Professor Ocal is the worst math teacher I have ever encountered since I first started taking math classes in kindergarten. He is a very nice guy and he means well, but I have never met someone so atrocious at explaining math. He is nice enough to ask "any questions?" throughout lecture but people are so lost in his rambling by then that asking a question would be pointless. A few weeks ago I found that it is more beneficial for me to watch ten minute videos online about the topics rather than go to Professor Ocal's lectures. I stopped going to lectures and started watching these videos and my homework grades have dramatically increased since. He is good at math but he can't teach to save his life. I think his talents would be better suited for a job in accounting or something along those lines.

I liked Ocal. He takes feedback from students and applies them to his lecture. His lectures were initially all over the place, then they became very well-structured and clear. He's very enthusiastic!
His midterms and finals are very similar to previous quarters, so a test bank is super useful.

His energy at 8 in the morning is just crazy. I'll never forget the first lecture when he went in at 8am and started destroying the blackboard with his chalk; the whole MS4000 was shaking because he just had so much power writing on the board.
Lectures: not the best lecturer tbh, although he does do a good job being patience and helpful with answering questions. I just wished his explanation of concepts are more logical and "derived", instead of just "giving it" as a definition from textbooks.
Tests: super easy. Do you homework and discussion worksheets and you'd be fine.
HW: problems from the textbook. My study group was super helpful and most people got 100s on HW and worksheets.

Pablo is a great professor. He takes feedback and always has the best math jokes. The midterms and final had 5-6 and 10 questions, respectively, where the first question was actually a group of true or false questions and the rest of the questions were in the same format as problems from the homework and textbook. Thumbs Up.

Prof. Ocal for 33A was great and especially lively for an 8am (despite how he joked about constantly needing more coffee). Some would say his lectures are not very clear, but they were definitely follow-able, and he goes parallel with the textbook most times, so you can always refer back to a chapter. Homework questions were more challenge/conceptual-based, but the practice exams he provides greatly reflect the actual exams (which many were actually copies of textbook problems). Take this class, you’ll love linear algebra afterwards.

Pablo was not the greatest at teaching at the beginning. He made mistakes on the board that caused me to be confused. I ended up just using Youtube to learn since he doesn't ask too many tedious questions on exams, and all of them are some form of question straight from the book. The homework is pretty short, and there's a solutions manual floating out there. The discussion worksheets is just a matter of going to your discussion and copying whatever the TA writes because they are way harder than what is on the exam.

All of his stuff is on his github page at pabloocal.github.io, so you can preview the course from previous quarters. Alternatively, you can look up his github repository where you can dig through files.

Pretty nice and easy class.
Final was a bit tougher than midterms n homework

I had Pablo for Math 31B, which I confess was a difficult course with him. However, since I took him the last time, I'm not sure if it's because he prefers linear algebra over calculus or if he's absorbed all of the reviews he's gotten, but man has he improved significantly. I can now confirm that he is in fact a brilliant professor!

Every homework (and exam) problem was manageable and accurately represented what he lectured on. He did not assign any tedious homework and, in fact, made part of it optional through ”recommended exercises.” Not to mention that some of our exam problems were similar, if not identical, to those from homework and discussion.

He is not out to trick you or anything. He’s easily accessible and if you need help, don’t be afraid to go to OH! He’s super friendly. Thanks for a great quarter Pablo!

Pablo has like 1 star averages for other classes, so I was scared going into Linear Algebra as a non-Engineering/Math major (I need it for my minor). However, I would say it was a pleasant experience.

Pros
- He has 3 grading schemes (first one factors in everything, second one drops one midterm, third one drops both midterms in favor for the final being a bigger percentage of the grade).
- Homework workload was fair - I would finish in 1-2 hours
- Homework and discussion are free points - you just need to show up to discussion
- He drops low homework assignments and discussions (I think if the class average completion for his surveys after each midterm is like >80%, he drops an additional assignment)
- Exams are fair and are similar to textbook problems. I recommend studying the different homework problems and trying to find similar textbook problems to the practice exams he posts (try to find similarly formatted problems too)
- When some lectures were pre-recorded, I actually found them to be super clear and organized. He has neater handwriting on his tablet.
- Some lectures are review sessions. He literally went over 2-3 problems during the final review session that appeared on the final

Cons
- Sometimes lectures can feel unclear if you sit in the back. I stopped showing up to lecture to rewatch Bruincast because the camera actually zooms in on the Chalkboard where he's writing out the math (he doesn't have slides, but he does post notes)
- Discussion worksheets didn't seem that helpful for exams/homework. However, I appreciate how my TA went over general concepts.

Overall, Pablo is pretty good - I think he's more interested in the field of linear algebra, so it makes sense that he's better at teaching 33A. He also cycles through like 10 different variations of flannel, a math t-shirt, and jeans.

Pablo seems like a nice guy, very bubbly and bouncy in class. However, he is not a great lecturer. While hearing him explain some theorems and do some example problems was mildly helpful for my understanding of the content, when it came time to take the tests it seemed like his goal was to trick you. The homework was usually okay, but at times it was so difficult I ended up not answering some questions and taking the point loss. As for his tests, they were pretty horrible to say the least. I did well on the first two midterms, but the final…….
Not to mention, when we got to the final exam room, he failed to print enough tests for the entire course of students. About 1/3 of the students had to wait 40 minutes after the others had started because they did not arrive early enough - aka 10-20 minutes early - to receive a copy of the exam. This just goes to show how unorganized this professor is.
I will say that his grading scheme is mostly forgiving, even if he didn’t curve the final exam. But still, try to avoid taking this professor as much as possible. Sorry Pablo.