Even after receiving a B+, I liked this class enough to take Math 32B from Prof. Spaas at 8:00 AM Winter Quarter! Although Spaas does not provide slides or lecture podcasts, so I would recommend showing up to lecture, he makes the material very engaging and is always willing to take extra time to answer questions and ensure his students understand what is happening. I considered the midterm exams (there are two, one at the beginning of Week 4 and one at the beginning of Week 8) pretty straightforward, but the class average for each was in the high C/low B range. The homework assignments are also relatively simple, with very few challenge problems, and I was usually able to get them done within a few hours. The final, however, was surprisingly difficult, and most of the class was caught off guard.

Spaas was amazing. The homework assignments were straightforward and honestly shorter than I expected coming into the class. The only helpful thing about the discussions was the worksheet that would be handed out, but it was always uploaded to CCLE so attendance was never really necessary. The midterms were relatively easy (averages > 80%), and the final was unexpectedly difficult, but not impossible. Overall, I was extremely pleased with Spaas and voluntarily enrolled in his 32B class despite it being at 8 AM. If you have the opportunity to take his class, I would definitely suggest doing so.

Background: I'm a first-year math major (so I came into this class interested in math), so keep that in mind while reading this review. I took this during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

I really liked Spaas for 32A. In my opinion, his lectures were really engaging, he did a great job explaining the material (and 3D stuff can be pretty hard to explain) and concepts, and he was really nice and accommodating. There is 1 homework per week and the problems are from the textbook. I thought it was pretty painless to complete. It's graded on accuracy, so make sure to check your answers (the lowest 2 homeworks are dropped). We had three 30 minute quizzes that were VERY conceptual. For these, make sure you can picture the concepts in your head and really have a solid grasp of what you're doing beyond the calculations (the lowest quiz was dropped though). The midterms were easy/medium and we had 24 hours to complete them. The final was a bit more difficult, but not horrible and we had 24 hours for that too. Definitely make sure you're taking the time to really check your answers and explain yourself really well in writing because they can get pretty picky while critiquing your exams. There are resources to study for exams such as practice tests and worksheets but these have no answer keys (it would be more helpful they did). Overall, I loved the class and found it really fun and interesting, and I thought Spaas did a great job!

I took Math 32A with Professor Spaas Fall 2019 and had a good enough experience to take Math 32B with him Winter 2020, despite the fact that the class was an 8 AM. Overall, Spaas is a good teacher who gives engaging lectures, assigns straightforward homework assignments, and writes what I considered to be very manageable midterms (the class average for midterm 1 was 77.48% with a 78.75% median, while the class average for midterm 2 was 84.5%). The worst thing about this class, however, is the final exam. We were given 24 hours to complete the final open book and open note due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and I can safely say I would have failed if I had been forced to take it under normal circumstances. For reference, I had a very comfortable A going into the final and studied a significant amount, but the test still took me 6 hours to complete and 2 hours to check--and I got an 87.5%. Although I would still recommend Spaas, definitely beware of an EXTREMELY difficult final exam.

The workload is manageable with only one homework assignment due every Friday. The discussion sections were extremely unhelpful because we would get an optional worksheet assigned and were never given solutions to them, so we would never know if we are doing them correctly. I found the midterms to be doable, but the final was very difficult.

I found that reading the textbook was honestly more helpful than lecture, but I still went to lecture everyday in case I would miss anything. I know some people who would not go to lecture and only read the textbook and managed to get A's in this class. Make sure you understand the topics conceptually instead of just plugging in numbers. READ THE TEXTBOOK!

Overall, Spaas is a really nice and understanding professor. It's a manageable workload but I found that self-teaching through the textbook is required alongside it.

Discussion groups were useless, and the final absolutely murdered me. Professor is decent and takes time to answer questions, but overall, the course was difficult and I often spent time looking at the textbook to understand the lecture.

Professor Spaas was amazing. Lectures were clear. Midterms were pretty easy if you did the homework. Final made sure you actually understood a bit more than just plugging in numbers, and rewarded those who actually tried to understand the more conceptual and geometric aspects. His worksheets especially were very, very helpful in consolidating such an understanding, and helping students fill small holes in their knowledge. I'd say the only flaw in his 32A class, if any, would be that he could have given more of different types of relatively harder problems in the worksheets and/or homework.

He is a great professor. Midterms are ok, but final is difficult.

Now that I'm in my first math class that is NOT taught by Spaas, I can say that I took him for granted. His lectures are always super clear and neatly formatted. I was always able to follow along what he was doing and refer to the textbook easily as he always taught directly from it. Even though the concepts were hard, he always tried his best to break it down for us and explain it to us. I was never lost because of his teaching style, I was only lost because I was trying to understand the dense material. We had homework due every Friday which was always manageable. I found his discussions particularly useless because he would have us do worksheets which there was no answer key for. The midterms were fair (averages were around a high C/lowB) but be careful of small mistakes because I got marked down a lot for that. The final was insanely hard though. Even though we had 24 hours to do it because of the transition to online school, I spent almost an entire day solving the problems and checking over my work. If it was given in a 3 hour time frame as it was written for, I would have definitely not have had enough time to finish it. The grading scheme is 20% midterm 1, 20% midterm 2, 10% homework, and 50% final. But you can also do 10% homework, 30% of your best midterm score, and 60% final (which I ended up doing both quarters).

I had Professor Spaas for MATH 32A for the fall 2019 quarter and thus decided to take his MATH 32B class the following winter quarter. Building off of his style of teaching established the quarter before, Professor Spaas not only explained the concepts of 32B, but also highlighted the reasons why such concepts worked. He would do so both geometrically as well as algebraically, provided multiple explanations in the hope that one would make sense to us. This is why I enjoyed him as a professor; he made the class interesting and more than just simple regurgitation of formulas and calculations.

With respect to the tests, I believe they were fair for the most part. Each midterm did have an element of time pressure--there were only 50 minutes to complete each--but the questions asked on those midterms were appropriate and definitely solvable. With respect to the final, our situation was a bit different due to the emergence of COVID-19, so we were given a 24-hour period within which we could take and upload our final. Although the final was indeed difficult, it was not much more difficult than I would have expected it to be in person (based on my experience with his 32A final); I was able to complete it in just under 3 hours.

TL; DR: Similar to his MATH 32A class, Professor Spaas explained the reason behind the mathematical concepts, not just how to perform the calculations. The midterms were rather time-sensitive, and the final was difficult but manageable.