With Pablo, the best way I can describe his teaching is with the parable of him giving us the fish instead of teaching us how to fish. He teaches directly from the book--whatever is said in the book is exactly what he writes on the chalkboard. He introduces us to theorems and then does really simple problems that don't teach us the strategies on how to actually go about solving the problems. I resulted to basically watching all of Professor Leonard online to make up for what I wasn't getting in class. Another major issue was not having recorded lectures--unless he was out for the day then he would record and even those were from the book completely. It was a genuine problem because there was lack of access/risk of spreading disease if someone had a cold which happened to be my case. Although his problems for his midterm/test are from the book completely, the difficulty came up in the fact that some things were just not known how to do. I did serious grinding the last week before finals to clutch up my grade to pass. One positive note is his very flexible grading strategy, basically giving you best case scenario on the grades you got for your midterms and your final--he will drop midterm grades if they don't result in your highest possible grade which is good. Overall, if you have the option to take another professor--who has good ratings obviously--you should take them not for a solid grade but for comprehension and understanding moving forward.

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A SOLID FOUNDATION OF CALCULUS 1 (AP Calc AB/BC, 31A), TAKE 31A INSTEAD. I didn't take Calculus in high school, and I took 31A online over the summer... so fall quarter with Pablo was tough. Pablo isn't terrible, and his grading system is nothing to complain about. The problem is that the sheer volume of novel content and Pablo's lack of insightful lectures (that are NOT recorded, btw) made the class a struggle. I studied a TON and ended up with a 48% on the final. Getting 100% on 1 midterm and his curving of the overall class left me with a C+. I'm just glad its over.

Oh, Pablo. He's a fun guy, wears mathy clothes, seems nice overall. He's definitely into his subject, but he's clearly still getting the hang of teaching a lower division class. Some "fun" quirks of this class included:
- Two MULTIPLE CHOICE midterms that either completely devastated your hopes of survival as a UCLA student, made you ecstatic that you're apparently good at guessing, or both
- Such challenging midterms that the final was, a few days before it happened, switched from multiple choice with no partial credit to free response with partial credit because of allegations of cheating... He also gave exceedingly little detail as to how credit would be assigned. With any luck, future exams will all be free response with partial credit, as they should be.
- A grading policy that actually saved my ass: 15% homework, and the rest is either both midterms + final, one midterm + final, or just the final (whatever's best). You could fail both midterms and still get an A.
- Lectures taken almost directly from the textbook chapters, and thus incredibly hard to follow if you don't have some prior knowledge of the class -- Khan Academy and Joe Breen's (UCLA) website were my saviors.
- Homework so long and challenging (not to mention not often helpful for exam prep) you start to question your sanity at late hours of the morning, and then start yelling at your friend when his page-long answer is different from yours, so you both have to check for correctness (by the way, checking homework with a friend is a MUST).
- TA review sessions filled with dread, uncertainty, and anxiety (shoutout to Eric Kim for being a nice TA, though!)

Essentially, if you MUST, you can take Ocal, and you'll just barely scrape by if you make sure to self-teach the concepts well. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it. This class didn't have to be this hard. My friends with Padilla had easier homework + exams and a better understanding at the end of the quarter.

Pablo can't teach.
He never seems confident about what he's teaching, so I'm never convinced about the course's content. I ended up having to study all the course material by myself from the textbook and online.
Your friends and Khan Academy are the real teachers here, not Mr. Socal.

This class was much harder than it needed to be. Pablo is a friendly person but a terrible teacher, I stopped going to class around the middle of the quarter because they were pointless. He just copies the textbook examples, and the exam questions were much more difficult than the homework assigned. His grading scale is nice though, because I did poorly on both midterms but absolutely GRINDED for the final, got a 23/24, and passed the class with an A. I had Kiran for my TA and he was not very helpful, left me more confused than before I asked my question. The day before the final I studied 8 hours and went to a review session with Eric, he was AWESOME. Wish he could teach the class, not Pablo. I do believe I have a strong understanding of the material, but that was more from my own intense studying than from the professor. Do not take this class if you want an engaging, easy math class. Super hard!

If there are other lecturers teaching math 31b the quarter you are taking it you will most likely be better off taking this course with them as opposed to professor Ocal. That being said, if you do end up taking this course with professor Ocal, there are certain things you should keep in mind to increase your chances of doing well.

The first thing to note is that professor Ocal teaches from the textbook. More accurately, professor Ocal essentially reads the textbook, writes the textbook example problems on the chalkboard and calls it a day. And personally I felt that the textbook anyways did a better job of teaching the concept than professor Ocal did. It felt like professor Ocal had no actual idea how to teach the concepts in this course, and I say this because I felt he was rarely able to adequately address questions brought up during the lecture. Honestly I would recommend you read the textbook thoroughly, ideally before the lecture. I knew a few people who just learned from the book and skipped the lectures, and ended up doing well.

Secondly you should be aware that professor Ocal is very bad at designing exams. Setting aside the fact that the midterms were a low question count multiple choice exam which is generally unforgiving and setting aside the whole fiasco of the very last minute and very significant change to the final exam format, it feels as though his exams exist to quiz you on the approach to the very niche problems he sometimes assigns on the homework and goes over during reviews. To study for his exams you should focus your time on learning the specific approach to these niche problems as opposed to solidifying your use of the base skills.

Finally, you should do yourself a favor by starting the homework early and you should absolutely be checking answers against what your friends got, as not only is the homework graded on correctness, you will lose A LOT of points for doing the problem the wrong way/showing incomplete work even if you have the right answers. Not all the questions have answers at the back of the book and there is no where to check if you approached the question the correct way.

I want to add that professor Ocal has a considerably generous grading scheme. There are three markedly different schemes and one of them even drops one of the midterms entirely. Moreover, he dropped three of your lowest homework grades out of the ten total. While generous grading schemes are always nice I would prefer a good professor and a somewhat harsh grading scheme over and somewhat bad professor and a good grading scheme.

P.S. theres absolutely no way that professor Ocal was unaware that there would be rampant cheating in the midterms. He even said that the shift to free response for the final was not his idea and he made it sound like the math department forced his hand on the matter. I conclude that there is a (considerably unlikely) possibility that professor Ocal was counting on us to cheat on those exams, which if true (and in fairness, very likely isn't), is unfortunate.

DO NOT IGNORE THE REVIEWS ON HERE!!! This class was so tough. I went to every lecture and just about every ta office hour (his are not helpful), but I still heavily struggled. I felt like I was given very elementary calculus skills in lecture, then handed difficult and long-winded homework problems. I required help for many of the homework questions and my ta Zerrin was super helpful. The midterms and final were no different. There was a whole issue with the first midterm, as he curved one of his classes but not the other??? The class average was around 75 for the first and 60 for the second one and only the first was curved. The final was also very hard and realistically the average will also be probably a 60-70. Again, no curve. This class was not at all helpful for my calculus skills. Avoid Pablo if you can.

If you need the textbook I'll give it to you for $5 text me **********

I made an account just so I could leave a review. This class is a joke, avoid it ALL costs. The professor can not teach. I started the year strong, going to every lecture just to realize they are a waste of time. Pablo does not know how to do the math he is teaching and as someone who already has trouble with calculus as it is, it just felt like I was being talked at for 50 minutes. He goes super fast and makes a ton of mistakes so trying to follow him felt counterproductive. Eventually, I had to use internet sources like Professor Leanord to learn the material. The tests he gives are really hard (the average for the second midterm was a D-) and I fully think that if he were made to take the test under the same conditions we did (no calculator or notes) he too would fail his own test. The homework problems are also long and tedious, the only saving grace is that he drops a bunch of them. I'm afraid that even with a curve I'm going to fail this class because I was unlucky enough to have him as a professor. I'm pissed because this was supposed to be my last pre-req and now I may be stuck for another quarter.

Despite getting a prefect A+ in this class, I feel the need for UCLA's math department(one of the best math departments in US university) to replace this professor. To start with, his lecture is extremely tedious and utterly useless. One of my close friend called Eric took this class with me. He has similar math ability as mine. However, we took completely different approaches to this class in this quarter. Eric went to all the lectures and took careful notes during the class. I, on the contrary, have never been to a single lecture and disregarded all the revision strategies provided by professor Parblo. At the end, Eric got an C- in this class and I got an A+, fully demonstrating professor Parblo's ignorance of helping students to excel in this class. Furthermore, professor Parblo's exam is unreasonably challenging and unnecessarily long. He covered materials like lagrange multipliers, which is part of the content of math 32A, in the final of this class, which is math 31B. Professor Parblo is not even familiar with what contents this class is suppose to cover, fully proving the fact that he is not suitable to teach this class anymore. His exam is incredibly time consuming. I started the exam at the first second and I continued writing until the last second. Guess what? I didn't finish. Exam is supposed to be an opportunity for students to reconsolidate their knowledge, not an opportunity for a race game. I'm not 007 and I can't complete mission impossible. Last but not least, professor Parblo has shown little empathy and sympathy towards people with disability such as me. I grew up with a body that is more prone to flu and other diseases compare to my peers. During this quarter, I was diagnosed with COVID. I asked professor Parblo for an extention on one of the homework assignments. Professor Parblo, without showing any care, told me that I could drop one of the homework assignments if the whole class did some random survey. Utterly ridiculous! I was sick with COVID, lying on my bed without the mental and physical ability to do anything. At that state, he was seriously expecting me to convince the entire class to do his useless survey. How is that even possible?! Overall, I think professor Parblo should be replaced by someone who is more capable of teaching the class.

This is by far the worst class I have taken so far. The lectures are unclear, and it seems like he doesn't understand the content when teaching. He is not confident when teaching this class and often messes up the answers, making it quite confusing when learning. I'm not saying he can't make mistakes, everyone does...but when it happens for every single problem or step, especially with signs it makes it very confusing when learning the content. The homeworks are so long ranging from 20 to over 30 problems a week. His review sessions for this class for the exams were also not helpful. He put problems on the board and then expected us to complete them. He does have 3 grading schemes which were nice, however, he does not prepare you at all for any of them. My TA taught me more content than he did. I ended up having to use the internet for studying everything since his notes and lectures are not helpful. The way he words his sentences are unclear and it is hard to comprehend what he is trying to say to the class. Do not take this class with Ocal if you can avoid it at all costs. The content is challenging so having a professor who knows the content would be nice.