Professor
Jeremy Wu
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - Teaching Style/Lecture: Professor Wu is a brand new teacher and he simply doesn't know how to teach. He's super qualified in the math field and is definitely a smart guy, but he genuinely made this basic calculus class way too hard and confusing. If you haven't taken AP Calculus AB I can see this class being extremely difficult to follow. The material is easy to learn with other online resources like Khan Academy, but the issue is that his midterms and final are solely based on lecture problems and homework problems, so you have to attend lecture or watch lecture (since they're recorded). He made easy topics way too confusing, he moved super fast, and he didn't always finish his own example problems. Oftentimes, he'd tell us to just reference his notes (which can be found on the Canvas site) because he always ran out of time. Also, I'm pretty sure the examples he did were just found in the book, but he didn't even explain them well and he had really particular ways of doing it. If he didn't have his notes to glance at, sometimes he'd even get stuck doing his own problems. Homework: The homework is super manageable and he pulls his test questions pretty much directly from them or from lectures. But, he never does examples in class quite like the homework, and you never get an answer key for them. He gave us extra practice problems too, but without answer keys, it's hard to check if you're really doing it right. Also at the beginning of the quarter, nobody knew if the homework was graded on completion or correctness (it was correctness). Tests: We never got notes, flashcards, etc. even when the other Math 31A classes got them. He's also super vague when it comes to what to expect on the midterms and final. The first midterm was graded out of 100 but you could get up to 160 points, so you had 60 to spare. But the second midterm was graded on only 2 out of the 5 problems on the test, without any extra points this time. It was super random and the class average for the second midterm was a high D but he said that getting a C is really good in his class, even though most people got 100 on the first midterm (which makes no sense to me). The final had questions we had already seen on each of the midterms, and it barely tested us on the entire second half of the course (integrals and FTC). Office Hours/TAs: His office hours were not helpful at all and only made me more confused. They were held in this little room where people sat on the floor, and some people had to stand outside the door simply because there was no room (where you couldn't even see). His class was so confusing and he communicated poorly with the TAs too. I loved my TA though, he was so helpful (until the strike occurred so we stopped getting help) but the TAs never knew what the midterms would look like and they didn't really know what we were learning in class. Overall: I'm usually super good at math and I've taken this course before, but it was taught in a way that made it more difficult than it should've been. This class itself shouldn't be hard, but I definitely don't feel prepared for 31B. In the end, I don't know how he graded the final or whether this class was curved (because he said it might be). He also never responded to 3 emails I sent him. If I didn't get an A I think I would've been far more frustrated, I'm just glad I passed. I think he knew so many kids were frustrated and kind of handed out As at the end.
Fall 2022 - Teaching Style/Lecture: Professor Wu is a brand new teacher and he simply doesn't know how to teach. He's super qualified in the math field and is definitely a smart guy, but he genuinely made this basic calculus class way too hard and confusing. If you haven't taken AP Calculus AB I can see this class being extremely difficult to follow. The material is easy to learn with other online resources like Khan Academy, but the issue is that his midterms and final are solely based on lecture problems and homework problems, so you have to attend lecture or watch lecture (since they're recorded). He made easy topics way too confusing, he moved super fast, and he didn't always finish his own example problems. Oftentimes, he'd tell us to just reference his notes (which can be found on the Canvas site) because he always ran out of time. Also, I'm pretty sure the examples he did were just found in the book, but he didn't even explain them well and he had really particular ways of doing it. If he didn't have his notes to glance at, sometimes he'd even get stuck doing his own problems. Homework: The homework is super manageable and he pulls his test questions pretty much directly from them or from lectures. But, he never does examples in class quite like the homework, and you never get an answer key for them. He gave us extra practice problems too, but without answer keys, it's hard to check if you're really doing it right. Also at the beginning of the quarter, nobody knew if the homework was graded on completion or correctness (it was correctness). Tests: We never got notes, flashcards, etc. even when the other Math 31A classes got them. He's also super vague when it comes to what to expect on the midterms and final. The first midterm was graded out of 100 but you could get up to 160 points, so you had 60 to spare. But the second midterm was graded on only 2 out of the 5 problems on the test, without any extra points this time. It was super random and the class average for the second midterm was a high D but he said that getting a C is really good in his class, even though most people got 100 on the first midterm (which makes no sense to me). The final had questions we had already seen on each of the midterms, and it barely tested us on the entire second half of the course (integrals and FTC). Office Hours/TAs: His office hours were not helpful at all and only made me more confused. They were held in this little room where people sat on the floor, and some people had to stand outside the door simply because there was no room (where you couldn't even see). His class was so confusing and he communicated poorly with the TAs too. I loved my TA though, he was so helpful (until the strike occurred so we stopped getting help) but the TAs never knew what the midterms would look like and they didn't really know what we were learning in class. Overall: I'm usually super good at math and I've taken this course before, but it was taught in a way that made it more difficult than it should've been. This class itself shouldn't be hard, but I definitely don't feel prepared for 31B. In the end, I don't know how he graded the final or whether this class was curved (because he said it might be). He also never responded to 3 emails I sent him. If I didn't get an A I think I would've been far more frustrated, I'm just glad I passed. I think he knew so many kids were frustrated and kind of handed out As at the end.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - This class was the first math class I took at UCLA. I thought that it was a pretty good class, as the teacher was very thorough with his work. Furthermore, the TAs would have a weekly discussion which helped solidify the information learned through the week. The tests were difficult, however some of the questions would be extremely similar to the ones on the homework, which was helpful. To clarify, he would give you a homework set with around thirty problems, but only a handful of the thirty would be required to submit within that homework. He would then take some of the examples from the thirty problems and use them on the exams. He would also drop one of the two midterms, which was great as the second midterm seemed to be much easier than the first.
Winter 2024 - This class was the first math class I took at UCLA. I thought that it was a pretty good class, as the teacher was very thorough with his work. Furthermore, the TAs would have a weekly discussion which helped solidify the information learned through the week. The tests were difficult, however some of the questions would be extremely similar to the ones on the homework, which was helpful. To clarify, he would give you a homework set with around thirty problems, but only a handful of the thirty would be required to submit within that homework. He would then take some of the examples from the thirty problems and use them on the exams. He would also drop one of the two midterms, which was great as the second midterm seemed to be much easier than the first.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - I really loved 131A with Professor Wu! He is an amazing professor, during lecture he used many colored chalks and helped build intuition for the harder concepts. He also always provided midterm/final reviews and during office hours he was very approachable and helpful. Although the class is one of the hardest math courses, this class really helped me build strong foundations in proof writing and core concepts I still use. It was overall a very rewarding class, so if you have the option to take 131A with Wu, I highly recommend. You will learn a lot and are in good hands :)
Spring 2023 - I really loved 131A with Professor Wu! He is an amazing professor, during lecture he used many colored chalks and helped build intuition for the harder concepts. He also always provided midterm/final reviews and during office hours he was very approachable and helpful. Although the class is one of the hardest math courses, this class really helped me build strong foundations in proof writing and core concepts I still use. It was overall a very rewarding class, so if you have the option to take 131A with Wu, I highly recommend. You will learn a lot and are in good hands :)
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