OMG where do I begin?!?! Jukka will be the best math teacher, if not the best teacher you've ever had. Words cannot explain how terrified I was for Math 31A and he completely eased my worries within the first week. The COUNTLESS review sessions for the Midterm and Final also show how much he wants us to succeed in the class. He told us he sleeps 3-4 hours a day and it's literally because he works so hard for us :(. I will say, this class is a LOT of homework (up to 80 hour-long problems in a week), but it's all extremely helpful in understanding the material. Be prepared to dedicate most of your life to this class when you take it, but I wouldn't have had it any other way! If you fail the class initially (calc is sooo tough), Jukka will give you the opportunity to take an oral test with him through Zoom (basically a giveaway). He's the sweetest and he deserves the WORLDDDD!!!!! I also want to say that this was my first calc class and my math skills are absolutely horrifying. So if I can do it, you can too! Take advantage of office hours and tutoring (my PLF was a miracle)! and you'll do great :)!!!!

If you need to take this class please take it with Jukka. He is by far one of the best profs I've had at UCLA and he is someone who truly cares about his students and wants them to succeed. He's very entertaining and kind; I was having a mental health crisis in the beginning of the quarter and he was very gracious with extending my deadlines. He also offerred extra credit for our midterms because of our class performance, and allowed us to drop one midterm if needed. The grading scale was either 1. midterm 1, midterm 2, final, or 2. midterm, HW, final. So make sure to do all of your homework because you might need to drop one midterm. He put in the extra work and more to make sure we were prepared for the exams and he made me enjoy math again. There were in class clickers, weekly homework, weekly in discussion quizzes, 2 midterms, and 1 final.

If Jukka needed a kidney, I would sacrifice mine for him. If you took calc AB in high school this class should be doable. The homework is an absolute pain in the ass. He gives 30-50 homework problems a week and although they are graded on completion, I've gotten points off because I bs the answers a little to much. The syllabus says "a decent attempt needs to be made on the homework for full points" Grading scheme is 35% final, best 2 of 3, 20% midterm1/ 20% midterm2/ 20% homework, 5% participation and 20% discussion quizzes (lowest 2 are dropped), so you can still get 100% in the class if you didn't do any homework or if you got 0% on a midterm. The midterms are very fair and super similar to the practice midterm he gives, so its in your best interest to do them. He gives you all the materials you need to do well on the midterm and final (list of homework questions) but its literally so much I didn't bother looking at them and just focused on the practice midterm instead. Weekly quizzes should be free points because you have 72 hours to think about your answers if you have your discussion on Tuesday since the answers aren't due until Thursday, so make sure you have your discussion on Tuesday. As a lecturer, Jukka is not the best since he is naturally good at math (his undergrad is from Princeton and Masters is from Cambridge) and has a philosophy background. He explains things in a very theoretical way which is not the most useful for basic calc. You're going to have to watch organic chemistry tutor to brush up on some topics even if you took it in high school. Also he gave us a chance to get back full points on our lowest scoring problem on midterm1, but only because the average was low (68%). Jukka won't fail you, but the class is not a free A. Just make sure you study well in advance for the midterm and final and go to the review sessions.

Hes great, the other reviews go in depth so I dont have much to say except take his classes :).

TAKE HIM!!! Jukka is by far one of the best professors at UCLA. He genuinely cares for his students and offered so much material that helped. I had never had any previous calculus experience, and while sometimes the lectures confused me, him posting the slides and assigning relevant problems in the worksheet and homework really helped me get a good understanding. Also he is SO HELPFUL with getting your grade up, the homework replaced one of our midterm scores and he gave us extra credit on a midterm that he had to grade himself despite him already having this curve in place. There were so many office hours and he would always be willing to work through problems with students. I cannot stress enough how amazing he is, some may complain about the workload, but since the homework replaces the midterm, I believe doing all those problems is extremely well worth it. Overall, totally take him if you can!!!

Best professor at UCLA!

There's a lot I could say about Jukka. You can tell he is extremely fond of and dedicated to mathematics. There are a plethora of ways he shows this. He devotes extra time to student hours, and will even have extra student hours on his weekend break. He allows a flashcard on his tests because his focus is not on memorization, it's on application and understanding. He has policies that ensure that if you put in the work, you will end up with a good grade. For example, he drops the lowest two homework and drops your lowest assessment, be it the homework, midterm 1 or midterm 2. Trust that he will find time for you and your struggles, if you fail his class, all I can say is that it is not his fault.

Jukka is such a UNIQUE individual and his love for mathematics makes it easy to be engaged by his lectures. He is EXTREMELY approachable when it comes to asking questions and he always devotes a ton of time to review sessions and office hours especially right before exams.

As someone who took Calc AB in highschool, the actual course content was entirely review which made it easy to succeed on homeworks and exams, but the actual lectures were of no intellectual value to me specifically. HOWEVER, I still attended every single one as Clicker participation is factored into grades, and of course it didn't hurt to work out problems with my classmates.

As far as workload, Jukka did mention he had gotten complaints about assigning too much work, which is something I did not feel at all taking this class: There were weekly (long-ish) homeworks and worksheets to be completed in discussion, weekly quizzes taken during the first 10 minutes of discussion, and of course, two midterms and a final exam.

I would definitely recommend this class as a great intro to Calc, but even more so, Jukka as a professor in general!

Jukka is the best professor I have had at UCLA, even though I am a political science major, and this is literally a math class. He always posted lecture slides ahead of time and would record every lecture. He was great about communication, constantly sending messages about updates to the course, which helped keep me in the loop. He also used iClicker, but I would still come to class even if he didn't use it. He is brilliant, funny, and kind, and it is rare to find all of these in a single professor, even at such a top university. He was just very understanding and accommodating to all of his students. For example, I had gotten COVID-19 during the first week of the quarter. When I emailed him, he told me exactly the steps I needed to follow, but what really stood out was that he asked me how I was doing and genuinely cared. That's the biggest thing I want whoever is reading this to take away from this review. This man cares so deeply about this field, this class, and his students. He would always conduct student hours, even on weekends, to help us do our homework. He took time out of his already hectic schedule to regrade our midterms as a sort of extra credit opportunity. He took it upon himself since he knew his TAs were not paid enough and did not have the time to do it, yet he still wanted to provide us with a boost. His tests were fair, and the materials we reviewed in class were what we saw on the tests, so there were no surprises. And this was not an easy course at all. I definitely had to work at it. I'm not saying that he did all of this work to give us all the answers. No. He knew the class would be challenging, especially since so many people in that class were humanities majors looking to add a STEM minor (like me!). He knew it may have been a while since our last math class or that we might find math daunting. And he made me believe that the subject isn't so bad. He believed in us. I really appreciate him and plan to take another course with him in the future.

TAKE JUKKA! Truly one of those rare instructors you wish you could have again and again. His lectures are incredibly clear and explains difficult content in an incredibly effective, simple manner. He also provides an extraordinary amount of student hours on a weekly basis and especially in the week before a midterm. Overall, he was amazing and I wish I could take him for 31B!