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.

I haven't even received my official grade for the class, but I know my grade will be bad.
Brizolis isn't even a bad professor or teacher - it's just the tests that are IMPOSSIBLE.

I passed calc AB and calc BC, and I thought this would be the easiest review class. WRONG. His tests are IMPOSSIBLE to do in 50 minutes ACCURATELY, or to even just finish in time. This midterm I just took wasn't even hard - he made it easier I think. But just doing it accurately in 50 minutes was pointless.

He's a nice guy and always dresses nice to class, so I feel bad making this review. He's not even a bad teacher. But seriously, even if you did well in calculus in high school like I did, you'll be struggling while your friends in Ou and Marks' class are doing just fine and they will think you're stupid for struggling in 31A - but in reality they'd be doing bad too if they had Brizolis.

TAKE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here goes the most honest, objective, and thorough review you will probably see.

LECTURES
1. Draws a graph.
2. Starts with an example.
3. Does not finish solving the sample problem.
4. Gives out a formula.
5. Proves the formula and its derivatives.
6. Never tests us on proofs so he always wastes 10-15 minutes of lecture time that could otherwise be used to give more examples.

MIDTERMS
1. Gives out a practice midterm.
2. Concepts that will be on the actual midterm are the same as the ones from the practice midterm; however, the actual midterms will require you to algebraically solve astoundingly petty* numbers.
3. No matter how well you understand the concept, if you make a mistake in/have a hard time solving the petty numbers then you're doomed.

*by "petty" I don't mean petty as in (sqrt of 2)^5, but as in (sqrt of 21.7927)^(-1/3))/(7.9283)^(1/4).

There is even a question on the second midterm in which he expects us to know by heart that the value of pi/4 is 0.7584 (yes, up to 4 digits after the decimal point). It was never even mentioned in lectures and discussions that we have to know it. Now, THAT's petty.

There will be 4 (a & b) questions on the midterms, so a total of 8 questions. In each question, you have to calculate numbers like these on top of the theorems you have to apply and the final result won't be pretty.

Perhaps if the time limit was more than 50 minutes then his tests would be doable, but still unnecessarily difficult.

Brizolis himself is a nice guy and I have nothing against him personally. However, the way that his lectures are executed and tests are designed is almost as if he is deliberately setting up students to fail his class.

Many students were recommended by Brizolis himself to drop the class after the first midterm (week 3), and more ended up failing the course.

HOMEWORK
-around 5 to 10 even-numbered questions from the textbook
-assigned at the end of every lecture
-submitted at the beginning of the next lecture (so you have 2 days to do it)
-a total of 3 homework each week
-graded homework will be handed back in 2 weeks during the discussion section

CONCLUSION
1. Take this class if you are excellent at Mathematics (excellent = probably scored at least 5 on IB Math HL).
2. Otherwise, I recommend that you take this course with a different lecturer OR take a different Mathematics course entirely.
3. If you have no other option but to take Math 31A with Brizolis, I suggest that you: (a) frequent the Student Math Center, (b) go to his/TA's office hours even for the slightest hint of confusion, (c) hire a tutor.
4. Textbook PDF is available online for free.

His lectures were theory-based and he hardly solved examples to drive in the crux of the matter into the students. His practice midterms did not resemble the actual midterms much. All in all, take this class only if you are willing to sit through mostly unhelpful lectures and willing to do a lot of understanding by yourself.

So obviously you're taking this class as a pre-req, and I mean if you're good at math you should be fine. Brizolis is a nice dude, gives a generous curve at the end of the class, and also my TA Zane was great. But Brizolis teaches all his stuff in proofs as opposed to examples even though he doesnt test you on the proofs and it just takes up class time. So that's kind of confusing for lectures, but he wasn't bad. I heard Andrew and Conley are the best tho

When the class first started, I really thought Brizolis was a troll and just wanted to make life hard for everyone. But the exams are doable and yes, you can get an A in this class. He gave out practice midterms and his past finals which mirrored the questions on our actual tests. He made the second midterm a little too hard, that he added 15% to everyone's grades even though he said he did not curve his classes. Keep in mind, he does like to "challenge" us and throw in unnecessary algebra and square roots that are besides the calculus concepts that you need to know. His lectures aren't the best because he likes to go over the theories and how to derive the formulas, but the examples are good to pay attention to. It was a challenging class, but it's definitely possible to get an A in if you work for it. I would take him again for another math class. He's also super savage and can make the class laugh.

Oh, and my first impression of him was that he could be on Dancing with the Stars. This guy always got his dress shirt paired with dress pants like he's about to break out some moves on the floor. But when it got colder, he would wear like the grandpa sweaters. That was cool too.

Professor Brizolis is a lowkey savage. With a topic like calculus that's completely foreign to about 97.5% of people, his humor is a pretty big asset to keeping students engaged in lectures. As a teacher, he's not super amazing, but he'll definitely get you through everything you need to know. He's also really reasonable; he originally said he didn't curve, but when he realized he made the second midterm much harder than he thought it was, he boosted everyone's score by 15%. Besides that, the first midterm and the final featured questions that all at least resembled an example he went over in class or in the homework. However, some of them will be quite obscure, but still, no new material made up at the last minute just to trip students up on the final. On another note, the textbook, which can also be used for 31B, can be found for free as a PDF online, don't buy it. Overall, a solid class and solid professor.

I'm a math major and I took two years of calculus in high school and cruised A's both years, so i enrolled in this class thinking it would be an easy A for someone who already knows limits/derivatives/integrals etc. I understood all of the lectures and homework, and then the midterm was the most ridiculous bullshit questions i had never seen anything like before in my life. I went to office hours to go over complicated homework problems, but even his practice mid terms are no comparison to the exams that make you want to cry a little. Everyone took the entire class time for the mid terms and the full three hours writing furiously for the final. His lectures give limited examples, long-winded proofs that we don't need to know, complicated roundabout definitions, and no real step-by-step structure as to how to even approach problems.
I mostly relied on my prior knowledge and some youtube videos for things like optimization and more advanced integrals. If you've never taken a calc class before this, don't waste your time.

Also don't buy the textbook, it's online in a pdf.

This class is for the brave, the savage math gods, or people like me who needed to be humbled and rethink their major.

Even though I just got a B in this class, I really loved it. Brizolis is funny and doesn't mind going over concepts multiple times. He gives two take home quizzes and one quiz that has to be attempted in the section. The first midterm was easy and the second one was very hard but he added 15 points to the final score because he said that he had underestimated the toughness of the quiz. The discussions are pointless but it's worth going to get back your homework and see where you went wrong. His practice test are pretty accurate. My tip would be to not miss classes and try and get a good grade in the quizzes and homeworks.

Professor Brizolis makes it clear and easy to understand basic calculus by his legible handwriting and gentle voice. Though he did a few proofs, he illustrates many useful examples that might appear similarly in the homework, quiz, or even the exam. I like his class in which he often tells jokes, and he's a nice and funny guy who grades fairly. He always gives us practice mid-term or final before the actual ones, which are really helpful for revising. You don't have to worry about the actual exams as long as you've done the practice ones. To our surprise, professor Brizolis curved the second mid-term, which is considered harder by most people, and everyone gets a boost of 15 points.
For those who never learned calculus before, he would recommend you drop the class if you screw in the first mid-term. However, if you've already taken IB, AP, A-level, etc, you are good to go and may get an easy ''A'', because Math 31A is not designed to be tricky. If you want to take his class, I would recommend you get a PDF version of textbook and often review the textbook, because the textbook sometimes provides an easier method and step-by-step proofs.