Professor
Ciprian Manolescu
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Most Helpful Review
Manolescu was the most endearing professor I had all year. He's incredibly knowledgeable and will make you smile a lot in lecture with his little mannerisms and jokes. Super approachable. One thing I would recommend to incoming freshmen is to take this class very seriously, especially if you didn't take Calc BC in high school. I made the mistake of putting off any and all studying until the night before section every single week. Even though I got an A on all the quizzes, this was a really bad habit for math that I hadn't seen at all before coming here. The first midterm was a disaster, but the good thing is that he drops one of them if you do better on the other one. Just make sure not to make stupid little mistakes! That killed my grade without a doubt and I ended up getting a C+ on a test that I completely knew how to do. For the final, memorize the shit out of the power series! Know what they look like! I only memorized how to derive them, which was a huge waste of time on the final. You will need all three hours and you will probably walk out of there feeling like you were assaulted. I managed a B- in the class, but the moral is TAKE THIS CLASS SERIOUSLY. It's very doable if you're willing to put in work. Don't think you can get away with high school habits, because 31B is honestly one of the hardest classes you can take here.
Manolescu was the most endearing professor I had all year. He's incredibly knowledgeable and will make you smile a lot in lecture with his little mannerisms and jokes. Super approachable. One thing I would recommend to incoming freshmen is to take this class very seriously, especially if you didn't take Calc BC in high school. I made the mistake of putting off any and all studying until the night before section every single week. Even though I got an A on all the quizzes, this was a really bad habit for math that I hadn't seen at all before coming here. The first midterm was a disaster, but the good thing is that he drops one of them if you do better on the other one. Just make sure not to make stupid little mistakes! That killed my grade without a doubt and I ended up getting a C+ on a test that I completely knew how to do. For the final, memorize the shit out of the power series! Know what they look like! I only memorized how to derive them, which was a huge waste of time on the final. You will need all three hours and you will probably walk out of there feeling like you were assaulted. I managed a B- in the class, but the moral is TAKE THIS CLASS SERIOUSLY. It's very doable if you're willing to put in work. Don't think you can get away with high school habits, because 31B is honestly one of the hardest classes you can take here.
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Most Helpful Review
The honor class is small and there is a lot of personal attention, but you are competing with some of the smartest people at UCLA for a good grade. He is generous with the grading but everyone in the class probably got A's in their prior math classes. Only take if you can challenge the best students at UCLA. There are a lot of proofs on the homework, but thats expected of an honors class.
The honor class is small and there is a lot of personal attention, but you are competing with some of the smartest people at UCLA for a good grade. He is generous with the grading but everyone in the class probably got A's in their prior math classes. Only take if you can challenge the best students at UCLA. There are a lot of proofs on the homework, but thats expected of an honors class.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - It might just be me but I really struggled in this class. The professor is honestly really good and I felt like I understood the material more than my grade reflects (not to say a B is bad by any means). The homework was graded really harshly but hw isn't worth much so it doesn't really matter. However, it's the tests that really got me. He offers to drop the lower midterm but that couldn't even save me. I got 10% below average on the first one (yikes). 100% on the second (idk how that happened) and dead average on the final. Got a B so not bad at all. The problems with the tests though is that it isn't structured like a normal math test I've taken in my other math classes here. There are a good amount of long response and proof questions but the weird thing is that there is a good amount of multiple choice and true/false questions. So on those it's all credit or nothing which can really mess you up. Hope you get a good TA because I'm sure that would really help. In my case my TA wasn't helpful. If I asked him to explain something, he would be like "well the answer is obviously 12 raised to 4 factorial divided by n choose 7 summed to infinity" and was just unable to explain how he got there.
Spring 2018 - It might just be me but I really struggled in this class. The professor is honestly really good and I felt like I understood the material more than my grade reflects (not to say a B is bad by any means). The homework was graded really harshly but hw isn't worth much so it doesn't really matter. However, it's the tests that really got me. He offers to drop the lower midterm but that couldn't even save me. I got 10% below average on the first one (yikes). 100% on the second (idk how that happened) and dead average on the final. Got a B so not bad at all. The problems with the tests though is that it isn't structured like a normal math test I've taken in my other math classes here. There are a good amount of long response and proof questions but the weird thing is that there is a good amount of multiple choice and true/false questions. So on those it's all credit or nothing which can really mess you up. Hope you get a good TA because I'm sure that would really help. In my case my TA wasn't helpful. If I asked him to explain something, he would be like "well the answer is obviously 12 raised to 4 factorial divided by n choose 7 summed to infinity" and was just unable to explain how he got there.
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