Avoid this class if u can this man doesn't care at all about his students. Tests were very difficult and he refused to curve out midterm despite having a 60% average because he didn't feel like it.

When they said students at UCLA were often privileged, rich kids I had a thought about it but after reading some of these reviews my eyes have been opened. If you've taken Pablo and consider him to be the worst professor you've ever had, then you should consider yourself lucky, and never take a single step in the Physics or Chemistry department (on the STEM side).

This class was far from perfect and to be honest it's probably far under UCLA standards but it wasn't absurdly difficult or incredibly confusing, at least to the degree of some other reviews. I was in Lecture 1 in the 9 am class and Pablo was fine. I attended lecture in person and it wasn't horrible. Pablo dresses like he picks his outfits from Adam Sandler's closet, blindfolded. But sometimes he is funny and is simple. The way he formats his class is pretty simple and easy to follow and he also teaches DIRECTLY out of the textbook which sometimes works in our favor since the textbook is pretty easy to understand. If you're having trouble understanding lecture, I advise that you read the appropriate textbook section maybe the night before class. Each section is maybe 3-5 pages, sometimes less, and since it's a Math textbook most sections are fairly straightforward. Pablo uploads an entire pdf file of class notes before instruction even begins so that helps sometimes as well. If you're really struggling on the material, try blackpenredpen on YouTube, he teaches Calculus 2 and Integrals excellently and it helped a lot. Some of the hardest homework problems are also directly covered in a YouTube video by him so that helps.

Discussion sections were whatever, TAs like usual at UCLA are very disconnected from the class and overestimate what students know. Mine went through the topics of the week but went over example problems in the most complicated way, but we had an LA as well and they're always down to Earth with us Bruins so that's nice. The good thing is that Discussions are optional minus a selected problem that you have to submit onto Gradescope for "Discussion credit" (you don't even have to get it right).

Exams were something else. Pablo emailed us at midnight, nine hours prior to Midterm 1, talking about what exactly we needed to know and memorize for the exam. Telling hundreds of college students a the night before an exam that they need to memorize tens of identities isn't nice but whatever. The memorization isn't even difficult; if he had told us prior, I really wouldn't have cared, so use this as a lesson and memorize every trig derivative, integral, and equation needed for some problems such as Surface Area about the x-axis. Pablo hosts review sessions that assign extra problems from the textbook, but you don't get the answers so it's a waste of time plus I've heard the room gets so crowded some students had to sit on the floor. Your best bet is to study the more difficult homework problems that are assigned and get a grip on the topic of the section and you should be okay. His exams are pretty confusing but they aren't any harder than the most difficult problems of the textbook sections in my opinion. On his exams, you get a T/F section (this is basically a dice roll, pray that you remember what he says in lecture; stuff like what region is this derivative valid for, etc.), and the rest is short answer.

The people talking about the massive amount of homework must've done it the night before. Pablo assigns anywhere from 8 ish to 20 ish problems per week, and they're due the Friday after, i.e. Week 2 homework is due Friday of Week 3. It's very lenient but don't let yourself fall behind. Doing the appropriate section of homework the day that you learn the section in lecture is probably your best bet. He grades homework by grading 3 random problems for accuracy and the rest on completeness so just try your best and you should be fine since he drops the lowest homework & discussion grade automatically. Some duration into the quarter he'll announce an opportunity to drop another lowest assignment, maybe by filling out an evaluation or course survey.

Pablo is kind of a jerk though. He curved one class simply for doing worse on Midterm 1, and when students complained he threw a fit. I don't know what he expected since he's literally feeding the other lecture simply for being worse but oh well. He also takes forever to respond to emails, at least he has for me, but some students have had different experiences. After the final he sent an email saying the Final Exam average was about 77 and the median final grade in the class was 88 ish so take that as you will. If you're taking his class, good luck, just try your best.

Pablo is an evil human being with wicked intentions. His goal is not to teach you. His goal is to morally degrade you and make it clear that whatever you do in life, you will never succeed and will always end up being a burden to society and a disgrace to the human race. He is unhelpful. Anytime a student asks a question, Pablo gives the most inhumane, vile, degenerate, morally corrupt response known to mankind. His lectures are nothing like the homeworks. The homeworks are nothing like the midterms. And the midterms and the homeworks and the review sessions and the review problems are NOTHING like the final exam. He INTENTIONALLY screws you over. He wants to see you fail. It makes him happy, it brings him JOY to see his students SUFFER in front of his very own eyes when they spent a whole month studying for the final, reviewing questions and homeworks only for him to ask questions WE'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE. Pablo hates it when you succeed. He gets ANGRY. It ENRAGES him if you're a happy human being. Nobody with a functioning brain and a will to live in this world should want ANYTHING to do with this guy.

This content of this course isn't easy. Professor Ocal definitely did try to teach well, but sometimes he fell flat. Often, he would make little mistakes in lectures as he was working out problems, and he seemed to be the kind to easily lose his train of thought. However, it was obvious that he was knowledgeable about the course. Nonetheless, I wouldn't rely on his lectures to learn the content. He did easy intro problems in class that did not compare to the very long, difficult homework problems that were assigned weekly.

Our homework (worth 25% of your grade) was mostly graded on completeness but you could've lost about 20-30% of a homework grade for getting a few randomly selected problems wrong, Oh and discussion problems (worth 15% of your grade) were taken from homework problem sets and graded for accuracy. He drops the lowest score from both categories though.

There were three grading schemes, which allowed a saving grace if you bombed a midterm or two. First midterm was fair with an 80% average. Second midterm got a 60% average. He said it was expected and said he wouldn't curve that test. Average grade on the final was around 70%. Problems on the tests took a long time to solve and were sometimes just difficult to solve by the complexity of the numbers he chose. We were never allowed cheat sheets and were expected to memorize: trig derivatives, inverse trig derivatives, hyperbolic inverse trig identities and derivatives, all convergence tests, error bound formulas, surface area/volume integration formulas, etc. Truthfully, I could have easily gotten a whole problem wrong once if I hadn't remembered the derivative of hyperbolic inverse cosine. An index card would've made things so much better.

I wouldn't say he was mean or oblivious like other commenters; he did ask us to tell him if we understood or if we wanted him to slow down during lectures often. He only ever got angry when people cheated on tests, which is understandable.

Overall, take this class with the intention to learn material through external resources and be prepared to memorize a lot. If you study and do all your work, you will probably pass. Go to discussions and ask your T.A. for help with the homework and discussions. Read the book; that helped me understand a lot more. Attempt every problem on the exams; there's decent partial credit. Good luck.

Pablo cannot teach. He simply reads out the textbook and re-write it on the whiteboard in his lectures. Around Week6, Pablo tried to improve by adding some non-textbook examples. But he would either make a mistake or end up off topic. I attended all my TA sessions and my TA (Kye) was very helpful. Pablo's 1st midterm was very unfair. He decided to curve one of the class and not the other when both classes had the same paper. Do not recommend taking Math31B with Pablo unless you already know the course material or you are very good at self-learning. This may not be important but Pablo claimed to be sick and did not show up in one of the lectures but then updated his website of giving an Algebra seminar in UCSD on the same day.

To be honest, this class is far from easy, but it is also far from impossible (it should be noted that the median final grade was around a B+ this quarter). Professor Sanchez Ocal does an excellent job of explaining the overall concepts, i.e. the basics, which is sufficient to get you started on your homework and moving forward. I don't think he can be blamed for not being able to go over more difficult examples because he only has fifty minutes, but that's why Office Hours exist. He is extremely helpful at that time and responds quickly to emails (sometimes within the hour).

His exams are difficult, but they are comparable (if not exact) to some of the more difficult homework problems. You'll probably do well if you spend your time here. If you get stuck, either go to his Office Hours or the TA's. I found both to be helpful. Overall, practice, practice, and practice some more.

Don't take this class. If you've read any other review you know how terrible this class is. In lecture Pablo makes many mistakes and is often correcting them. He then gives test questions which are extremely challenging on the midterms and final. The first midterm with 80% was not so bad, but the second midterm with "around 60%" average had outrageously hard questions for a 50 minute test and the final was even worse. Pablo is a nice guy, but he is not a good teacher. Despite lacking as a teacher he also expects you to have a max level understanding of the concepts. As someone who never took calculus in high school, this class seemed like it was meant to be taught to students who already know how to take integrals and do calc 2. Also, the final homework was insanely hard we about a week and a half and it was graded on accuracy for a few questions and completion (He made it a free 10/10 by grading very easy questions). With that said these questions were super hard. For one I emailed him and he said "This is possibly the hardest surface area question" there were 36 questions in this homework and 30 in another homework due the same week (until he changed the due date of one to be a few days later). Overall this was a huge time sink and it really did not prepare me for the final. Don't take this class, it's such a waste with this teacher, take it later or with a different professor.

ONLY TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. I REPEAT: ONLY TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. I read BruinWalk reviews of Pablo before I begun the course, but I did not know his teaching would be as bad as I initially expected. As everyone else has said, he teaches the easiest examples from each chapter of the book and neglects the hard problems that will appear on his exams. The first midterm was not bad, but the second had a failing average of 51.5%. Pablo lied and claimed it was 60%, declaring there would be no curve. This is simply unfair, but the midterm grade scheme made up for this for most students. The one thing I would give him credit on is how homework is weighted - it's very fair at 40% of total grade for homeworks and discussion problems. Again, don't waste your time going to lecture like I did and just take another teacher. If you really have to take this class, good luck. Use the textbook, Khan Academy, organic chemistry tutor, etc. Anyone but Pablo. He is nice though and wears math shirts.

Worst Professor at UCLA. Pablo seems like a fun guy but he is not equipped to teach a math class and has no idea what he is doing. He essentially reads that textbook and we are given example problems in lecture that are 10x easier than what will appear on the homework and exams. Also, we are not given the answers to the homework so good luck trying to figure out if you're doing it correctly. The only reason that I was able to get an A in this class is because I completely stopped going to lecture after the first midterm and decided to learn the entirety of the class from a much more qualified professor on YouTube. Unlike Pablo, this professor actually took the time to explain the concepts he was teaching in a way that students could understand. It's crazy to think that I am paying so much money for this school when I am getting a better quality education online for free. My advice to UCLA is to replace Pablo with a professor who is actually competent.

After taking the midterms and redoing a bunch of textbook problems, my friends and I learned that his tests look very very similar to some textbook problems. I suggest doing all of the harder textbook problems before each midterm and final, instead of just relying on the practice midterms and homework for practice. Lectures are straight from the textbook. Discussion questions are mandatory, but going to discussion isn't. My TA was great (Ethan). Pablo dropped two homework assignments (graded on accuracy, random problems are picked and he doesn't tell you which they are, different classes have different graded problems), and two discussions. I did mid on the first midterm, bombed the second one, but studied hard and did above average on the final and got an A- in the class. His grading schemes are clutch for that. Oh also, the average for the second midterm was a 66% but he said that was expected and did not curve it lol