Best professor I've had at UCLA. He was clear when it came to explaining the concepts. I would definitely 100% take another class with him. Sweetest professor ever. I learned so much in his class.

Overall Bennoun is a GOAT, he gave us a hard midterm but the final was much easier comparatively. He gives you enough time to finish all the labs in class so the only real homework is to do the assignments, I took it as a GE which is cool if you're someone who doesn't like bio as much, recommend.

Professor Bennoun is an amazing professor and he is generous. He switched our bonus from 0.5% to 2.5% after finding out that Professor Shevstov let her students gain back points for their midterm. He's great at teaching, but please don't think this class is an easy A. A lot of the reviews from the past were from COVID so they took it online. In 2022, the grade adjustments were made so it was also easier for them.

Textbook: You don't need to use it all.

Lectures: Go to the lecture and make sure you pay attention, especially during the clickers. A lot of the concepts from the lecture show up on the midterm. When Professor Bennoun explains concepts, make sure you understand them and you're able to write down what the concepts imply when you take your tests.

Homework: Going to the lecture alone wasn't enough for me to complete the homework successfully. I went to office hours each week. I highly recommend Micah Vinet's office hours if he's still a TA by the time you see this. He has the most students coming, but he does the problems on the board and it starts to make so much sense. I received 100% on each homework assignment AND I understood everything thanks to office hours.

Midterm: It was so bad for me. I got a C- and I thought there was no chance of me getting an A, let alone an A+. I studied a lot, but I feel like I didn't study right if that makes sense.... The practice midterms were not enough and were way easier than the actual midterm.

Labs: The labs were easy at first but they got pretty difficult. Make sure you try to do as much as you can during lab sections and don't be afraid to ask your TA for help. It's their job and all of them are friendly.

Lab Practical: The lab practical was easy because I studied the past labs, but it took me a while to get the hang of it. Start early and keep practicing until you feel like a pro.

Final: When I flipped through the final, I was so relieved. I think Bennoun and his team realized that we struggled a lot on the midterm, so the final was fair. I got an A on the final and I studied by going through the past homework, doing the practice midterms, and attending office hours. At one point I attended four office hours a day. It was a lot of hard work but it was worth it in the end. Also, the TAs are so generous when it comes to grading the exams.

The reason I got an A+ in this class is because of Bennoun's grading schemes. Two grading schemes take away the midterm and increase the final exam percentage from 35% to 60%. If you do badly on your midterm, don't think it's over. An A in this class is so doable, but it's not extremely easy. Good luck!

It's a pretty easy class if you keep up with assignments and go to office hours. He is really nice and his midterms are exactly what you learn in class. He is also very flexible, if you can come to class, he posts them online so you can do them for participation 10/10 . The labs can be a little challenging bur the TA's are extremely helpful

Only take this class if you already have experience with calculus!! Bennoun is a kind, good lecturer. However, his tests are unfairly hard and he often gives long homework assignments that feel like busy work.

LS30A was definitely a struggle - this was pretty evident based on the overflowing office hours that kept increasing in attendance as the quarter went on, and sentiments from friends/peers. This class is not curved, so you really need to have a solid understanding of all the concepts to do well. The midterm (for F23) was extremely challenging, like some others mentioned - I studied literally so hard for it, thought it was difficult (everyone did), and got an 81%. However, Professor Bennoun has 3 different grading schemes that you can use to get the best possible grade in this class - which is really nice. I got a 99% on the final (I thought it was way easier than the midterm), so I was able to pull my grade back up using a different scheme. The lab portion of this class is also pretty challenging, especially for people with no coding experience (basically everyone). They start out pretty simple and guided with a lot of instructions, but they get harder pretty quickly with less instruction and more "figure it out on your own"! It also didn't help that labs were almost nothing related to the class/lecture content. Therefore, I thought the lab practical (the coding "final" of the class) was pretty difficult, but I still got a 90% somehow through generous partial credit, I guess. Ending with some tips:

- GO TO MANY TA OFFICE HOURS. Pick your favorite TAs, and go to their OHs every week. And don't just go to get answers to your homework and labs. Try to really understand and learn from office hours, because if you're just copying the TA's answers, you won't do well on the exams. You have to know what they're doing and be able to replicate the work/concepts yourself.
- Study consistently for this class - try not to cram before exams. Review your lecture notes after each lecture, make them more organized, and see if you understood everything.
- Try to get help on and understand the labs and the *meaning* of the code. Again, you can copy code from peers and TAs who help you, but you'll have to understand it when the lab practical rolls around in week 10.

Overall, an interesting and doable class that requires a lot of hard work and persistence. I did have a breakdown in one LS30A lecture this quarter because I was so overwhelmed. Just know it'll all work out and be fine in the end - all you can do is study hard and try your best. You got this!

Gonna keep this short and sweet

Lectures: Funny guy. I do strongly believe his lectures are easy to follow and he explains well, but then the homework sometimes felt like a stretch of what he actually taught us.

Midterm: Was not as easy as the practice midterms, felt super unprepared during the test, got lots of partial credit though.

Final: WAY EASIER THAN THE MIDTERM. The feeling that the final was going to be like the midterm made me study for days in the library and it ultimately prepared me well.

Coding Labs: Trial and error focused, TRY TO GET AS MUCH DONE IN THE LAB SECTION. Once you leave class and you encounter an error with your code its harder to receive help

Lab Practical: I personally did not really like how some discussions got easier questions because the lab practical is taken over the course of week 10, so not everyone takes it at the same time, thus causing them to change the questions for each discussion. It was generally easy if you study, it was only four questions.

Overall - had the minor hiccup with my midterm but the grading scheme came in clutch since I got an A on my Final. I am taking him again next quarter and hope for the same results. He is great at explaining and will walk around during lecture during group discussions.

Professor Bennoun was super nice. The class lectures are easy, but the homework often was more challenging and often didn't match up with the learned material. The lab were tough for first time coders, like myself, but office hours help with those. Otherwise the class was an encouraging and engaging environment!

Went in with no calculus experience and found it pretty easy. Very light workload compared to my other classes and I didn't study as much. Lots of people complained how it wasn't "real math", but I jsut think it's very niche (honestly just focuses on populations). Liked Bennoun even though I never talked to him myself. Slides were helpful. Melody is the BEST TA. I actually ended up loving coding when I had minimal experience! Lab practical was 4 questions and super easy as it wasn't anything too specific.

Class: Prof Bennoun was genuinely such a great lecturer and I really enjoyed taking this class. He was always super nice and really helpful and engaging in how he answers questions! As someone who did terrible in calculus in high school, this class did a good job of explaining concepts I never really understood, and was more focused on the applications of math instead of just straight up numbers. All his lectures + annotated slides are uploaded onto BruinLearn which makes it really easy to review, especially if you missed parts of class. That being said, answering the iClicker questions are part of your participation, and if they apparently have ways of knowing if you answered out of class (I got an email saying they were gonna send me to the dean if it happened again even though I was in class that day?? idk but watch out I guess). The class also uses Piazza which is basically Reddit for the class and you could usually get a pretty timely response from TAs, students, or Steve.

Coding: Don't be intimidated by the coding! I had trauma from high school CS but CoCalc was easy to understand as long as you have a TA who's willing to answer questions, and I finished the coding final in like half of the given time.

Tests:
Final was much easier than the midterm, and most people I spoke to agreed. But with both, if you could find some mathematical error after they graded it, you could send a regrade request with why you deserve the point, as long as no one abuses it. Do the practice midterms, attend class weeks 5 & 10 for EC, and watch the review sessions. If you get it in class, you'll probably understand it on the exam, just watch out for wording on the change equations.