms he assigned.

This was a pretty bad experience. The textbook on the professor's syllabus was different from the one on the Study List, so about half the class purchased the wrong textbook. It wasn't until Week 4 that we realized that some of us had the wrong one. The homework problems are all in the textbook, so a lot of us had to start over. He went too slow at the beginning of the class so he had to shove a bunch of information in the last few weeks. We didn't get to integrals until the end of Week 9. I was very close to dropping this class just because of how unprepared the professor was. It stressed me out much more than my other classes (I was taking 17 units). The homework is a lot and is meant to be spaced out, but a lot of the problems are harder than anything we went over in the lecture. He also made a lot of the homework due in the second half of the quarter because he took too long to cover the material. We didn't get the grade on our first homework until after the first midterm, so it was difficult to determine whether we grasped the concepts before the test. I don't really feel like I learned anything new in this class and it was disappointing overall. The professor clearly likes math, but I would recommend taking this class with someone else if you can.

Prof. Gleizer is possibly the nicest professor I've interacted with. From his overwhelmingly lenient grading policies (offering the option to redo exam problems in office hours for credit) to his emphasis on sound conceptual understanding, Oleg clearly cares about the wellbeing of his students.

During office hours, Prof. Gleizer's process for exam makeup was relatively straightforward. For any problems missed on an exam, Oleg would come up with a new problem grounded in the same conceptual area. If you could demonstrate learned understanding, he gave you points back on the corresponding exam problem. In order to balance allotted time for people wanting to redo missed exam problems vs people confused about the lecture topics, Prof. Gleizer made sure to take questions on lecture materials beforehand.