Horrible teacher. Got his examples wrong all the time. There's a reason the only times more than thirty people showed up to class were midterms and when homework was due. Also despite what other reviews from earlier terms claimed he provided no practice tests for my class. Didn't help that my TA was inept too. I implore you, take it from someone else.

There are two ways to think of Rothschild: If you need lecture to learn anything, then avoid him. Lectures are absolutely useless. He does not teach the material well at all. He will usually get his example problems wrong, or more likely, get distracted and start talking about his childhood, kitten stamps, or how fossils are formed. He is absolutely useless in this regard.

However, Rothschild's tests are pretty easy. He posts practice tests in the days before and the real tests are almost identical. If you can teach yourself the material, or have a good TA, have a friend teach you, go to Covel, etc, this really isn't a bad class to take. I've found that math lectures really don't help me learn much anyway, so if you're willing to do all the homework, do some extra practice problems, go to discussions, and go to office hours if need be, there is no reason that you can't get an A in his class.

So, if you are good at teaching yourself, or have prior knowledge of the material, I'd say go ahead and take Rothschild, but if not, look for other professors.

Prof. Rothschild is probably the worst math teacher I've ever had. He never explained the material in class, always got his examples on the board wrong, and didn't seem to know what he was talking about. However, he was a really nice person and a great character. The walls of his office are covered in pink flamingos and he sits at his desk on an exercise ball. He's always the only one in class who forgets to turn his cell phone off. I have trouble learning math from reading a book, so because his lectures were so useless, this class was really difficult. I did end up with a good grade, only because of the really generous curves that he puts on his tests. The average score on the second midterm was around 60%, so he curved that to a B+. So if you can, avoid taking his class. If you must take his class, go to your TA's office hours because he doesn't seem to be able to help too much in his office hours (he gets distracted very easily).