Professor Ou deserves so much more than the ratings on Bruinwalk. First off, Ou’s accent is not even that bad. Yes, it’s very noticeable, but you could totally understand him if you were even trying a little bit. It frustrated me that so many people kept laughing at him during the first couple of lectures, and you could tell that he noticed them. LEAVE HIM ALONE. Sure, he would spell words wrong here and there, but you knew what terms he meant. There was no need to publicly humiliate him like that. My friend took Brizolis, who is known to teach well and have no accent, but she ended up having to drop that class and retake it because of the overly difficult tests. On the other hand, Ou is such a fair professor and although there is the “grade distribution,” he doesn’t really go by it because he believes that if you deserve an A, you get an A. The few times I missed lecture and copied notes from a peer, the notes were so clear because Ou introduces methods in steps, and you can memorize them.

None of the 31A professors are great, but Ou is fair at least and teaches pretty well. He was confusing sometimes, but for the majority of the course, he explained concepts clearly. When I attended his office hours, he gave me his full attention and explained things in detail. In addition, the TAs were super helpful, but barely anyone attended their office hours. I would be the only person there for some weeks. The practice midterms are very similar to the real midterm. If I messed up on a test, I felt it was more frustration within myself rather than towards the course. I constantly checked in with Ou about assignments and discussed how I wanted an A in the class, and this helped him know me as a student. Overall, I feel very comfortable about my choice of taking Math 31A with Ou and believe he was the best choice compared to the other professors at the time. Math is one of my weaker subjects, and I worked really hard for my A-. If you don’t understand something, email Ou and your TAs or attend office hours. They’re happy to help you.

This class was horrible for me as my first introduction to college-level calculus. Wenhao as a professor is not a bad person by any means, but most of the time in class I felt completely lost as to what he was covering and spent probably 2-3x the amount of time outside of class trying to understand what it was he was *attempting* to teach. I learned pretty early on that he would teach things in a way which made no sense, and people in that class who had taken high school calculus before constantly were telling me of better ways that they had to solve problems. It was extremely frustrating to go to lecture and be taught something in a very convoluted and complicated way, only for Wenhao or someone else at the end to finish with "so all you need actually is this one equation lmao". Much of the class felt like a waste of time, and while I understand the value in deriving equations, I never understood when Wenhao was deriving an equation or when he was actually teaching how to solve a problem. This class was super confusing for me, and while his two midterms were almost identical to the practice he gave out, his final certainly was not--our average was around 77%, whereas for both the midterms the median was in the mid-90s. I'd definitely recommend a different professor if you haven't already learned the material--if you have had previous exposure to it, however, he's probably not your worst choice since you already have an idea of what it is you're supposed to be doing.

One of the worst professors. Never take him. You can barely understand a word that he says and he does not explain well. However, if you lose a bet and have to take him, I would recommend going to class. I probably went to a fourth of classes and one day he did this really weird example that I thought was worthless. Almost the exact problem was on the final and most people missed it.

The professor makes the midterms almost identical to the practice midterms but the final is completely different and extremely hard, it is what distinguishes someone from an A or B or C.

I want to preface this review by saying I do not like math in general and some of those preferences transferred over to my feelings about this class.
That being said, I strongly feel like this class was difficult to say the least and was taught in a way that was not friendly to someone trying grasp the concepts at a beginner level. I took calculus in high school and the concepts in this class were made unnecessarily difficult and extremely boring. Concepts that can be learned with a simple analogy often took an entire lecture and simple concepts were often over explained. The midterm was not terrible and the homework was not very time consuming however the final was much more difficult than expected. I ended with a B+ because of a generous curve but that is really about it.

Pros: I confirmed my distaste for math in this class.
Wenhou starts and ends on time.
The homework answers can be found online.

Cons: I was almost always frustrated.
The final sucked.
The professor has a poor grasp of what students do and do not already understand.

Overall, the professor is a nice guy but if you have to take a math class look for an alternative to this one and save yourself the trouble.

As long as you understand the process of how to do the problems on the practice tests you should be good. Midterms were pretty much identical to the practice midterms, however the final was more challenging. Homework is not too bad and I got full credit for all.

My best advice for this class would be to find a study group and study for everything with that group. Professor Ou isn't the best lecturer, but he gives out practice midterms that are almost identical to the actual midterm (he just changes the numbers in the problems) which are extremely valuable. If you completely understand the practice midterm, you will do well on the actual midterm. The first midterm wasn't too hard but the second midterm was slightly harder. I found the final to be pretty difficult, but somehow my grade ended up okay. He does curve the class which helps. You can also drop one midterm and just have the final worth more of your grade which is nice, I think that's what helped my final grade. There is weekly homework, but it isn't too hard and your two lowest homework grades are dropped. I never got less than an A on the homework, I just checked all of my answers online before turning it in. You do need the textbook for the homework, but there are similar versions of the textbook online, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend purchasing the textbook. As far as Professor Ou's helpfulness outside of class, I never actually went to his office hours, but I have friends who did and they said he was pretty helpful. I did go to my TA's office hours pretty frequently, which helped me. If you think you might struggle in this class, just utilize all of the resources available to you (office hours, free tutoring in the math center, etc.). Overall Professor Ou's 31A class is a pretty fair class, there is nothing on the tests you've never learned, and you basically know everything that will be on the tests ahead of time. Just find a study group to do the practice midterms with and you'll be fine.

Nice guy, somewhat incompetent professor. English isn't his first language though so everyone should cut him some slack, but that does mean that going to lecture won't really help. He does put in genuine effort to teach and his practice midterms were identical in structure and difficulty to the actual midterms, which did help a lot. Workload is really light too: homework is assigned/collected once a week and consisted of 10-20 problems usually. There are no tests or quizzes, only homework, 2 midterms and a final, which wasn't long but was pretty difficult. Frankly speaking if you want to succeed you're going to need at least some knowledge in calculus already; I went in having never taken an AP level calculus course and that was enough. Overall, it wasn't really a super difficult course and I respect Ou as a professor. Just attend lecture when you don't understand something, ask your TA questions during lecture, and put in the effort and you will be fine.

selling loose leaf textbook for this class
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Selling loose leaf Calculus Single Variable 3rd Edition. $50
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