Look here if you want the definitive and fair review of Professor Mess.

Yes, he smells. Yes, he only has maybe two or three shirts. Yes, he's Canadian. And yes, he's a genius. The first three "yes's" refer to things that don't really matter in rating a professor. It's the class that counts. But in all honesty, it is in my true belief you will never experience someone like Mess.

He has a hard time explaining the material to the class. Since he's a genius, he thinks on a much higher plane than the students do. This leads to step-skipping in solving problems and frequent references to strict mathematical rules that the book doesn't even care about. He also loves to use his own variables; it is usually at the end of a detailed explanation that he explains what the variables actually mean. So prepare to be very, very confused during lectures. He says "um" a lot, too.

But the class isn't very hard. The thing students have to know is that Mess will ONLY pull stuff from his lectures and the homework and put them on the test. He also tells you in advance what will be on the tests, although he didn't do it for the 2nd midterm, and he basically lied for the final. Either way, you won't get any real out-of-the-world questions; everything you're asked to do will be familiar; it just depends on whether you remember them or not. Mess absolutely loves proofs, so if you never memorized a thing in your life, be prepared to memorize them now.

The 1st midterm destroyed a lot of people because they weren't prepared for what a Mess midterm would be like. The 2nd midterm was much easier; more than half the class got perfect scores. The final was somewhat of a joke, but Mess pulled a big one and lied about what was going to be on the test. He actually reused problems from the 1st and 2nd midterms; sometimes the problems were exactly what they were like before. Naturally, people prepared for the wrong things, so they got screwed over. But most people did well.

Basically, if you want to learn, avoid this class. If you want a high grade, you better know how this class works. Good luck.