He is incredibly kind and caring for his students, but was rarely helpful. When students asked questions in lecture or office hours, the answers were frequently long-winded or merely repetition of confusing initial explanations. He encouraged students to visit him during office hours and to email him with questions, but few, if any, students seemed to find these helpful.

There were significant technical issues throughout the quarter: even in a final review, I heard that the professor accidentally left during the middle of the session.

Chatterjee lectured using slides that were both disordered and filled with errors. He struggled with pacing, at times speaking too quickly for students to follow and at times moving incredibly slowly. He clearly knows the class material well, but doesn't seem to understand what material students will struggle with or be able to provide alternate explanations.

Homework answers are provided with assignments but are frequently incorrect. The homework is generally good preparation for exams, but some assignments were difficult more because of ridiculous integrations than implementing concepts.

This class was a lot of stress and I didn't feel like I learned anything by the end of the quarter. The textbook was generally more helpful than lectures in understanding differential equation concepts, but exams often featured conceptual equations answered in class.

He can not teach, period !

Lectures: mandatory attendance and he calls on people. His slides are extremely long and difficult to read. Teaches you all the things you need to know and be able to recite in the test but does not draw connection between different topics.

Discussion sections: taught me everything I need to know for this class. Bless the TA. It's a weekly 2-hour lecture that teaches you everything that's important.

Homework: Really fair and encompassing of the major knowledge points. Not excessively long and does a good job to check student comprehension.

Office Hours: he's really nice. Go to his office hours and talk with him.

Exams: Pretty fair exams. Similar format to homework questions usually with an extra thing to test comprehension. Does a good job checking for understanding of course material.

Overall: Be patient and persevere. Be prepared to go to discussions and look up some outside resources to gain a deeper degree of understanding. Definitely caused me some headaches at times but at the end, I feel okay.

Please please please please do not take it with him. If you can somehow diligently teach yourself everything and have a really good TA, maybe this would be an easy A. But this dude is too old to be teaching, literally bottom of the barrel at UCLA. I don't think it can get any worse. Very first week, I asked him to put the Files tab on Canvas because it wasn't there, and he was too stubborn to realize it actually wasn't there. I had to get the TA to publish the tab. His lectures are absolute snooze fests, all he does is read off the slide. When he tried to do problems on the board by drawing and walking us through them, it was still horrendous. He's actually deaf when you try to ask him questions. Not deaf as in he won't answer your questions, but deaf as in he literally cannot hear sometimes. And the few times someone did ask a question, they kind of got the question asked right back at them. I only learned from the solutions manual to the book and the TA's notes. There's a reason this class is not at full capacity when you enroll. Just don't

DISCLAIMER: This was online during COVID-19

Chatterjee was the worst professor I have ever had. Seeing his other reviews on here I am giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming that this online style of teaching is just not for him. He was really poor when it came to teaching us online. He was unclear, his notes were sloppy and illegible at times, he never clarified anything when it came to questions, his notation was inconsistent, and he was near computer illiterate. He is a nice guy and really wants his students to learn, but is not very good at helping them to learn (at least through online format). I would avoid taking this class with him at all costs if it is online, in person he might be better. The exams were tough (average for the midterm was 58%) and they were nearly undoable in the time frame he wanted them in. This class was very theoretical at times and he would often ask questions about a specific thing he explained for like 30 seconds in a lecture 2 weeks before hand that is not something really in the textbook (at least under the same name). I learned more from my TA than I did in his class. The textbook we had was awful which only added to the confusion.

My experience with this class went like this: Try to read the textbook before class so I would understand what he would be referencing -> go to class and not really understand much -> Go to discussion and actually learn the material -> read paul's online math notes (seriously these are life saver. Look them up if you are in this class) while I did the homework to actually get the concepts down. If Chatterjee was actually a good lecturer with good explanations this class wouldn't have been so bad, and the discussion session would have been review rather than like lecture 2.0

An important factor in this review is that I took this course in Spring 2020, which was completely online. Those of us that took this class at this time missed out on the in-person helpfulness that Chatterjee is apparently known for. The lectures were roughly based on slides, which would not be a problem if the slides were straightforward, legible, and correct. Instead, the slides were inconsistent and illegible at best. Numerous corrections were made during each presentation. This lack of attention to detail was reflected in the homework sets. The problems did not come out of the textbook and the solutions provided were often wrong, which was frustrating and prevented me from developing a sound understanding of how to solve differential equations. The tests were very difficult and were rarely at the level of what was discussed in class or what was presented in the recommended textbook. I went to office hours a handful of times, which confirmed that he definitely cares about his students, but his lack of clarity undermines that concern.

In short, Chatterjee is a caring, though unclear professor that I would not recommend.

I'm normally not the type to say this but the professor was pretty hard to understand. He seemed nice but I had a lot of difficulty deciphering what to take away from his words and sentences. Differential equations are already fairly difficult, so this class was definitely a struggle. I recall using online resources to teach myself and check my work because I was generally lost otherwise. It would have been helpful to have a basic knowledge of linear algebra before taking this course; it was very easy to get lost.

Terrible slides. Denied writing anything out in the board because he felt it would take up too much time, so he just reads off of slides. Not an engaging professor at all. Asking him questions will lead you to even more questions. No textbook required. You're better off using internet resources to learn differential equations. Just pray you get excellent TA's, Shoutouts Salim and Fadhel. On the other hand, the midterm and exams were pretty fair. We had 2-3 quizzes that were pretty fair too. Just hope that the TAs grade generously. Studying together for this class is crucial.

Avoid him if you can. If you can't:
Lectures: Professor Chatterjee cannot teach. He uses long, tedious, cramped, and consequently confusing slides to teach a subject that should be taught with handwritten examples. Every chapter has about 100 slides, of which there is little order and lots of unnecessary repetition. His explanations do not help either. No breaks are given during the 2 hour in-person lecture.
Discussions: A must-go. This time is when you will do most (all) of your learning. Bless the TAs who indulged our endless questions.
Homework: Not too long, but can be difficult depending on your grasp of concepts.
Exams: There are two quizzes, one midterm, and the final. The first two quizzes were reasonable, whereas the midterm was surprisingly difficult in comparison. Prepare hard for the midterm, you'll need it. The final was slightly fairer time-wise, but not much. Most importantly, have a theoretical knowledge of concepts, and know every possible proof relevant to the exam material.
Pursue outside resources and work your own examples, because there is no way you will successfully learn differential equations with him alone.

Chatterjee is the worst professor I have ever had in my life. He cannot explain shit, the few words you can make out from his mumbling are completely useless out of context, and he goes over the most ridiculously abstract things that seem inapplicable to actually performing math. I think thinking abstractly in math is super important and all, but in a class where being able to put solving into practice is legitimately useful, he falls so sub-par. If he spent the half hour he takes setting up equipment at the beginning of lecture to go over practice problems instead, this class would maybe be reasonable. Unfortunately, he's one of the few professors who teaches this, so if you're stuck with him then good luck, but please try to get this with someone else, for your own sake.