AVOID!!! I know blah blah selective bias whatever, but TLDR: do not take Math 61 with Vicaria!!

She had beef with the class because we would ask questions a lot and because some people were chatting in class. I understand her frustration and completely empathize with her, but it is not fair to make exams harder because of that reason!
I scored pretty well on the two midterms midterms about a B- to B average, but the final was insane. I read here in the past that if the midterms are easy, expect the final to be hard and that became true in my experience. So be warned!
The homeworks were doable and I do recommend doing the optional questions, but they did not get graded for SEVEN weeks! Additionally, the grader was very harsh with the grading. Each homework was only out of five points and the smallest mistakes would land you a three already.

Math 61 is a very interesting math class and it was probably the first math class where I was engaged and saw real applications (I'm a CS major so calc was kinda meh in terms of my interest). I wish that we weren't graded so harshly for an introductory proofs class, but here we are.

Terrible professor. Without a doubt the worst professor I have ever had. Now you may be looking at all the reviews and be thinking "oh, only the people who hated the class or who sucked in it write reviews so its biased". We'll that may be true but for context I had a 4.00 before this class, then I left with a B-. I wasn't even confused about the material. I actually felt like I understood it, but apparently that wasn't enough. A couple things:
- She claimed the lectures were recorded but then didn't give the password to the recordings until like week 8 which made the recordings completely pointless.
- She doesn't curve
- She is VERY nit-picky about the grading and even if you make a small mistake she'll deduct 1 point out of the total of 25 for each midterm. I know someone who got deducted a point because they used the word 'theorem' instead of 'definition'
- Very disorganized. She would often assign homework that we hadn't covered the material for
- She did post slides but lots of the slides were incomplete.
- She blames everything on the math department, which I'm not saying that they're the best department ever but also some of the stuff you can clearly tell is not something the math department said. like we have taken more math classes than she has taught at ucla (fall quarter was her first).
- Homework is worth a very small percentage of your grade and took ages to be graded.
- She often says one thing and then immediately contradicts herself. At one point, she told a student that the solutions were enough to base our answers on and then a few sentences later said that they should be used merely as a guide.

Honestly I hated this professor and I could go on and on about it but you get the gist of it. One pro is that she gives you a cheat sheet, but I assume thats the case with every professor for math 61. If you can get Olha as your TA definitely do it! She sympathizes with the class and really tries to help. Kong, on the other hand, speaks at 2 times speed and leaves you more confused than when you walked in. I was originally in Kong's discussion section but quickly switched into Olha's and it was no problem.

COMPLETE LUCK-BASED CLASS. professor doesn't even know how to spell "pigeon" and spells "3rd" as "3th", so don't expect her teaching to be comprehensible either. on top of that she emphasizes that she cares about your logic rather than the format of the proofs which is completely a lie because your HW and exams are graded more on the format rather than the correct answer...

overall inconsistent teacher, absolute headache of a class, and managed to make what should've been interesting content miserable to learn and study.

if youre stupid enough after reading all these reviews to take the class with this professor the strat is to just literally copy paste the exact answers from every homework problem onto your cheat sheets. dont take any risk deviating even a single punctuation mark from her answers key answers...

legit one of the worst teachers I have ever met... her lectures are painfully slow and uninteresting and worst of all she takes every question as a confrontation and it is clear she views herself as being "above" her students-- also our hw wasn't graded for 7+ weeks so in summary if you can avoid her. NGL I'm Hella surprised she got hired lol

legit one of the worst teachers I have ever met... her lectures are painfully slow and uninteresting and worst of all she takes every question as a confrontation and it is clear she views herself as being "above" her students-- also our hw wasn't graded for 7+ weeks so in summary if you can avoid her. NGL Im hella surprised she got hired lol

She wants the class to be over more than I do :)
But I still love her.

61 with Prof. Vicaria was enjoyable. Sometimes her lectures are a bit slow, but she is very helpful during office hours. The homework problems are very helpful for exams. The exams were easy but fall was her first quarter teaching here so it’s probably gotten harder since then. Overall, an enjoyable experience.

The class is not hard. Only issue is that the Tree part on Fall 2024 is not finished, as a CS student I have a subsequent CS 180 which may need related tree knowledge.

fun class if you like logic puzzles. All "math" is algebra I, no calc or anything even though it's a prerequisite I believe. Refreshing!

Don't know why she gets bad press for being unclear. Was very detailed and patient. The class is generally pretty straight forward. As the class progress things get harder and you can feel your brain juices flowing, but all the exams were basic (homework level or easier). Do the practice exams and bank of problems!!!! Go over those and you're 80% of the way there. Cheat sheets are allowed, please combine these and you'll be guaranteed good grades!

Only "down" side was that she lectured slower than targeted (lots of question answering in class, she's patient but may slow things down), and thus only covered ~3/4 of the material on syllubus. If you need this class as a solid foundation maybe a red flag, otherwise great bc many weeks went without or with reduced hw.

Everything was recorded, discussion not mandatory (may be helpful i didn't go), textbook online and solutions too and it's not hard to find

Class concepts are easy but proving them can be hard. Professor’s lectures are pretty unorganized and she does not do a great job at explaining the material. You will most likely have to teach yourself from the textbook. Final exam contained material that she chose to skip over in the lectures and did not say would be on the final. Overall would not recommend this professor, you would benefit greatly by taking this class from a professor who clearly explains what is expected of you and who can actually explain the material and teach it to you. Side note: the professor is actually a really nice person and she cares about her students but that still doesn’t take away from the fact that she is not a good lecturer and her lectures/class lack structure. Also don’t expect any rounding of grades or extra credit, and the TA’s grade the homework pretty harshly and love taking off points.