I had an F on the first midterm and a D on the second. I thought it would be super easy entering the class, but it required more effort than people believe. I managed an A by the end because he allows the final to take 100% of students' grades.

Gieseker was not a bad professor, but not a great one either. The material was taught in a semi-straightforward (if boring) way. The midterm and final mirrored the homework material and the stuff we learned in class well (no surprises). My TA was incredible and basically made the class easy (Duncan). He is accessible, there was a grading mistake on one of my tests and he quickly corrected it. There's a little confusion on whether your homework counts towards the final grade, during my class, it didn't, but it was still helpful for the tests. If you have to take Math 61, your experience will be fine with this guy

He is not that bad but beware the people in the class are going to be super smart. You might think you did really well on the exams but your rank would still be outside the top 25% (the A range), he solely goes by your rank, ie even if you get a 90% and your rank is 50/160 you miss out on an A.
About the lectures, well they are boring, he does not teach stuff at all. I had an awesome TA(Duncan) he basically taught me the whole class.
I would not recommend him, take someone else if you can please!!

Professor Gieseker is a nice guy. But his lectures are horrible. Absolutely horrible. after week 5, less the half of the class showed up for the lecture. If I didn't have my TA (Duncan, the best) I would have totally failed the class. two options for grading. either 25% midterms each and 50 % final. or 100% final. homework does not count. the midterms and final were really on the easy side as there were more then 20 people getting 100s (100s!! i know) out of 120 people.

Class is curved so getting an A is a struggle. But other than that easy midterms and final. BUT 61 by subject requires lots of logic and understanding. If you don't study and don't develop a good strategy you will not be able to solve a single question.