Dr. V offered us a grading scheme that made it so that you didn't have to take the final if you did well enough on the two midterms, but weekly homework was tedious and not helpful to many students. It was formatted as open ended "study guides" that had unclear instructions. Lecture wasn't super helpful and honestly the TAs carried my understanding in this class.

Dr. V is a really kind and sweet professor who cares about her students, but I'm not sure I'd take this class with her again.

Dr. Venugopal's style of teaching and responses to students' concerns are extremely unsupportive and discouraging. After midterm 2, her Piazza forum was flooded with complaints and concerns saying how unfair the test was. I agree with all the students who said that she inadequately prepared us for the exam, also because the practice exams that we were given were nothing like the midterm we were tested with. In class the following afternoon, she completely invalidated our concerns, which left many of us further discouraged and shocked at her response. I never expected Dr. Venugopal to shut all of us up and make us feel like we were incompetent. One student voiced her opinion on behalf of majority of the class, saying how the situation was unfair, and the entire class clapped very loudly; louder than any applause I've ever heard in a lecture hall. It was clear that most students were in accord with the said student.

Dr. Venugopal needs to better cater to the student's needs. She doesn't listen to us. When the entire class voiced their opinions being concerned about how unfair midterm 2 was, being all respectful, Dr. Venugopal tries to play victim and she even has the audacity to threaten to not post preparation materials for the finals. I am just blown away at her response as an instructor at such a prestigious institution.

Dr. Venugopal's style of teaching and responses to students is extremely concerning, and she is extremely unfair. She won't consider her students' complaints, even if it's the whole class, TAs, and LAs voicing their concerns. The midterm averages were terrible as well, with midterm 1 having a 72% average, and midterm 2 having a 68% average. This is one of the most basic math courses one can take here, and she overcomplicates things for no reason. I personally feel that she's the worst teacher I've had here so far. For context, I scored 92% on midterm 1 and 98% on midterm 2, so I am not biased because I have a terrible grade. I currently have and am expecting to end the class with an A+, and I strongly dislike her style of teaching and arrogance that causes her to fail to comply with student needs. Overall, Dr. Venugopal needs to change her style of teaching because it's very much just busy work and extremely ineffective to our learning, and she needs to be a lot more open minded when her entire class is voicing their concerns against her.

This class was definitely one not to underestimate. If not for the adjustments made during the protests, I would definitely not have done as well. the bulk of the work is the homework, which is done on Cocalc. It is rarely easy to do and can take 4-5 hours to complete. You will also most likely need to ask a TA or another person for help at multiple points to try to start this as soon as possible so you can hit up a TA during OH and get the help you need. The number of stressed out Sunday mornings I've spent scrambling together a homework assignment before it was due on noon....not worth it!! The midterm is also fairly rough if you were not paying attention to lecture. We had 24 hours to work on it. Don't forget to do the pre-lab quizzes!! The knowledge assignments are fairly easy as well but time consuming (hit me up at ********** if you want mine to save time). EC is given for practice exams submitted.

Good teacher, she obviously cares about the subject and whether the students learn! I personally really liked this professor!

She's very good at explaining concepts, but if you don't understand the other concepts that she uses to explain them, then you're sort of screwed. For most of the class, I didn't really understand linear approximation, which made me struggle a lot. In these cases, I would recommend going to office hours.

The labs vary in difficulty, from just easy and boring to excruciatingly difficult. However, there are ~10 of them and you have a week to do each (which overlap).

Also, a lot of the stuff used in exams are lifted directly from her lectures, so watch them!

The midterm was unexpectedly difficult, and both the midterm and final took an obscene amount of time for things we only had 24 hours to complete.

My only problems with this course are with the course itself and not the professor. I would strongly recommend this professor to anyone who wants to take this course.

I loved this professor. She was super nice and always helpful and willing to answer questions. For the most part the tests matched the homework/lecture content though she did throw 1 or 2 tough ones in there! Overall I thought the grading was very fair and I felt pretty confident about all the material by the end of the quarter.

Wow indescribably poor at giving lectures. Final exam was a disaser, she kept changing the numbers and parts of questions DURING THE EXAM. Did not stress what to study and during her reviews was often incorrect in her own answer choiced and methodology. Thank goodness the TAs could sympathize with us during the labs.

Dr V is really nice but her lectures are not. I've heard that she is really good in her other class. But I don't recommend taking her for LS 30A. Her explanations were not clear and tests were hard.

Professor V is a nice person in general. However, she cannot teach. Her slides are difficult to understand because her explanations are all over the place. She lectures directly from the textbook, word for word. Her midterm and final does not have extremely difficult material but due to the lack of knowledge/teaching in lectures, it appears extremely hard. Half the material on the final was not covered in review sessions. She made review sessions during class times (ex: 10 am and only went over one problem out of 10) Overall, I feel as if the class is very simple itself however she does not do a good job at explaining the concepts and all the tests are conceptual. Labs are pretty difficult after the first couple but TAs/UAs are willing to help at office hours. Did not enjoy this class at all.

Dr.Venogupal is an absolute disaster. She cannot teach for her life. She is not organized and her office hours are note helpful at all. The TAs did save my butt in this class with the lab though. The class and the topics are pretty straight forward (once you read the textbook). Do not take this class.

take LS30 series but never take Venugopal, trust me.