This class is hard. It's a mixture of calculus, coding, and frankly, some weird graphical math I'm confident is unique to UCLA. The midterms and final are difficult, but not impossible, and it's entirely plausible to end with an A or A-. I didn't take calculus in high school, and I was nervous about how this course would pan out, but taking it with Dr. Bennoun definitely helped me succeed. His lecture slides are very well put together and he's a very clear lecturer, but he will also stop to answer any questions you might have. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the type of course you can coast by in and not study for, but being in Bennoun's class makes it much easier. He gives one homework and one coding lab every week, along with extra credit surveys every once in a while. The grading schemes weight the exams pretty heavily, but don't look over the easy grades like labs or iClicker participation. Speaking of exams, they are rough. The midterm will smack the sense into you, but don't fret. There are two grading schemes, one that weights both the midterm and the final and one that only weights the final (65% of your total grade), and most people end up with the latter scheme. To study, I would do the practice midterms, additional problems in the textbook, review the slides and Clickers, and study with friends. This isn't a collaborative course, but relying on your professors and your friends will increase your chances of success.

Definitely NOT an easy A.

When I initially took this class, everyone told me that it was an easy A and that it was one of the easiest math series at UCLA. This is NOT TRUE. I never felt catfished by a course until now.

The grading is interesting, in that either your midterm is 27.5% of your grade and your final is 37.5%, or you can make the final exam worth 65% of your grade and have your midterm worth nothing. To some, this was good because the midterm was very, very difficult. Most people whom I have talked to earned subpar scores on the midterm (<70%) and needed to rely on the second grading scheme to even have a chance at a better score. Although this might be forgiving in the sense, the final exam wasn't much easier than the midterm. When I took this class, everyone was saying not to worry about the midterm grade because the final exam would be "so much easier," but I did not think the final was easier than the midterm. Having gotten a 90% on the midterm, I scored lower than that on the final exam. The average for the midterm was rumored to be around 60%, so take that as you will.

In terms of the content of this course, it is, but it isn't math at the same time. The extent of calculus concepts that were taught was derivatives, integrals, Riemann sum, and Euler's method. The rest were some "modeling" stuff (this was arguably the most difficult part of the course), feedback loops, and more abstract material that was difficult to grasp if you are used to calculus. However, it is not impossible to understand, as this professor tries to explain it well. I did notice that the slides and lecture would be doable, but once I got to the homework, it was different and almost REQUIRED you to go to office hours to complete it.

Homework and labs were graded based on accuracy, and the lowest score was dropped at the end of the quarter. The TA office hours were always packed to the brim, because, as I said earlier, it was difficult doing the homework by yourself and only with the lecture notes. The lectures are recorded and uploaded, and attendance is mandatory on iClicker, BUT you can miss 4 lectures/be absent 4 times with no penalty. The lab sessions involved coding and a worksheet based on one concept that was taught earlier in the week, and they were very doable. The coding labs were on CoCalc; you have to pay $20 at the beginning of the quarter, and they involved Python coding. The coding is very manageable if you have a good TA who will help you. The coding was also very direct and gave you step-by-step directions on exactly how to do it. It was not tested on either exam, but I know it was tested before in the past so watch out for that.

In terms of workload, it was very doable. Two 1:15 hr lectures during the week and 1 discussion, which was nearly 2 hours. There was one homework assignment and one lab due every week. This is 100% a class where if you just do the bare minimum, you will not succeed (unless you are very smart, of course). This class requires you to put in a LOT of effort outside of lecture, homework, and labs if you want to score well on the midterm and final exam. One tip I have is to read the textbook and watch the Alan Garfinkel UCLA modeling videos on YouTube. They are created by the person who created the textbook and course, and I often found them to be more helpful than the professor's lectures. There were some extra credit opportunities, which were surveys that gave you 1 point for completing them and were weighted 0.25% of your grade, so they did nothing at all.

Overall, I'd say that this class is definitely a weeder class. Most premed people take this, and I will warn you now, it is not an easy A. You need to work for it. Take this as you will, and best of luck if you take this with Bennoun.

Dr. Bennoun is a great professor; I really loved how he made lectures engaging, and he truly cared about his students' understanding of the content rather than just memorizing information. Additionally, during the lecture, he would joke about various parts of the class, which made the class more engaging. Furthermore, whenever I stayed after class to ask questions, I never felt intimidated by Dr. Bennoun because he made the lectures enjoyable to attend.

iClicker is used for attendance and participation throughout the lectures, so I definitely recommend attending every lecture. Additionally, Dr. Bennoun's lectures are extremely informative, and he posts the blank and annotated slides on BruinLearn. The annotated slides genuinely helped save me from making stupid mistakes on the homework. Now, for the homeworks and labs, they are graded based on accuracy, and generally, as a rule of thumb, try to explain as much as possible, so there won't be many loopholes for points to be deducted. For the labs, as someone who barely knew how to code, it was quite overwhelming to learn Python, and I personally thought that the labs barely covered what we learned in class. The labs particularly stressed me out because they would expect you to sometimes finish an insane number of questions in the allotted time that is given, which I think shouldn't be possible. Further, the actual labs did not help me understand the content that I was confused about, but rather further strengthened the already existing strengths that I had gained from the past.

For the actual math, there are a few slideshows where I did get lost and was definitely weak in, which definitely affected my midterm grade (which I will talk about in a second), but once you understand it, you'll be able to do other types of questions. Now, for the tests, the midterm is SIGNIFICANTLY harder than the final; after completing the midterm, I nearly had a mental breakdown because of how bad I thought the exam was, but thankfully, because there are two grading schemes, the final was able to bring up my grade significantly. Also, AP Calculus AB/BC does help in some aspects in terms of the actual calculus that is seen in the course, but I would not rely solely on that knowledge.

As for the grading scheme, Dr. Bennoun is amazing when he automatically chooses the grade that you score better in. For scheme 1, the midterm is 27.5%, and the final is 37.5%, while for scheme 2, the midterm is 0%, and the final is 65%. You don't need to worry about which one is going into effect as long as you put in the work. Lastly, the surveys that are sprinkled throughout the quarter are for extra credit, but you must complete every single survey to get the extra credit. It's definitely worth the cushioning, especially since the midterm was crazy difficult.

Lastly, I thought it was frustrating how, even though there were practice midterms and finals, they would not always prepare you for the exams, and when I would try to find resources online, there was barely anything I could study. Throughout the quarter, I thought that I was going to fail the course because I perceived a sense of scarcity that I couldn't find anything.

Bennoun was a very chill professor and very helpful during his office hours. The course itself was a bit difficult in the beginning, but starts to get simpler towards the end. So focus on going to his office hours and the office hours of other TAs in order to pass. You do a really fun coding project mid-quarter, which is not as time consuming as long as you and your pod stay on task. Very nice professor for such a hard course.

Don't do this to yourself. Don't touch the LS 30 series if you can avoid it. Even if you think this one wasn't bad, 30B will hit you harder.