Brizolis is a very straightforward lecturer who explains concepts very throughly and well. As someone who took AP Calc AB in high school, I found his midterms to be doable. Overall, the concepts in 31A are pretty simple but Brizolis likes to make his exam questions unnecessarily long-winded. Luckily if you do the practice tests, you should be good for the midterms. The final on the other hand...he managed to destroy everyone's grades and everyone looked shell-shocked coming out of the exam. I was barely able to finish the exam within the 3 hours time slot so be warned!!

the final fucked our whole class over. look for past exams from the test bank and on course hero. do them even if he's never taught it in class, he gives 0 fks. my GPA died because of this class. if you're stuck with him, prepare yourself. do all of your homework, try to get full marks on the quizzes and mid terms, go to all office hours because he explains difficult homework problems there. and go early because there will be a lot of people there. and pray hard. really really hard

This class was ridiculous. Professor Brizolis is a smart dude, don’t get me wrong, but his lectures were incredibly fast and hard to follow. He also had a lot of trouble understanding/answering students questions during lecture - whether it was because he was a little hard of hearing, or because he couldn’t comprehend our little pea brains, I couldn’t tell you. Most of the his lectures were proof-based anyways because he claimed that he “wouldn’t be doing his job” if he didn’t explain the proofs in excruciating detail.
Homework is assigned every lecture and must be turned in every lecture, but honestly since it was only worth 5% of your grade you can say it’s just for practice sake. Doing the homework is very helpful, though, and I recommend doing it. He does not curve either, and according to him we were one of the smartest classes he’s ever had (which everybody laughed at because we thought he was joking but it turns out he wasn’t). I never took Calc BC in high school, so learning the material for the first time in his class was extremely difficult, but I ended up with pretty decent scores on the midterms and finals: 90% on Midterm 1, 80% on Midterm 2, 92% on final.
I was blessed with Joe Breen as my TA, which is probably the only reason I got the grade I did. Trust me, this man is a godsend and I owe him everything.

TLDR; this class is not impossible. Even with the right TA, though, you definitely have to study hard and pray that one mistake won’t mess up your entire grade.

The other reviews were pretty close, so I’ll just give a brief summary of my situation. I got C+ under semi-questionable conditions. I scored 100% on the quiz and the second midterm, but I got around 65-70% on first midterm and final. I think I deserved a B+, also I did every single hw, so idk what he really wanted. You really do need to get very good scores for all of the tests to get an A in the class. My TA was very helpful with helping me understand the information, so attend the discussions. Brizolis really didn’t explain a lot of the stuff, and mostly focused on useless proofs and unnecessary material. Take him if you’re very confident in your math skills, otherwise find another professor.

I took this class with Brizolis, didn't pass, and then retook it with a different professor and got an A. Granted, I was retaking the class so obviously I had an advantage, but the second time around my tests were SIGNIFICANTLY easier than the ones Brizolis gave. The majority of what he does in class is proofs and theories with limited examples, and then the exams are more of a test of your high school algebra skills than anything.

Listen to the rest of the reviews, and DO NOT take this class with him if you have the chance. If it's your only option, do the homework thoroughly every time it's assigned (which is every class), and study HARD for the midterms and final.

What might be good about his 31B class: Professor Brizolis is helpful and cares about his students. He holds office hours on every lecture day (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) for most of the weeks. Although I didn't visit him in office hours, I heard from my classmate that his office hours are effective and are worth going to. He constantly communicate with us through e-mail especially during exam weeks and generally respond to my e-mails pretty quickly. He did mention the style of exam questions as he explaines some examples during lectures, and his practice mid-terms are valuable resources for studying both mid-terms as the real ones are very similar in format to these samples. By mastering the practice mid-terms and knowing what's basically going on in this course, one (with a fairly solid high school calc background) can probably secure a very decent grade before the final as long as no fatal mistakes occur. Although I don't know whether or not & to what extent he really considers improvement, Professor Brizolis do claim that we shall not be discouraged by a single bad grade and if you improve a lot in later exams, he will give you a decent grade that you deserve. For me, I think the best way to learn math is by solving problems, so I found his homework after every lecture useful. I got Tim Smits as my TA and he is very effective in his discussion sessions and very resourceful for exam-preparations. He covers questions or topics that does not go in depth in lectures in a very efficient manner, and he provides tons of practice questions and is always there to help during exam weeks.

What might not be good about his 31B class: Although Professor Brizolis claims that he takes improvement into account, he is generally a very strict evaluator. There is no curve (I guess unless the whole class perform extremely poorly), no extra credit, no weighting options (some other maths courses can replace a bad mid-term with a increasing weight on the final, but Brizolis made the weighted percentage for every exam unchangable) and thus very limited space for mistakes throughout the quarter. Getting an A or above means both lots of hard work, and perfect performance during exams. I personally think one or two really tiny mistakes lowered my A to A- . For the hw assignment after every lecture, although it could be useful, it is not a light burden since they are collected in the next lecture and are graded strictly (as you might feel necessary to make sure hw grades are as high as possible). The mid-terms are doable and simlilar to the samples, but the final is harder and very strained in time. Professor Brizolis goes throughly into proof for every lecture, but the process simply takes unnecessarily long time because he goes into too many details which also increased the chance for him to make mistakes. I don't mind taking 5 to 10 minutes every lecture to learn about proof, but spending more than half of the time on such stuff that is never tested is not reasonable for me. Although he managed to cover almost everything in syllabus, some of the topics are just rushed through and are taught very roughly, including certain topics that are tested heavily on the final. I really think Professor Brizolis could find another way of teaching proof that enables him to teach more exam related stuff during lectures.

As much as the fall 2018 reviews for Brizolis are warranted terrible, I will give you a voice of reason here. Brizolis is genuinely a better professor than my 31B professor is now, and I feel like I genuinely learned a lot about calculus (and algebra, for that matter) from his class. If you are at UCLA to learn (what are you, a nerd?), then this class is a fantastic choice. That said, if you care about your grade, even a little bit, do not take 31A with Brizolis. I would imagine that he learned his lesson by giving the world's most hellish and curveball final to students that did not even remotely see it coming, considering the godawful reviews he received for this quarter. Nonetheless, you need to be warned, that unless your other two classes are an absolute joke, this class will put you into the soil. You will need to work like you've never worked before, but by god, if you have that ethic, you will emerge a deity of calculus.

This class is no joke. I came in with a solid math background from AP Calc AB, so I'd seen all of the concepts covered in the class before. I even thought I had a pretty grasp on how to do all of the problems. Even still, I was woefully unprepared for the midterms.

The midterms were the most ridiculous questions I'd ever seen in my life. I got an A on both quizzes given out in section, yet barely pulled a D on the midterms. Plus, you only have 50 minutes. Nobody ever finished early.

Brizolis himself is a nice guy and is super helpful in office hours. The homework can be pretty difficult so I was always in there asking for help. His lectures are all proof-based, though. Don't expect him to do any practice problems.

Like someone else said, this class is for the brave and the savage math gods. I would highly discourage anyone from taking this class unless you're incredibly confident in your calculus prowess.

Proffessor Brizolis is nice enough and he actually teaches us to learn calculus. He doesn't curve the class and his tests are very fast paced so you need to time yourself well. However, he's a good lecturer and is helpful in office hours.

He also gives alot of HW and it keeps increasing as the quarter pass by. I would take Brizolis again because I think he's a nice enough Proffessor who is quite helpful.

P.S He answers all the HW problems in Office Hours so GO TO OFFICE HOURS. It's crowded as hell but worth every minute. He's also really nice in office hours and give helpful hints about exams.

Professor Brizolis is a very nice and genuine guy. He enjoys teaching, and it shows. With that being said, this is not an easy class. You will get homework after every lecture (3 times a week), while other 31a classes only give homework once a week. Additionally, Brizolis likes to "challenge" his students, as he assumes that students have taken high school calc and wants to teach them new stuff. This means that his test problem types are unique, and studying practice tests from other professors will generally be useless. I would highly recommend going to AS MANY OFFICE HOURS AS POSSIBLE, as it helps you learn his teaching styles and the theorems/concepts he emphasizes. I did well in high school calc, and this was still my hardest class by far. But, overall, Brizolis is a fair grader and a cool dude just to talk to.