Class was only easy because I took calc AB in high school. Jukka is a nice professor but goes really fast in terms of lecture materials. BUT, TESTS/MIDTERM/QUIZ/FINAL are very similar to the practice one he gives, so just study that. Also he lets u use note cards for the midterm/final, which is really helpful.

To the new Bruins who sucked at Math in HS/did not do great on the placement exam,

You will do great in this class. This class was far easier than LS 30A this quarter.

Jukka provides an immense amount of support in this class and genuinely wants to see all of his students succeed. He will do his best to make sure you understand the concepts presented in lecture & will make himself available to ensure your success. He offered online office hours twice a week, in person student hours twice a week after lecture, and individual appointments if you ever asked. If you do not understand a concept, the resources are there to help you.

About the class in general:

Lecture sessions involved a slideshow with participation iClickers - correct/incorrect answers did not matter. You got the iClicker points as long as you participated. He will discuss the proofs behind the famous trig limits/power rule/etc, but you don't need to know any proofs for his tests. If you really don't want to show up, make a few friends in the class & have them tell you when the iClicker is coming (not that I condone skipping lecture - I did not skip lectures).
Lab session involved a weekly quiz starting Week 2, followed by a lecture on whatever he felt we needed help with. Quizzes are extremely basic problems (2) about concepts from previous week's HW. As long as you did the homework and checked your answers with the solutions he posted on Monday, the quizzes are easy points.
TA sections involve a worksheet, 5-6 problems, relating to a concept he taught in lecture that week. My TA spent 20ish mins each section re-explaining the concept on the worksheet, and then you had the remainder of the time to work on the worksheet. If you don't want to come to the discussions, there is no penalty, but you are responsible for the worksheet, due Sunday.

Workload:

HW: 40-60 problems due at end of weekend each week. Gave whole class extensions to Monday afternoon, multiple times. If you turn in the HW late, admittedly the course readers never enforced the 10% late penalty (half my HWs were late). You do have to put in effort & show work, but HW grade is based on complete attempt at problems, not correctness. Yes, the HW takes a lot of time.... don't always start on Sunday like me.
Worksheet: As stated before, worksheets were 5-6 problems, and you only had to do ~50% of the worksheet to receive full credit for it.
Post Lecture: There is a post lecture question graded on correctness to assess your understanding due at the end of each lecture day. There is also a post lecture, 1-2 sentence reflection on what you learned that day. Takes under 5 minutes to do.

Midterms/Final:
He gives practice exams and detailed study guides for each midterm/final, detailing concepts, specific questions he assigned relating to said concepts, and exam format. Jukka literally has a paper in there telling you HOW to study for the exam (what to do, in what order). He also hosted office hours going over practice exams/midterm/final content.

Practice exams were just like the actual midterms/final, down to question format and everything. He gave away the second midterm on a silver platter by giving "hints" on each question and by asking the minimum/max of a function... and then showing the graph of said function afterwards. Class median on midterms/final was 87, 92, and 85. That should tell you all you need to know.

I took the time to do this whole writeup because of the previous reviews. If you failed Math 31AL this quarter, one of the following is true:
- You need to speak to CAE
- You need to reconsider the attitude/effort you approach school with
- You need to fix your study habits

I believe Jukka is a great teacher. If you fail this class, it won't be because of him or his tests.

This class is considered the easier alternative to Math 31A but the difference was under Jukka there was a much more significant workload. For example, my roommate who was is Math 31A had a significantly lower amount of homework problems. The extra discussion every week was used to take weekly quizzes that were ok in difficulty. IMPORTANT: uses Iclicker for attendance so could not skip class and just watch the lecture recordings. ALSO IMPORTANT: Jukka overcomplicates EVERYTHING with proofs and the reasoning behind certain rules but never allocated class time for actually helpful examples. This are all my problems but there were good parts, these are warnings.

This class was a rough ride for me. Jukka is an amazing guy, but quite frankly, he is too smart to be teaching this class. He based everything on the theory of the math, and he only used the most formal definitions and whatnot, which made the class very confusing for someone who was new to calc. There is virtually no "heres the formula, heres how you use it, and heres an example problem" within the class, but there is a lot of "heres why this exists, heres the proof of how it exists, and obviously it works but that’s for you do figure out in the homework". If you're into theory it could be interesting, but if you just need to knock out the math class, it was hard.
Next: homework. Homework was HORRENDOUS in this class. He gave one assignment each week, averaging between 40 and 50 questions, which was just wild. And nothing got graded until the very, very, very end of the quarter, so you had no way of knowing what your grade was until it was posted on my.ucla at the end.
I did pass the class, but everything I learned I taught myself. In all honesty I could have made better use of office hours, I heard they were helpful, but if you didn’t understand how to do the math in the first place then going to lecture was practically useless since all it taught you was why the math works.
Jukka was, however, a great guy. He was very forgiving and understanding of different situations, both for myself and for my peers. He made sure partial credit was applied, and he even did half of our quiz for us over zoom when he was out sick with COVID. Take from this review what you will, but if C's get degrees, then someone who is bad at math (me) is able to pass this class (with some difficulty). I do know a few people who did not pass though, so... yeah.

First of all, let's denounce the first comment as I agree with the second comment:
- "I would argue that the aspect of 'support' comes from the fact that the extensive homework (which is due at the end of each week, making it manageable if you start early) actually allows you get in lots of practice."
What are you insinuating? That those who do argue that the homework is extensive are lazy? You do realize that we have other classes to attend, other essays to write, other homework to complete for other classes right? Completing 50 guaranteed to 58 questions per week and studying for the weekly quizzes is too much. Forget about the discussion work, as we only have to do some of it to get complete credit. Fix your diction and tone.
- ". . . he will take so much time out of his week to not only give extensive office hours to those struggling, but to craft study guides for midterms and finals that really prepare you for the exams. . ."
Almost every professor creates study guides. Come on now. Be realistic.
- "Jukka is the type of person to check in with you and tell you to not worry when you're stressed. (He actually cares about you as a person!)."
This person is just boosting at this point. He doesn't check in with you when you're stressed.
- "He gave us an extra credit opportunity to make up our midterm grades."
He basically had to because after the midterm, students swarmed to him asking him to curve it or make a make up one. He also reached a bunch of emails. So "gave" or was "obliged," which is the better choice?
Closing statement, this class will take a whole lot of your time. I have no idea what the first person was on. If you like learning from slides and NEVER seeing a problem being solved by hand in lecture, this is the class for you. If you like to have to go to discussion just to see problems solved by hand, this is the class for you. Essentially, this was a class to support us but no support existed. No hate to the professor, but his teaching methods are not it.