This class was great, I highly recommend it. People in the groupme complained constantly and I have no idea why since Dr. V was so accommodating to all our requests. She adjusted quizzes and encouraged collaboration for the midterm and final, it was very considerate.

I really liked Dr. Venugopal. I think her lectures were wonderful and often clear and concise. She really takes the time to make sure her students understand the material. I liked that her lectures were all posted asynchronously. She also made a point of including supplemental optional mini-lecs, which were great as well. Her homework assignments were bi-weekly, and they were to essentially create a study guide with examples and explanations for the learning goals. These study guides helped tremendously in taking the bi-weekly quizzes. These quizzes were roughly 1-2 hours long and multiple attempts. They were also multiple choice. Her midterm and final exams were group exams, which was really helpful. It allowed us to communicate and consult other students. I really enjoyed that her exams were often to be completed in a 24-hour window. This was very convenient, and it allowed students to not have to work around an assigned time. She really takes into consideration student feedback, which to me was the most rewarding thing about having her as a professor.

I haven't even finished this class yet but I can't stand it anymore. I had Venugopal last quarter and for some reason, it just got so much more unbearable this quarter. I understand professors need to respond to feedback but there was complete overhaul in how the class was designed and different, doesn't necessarily mean better.

Professor V started doing bi-weekly quizzes on top of our usual midterm and final. I wouldn't say they were particularly difficult but the build-up to each exam made the work load incredibly tedious and sincerely unnecessary. We had to do study guides before each exam and because the professor couldn't finish covering material in lecture, she assigned a ridiculous amount of asynchronous videos. It's really up to you if you want to watch them (I never did) but it puts a lot of burden on students to now worry about watching videos when she could've gone through all the material if the lecture time was used more efficiently. This is not to bash on providing additional resources because I think they are helpful for students who need extra help, but when she suggests them because there are holes in her own lesson plans, now students are watching even more lectures because we spent so much time on one tiny thing in class and ran out of time. Not to mention, two of our quizzes were opened on the two Monday holidays this quarter.

Professor V is also really vague when answering questions. I've heard in lecture and saw online how she answers questions and the answer is usually "What do you think?" or "If you read through these pages and answer these questions, the answer will become clear." I understand that professors want us to find answers on our own but when students go to Piazza, Campuswire, etc. it's usually because they couldn't find answers elsewhere. You're better off getting help from classmates/TAs.

This class was a hit or miss for a lot of people. I'm not sure if it was just the circumstances that UCLA went through during this quarter (strikes, protests, etc.), but I felt like this class was poorly organized and confusing. Professor V is a kind, wonderful human being, and I find her endearing and sweet, but me and my friends felt like her lectures were unclear and oftentimes a waste of time. The thing I found most useful for my learning in this class was watching the videos by Dr. Alan Garfinkel during my free time. Professor V linked these videos on BruinLearn and on her slides, but since it wasn't graded I don't think a lot of people watched them. If you're going to take this class, I highly recommend watching these videos because it helped me prepare for the exams and complete the (ridiculously confusing) homeworks.
We had two midterms, and I did well on both, so I did not have to take the final, which was definitely a plus. As long as you put in the work, explore the given resources, and show Professor V you are eager to learn, I'm sure this class is manageable.

I feel like I should not have taken this class with her. The material itself was not hard at all, and I didn't take the final due to the grading schemes she provided (which put all my weight on the midterms), but bro. I hated doing her homeworks. Her homeworks genuinely sucked the life out of me. Why'd I do my work for this class then I did for physics and chem. I stayed up for hours doing her homeworks just to get 1.25 points off per assignment. Why can't she just give me practice problems like every other professor. Also her responses to how we did on midterms was very mean. Bro just said to do better lol. Her test was not how she described it. I don't like her lol.

Dr. V offered us a grading scheme that made it so that you didn't have to take the final if you did well enough on the two midterms, but weekly homework was tedious and not helpful to many students. It was formatted as open ended "study guides" that had unclear instructions. Lecture wasn't super helpful and honestly the TAs carried my understanding in this class.

Dr. V is a really kind and sweet professor who cares about her students, but I'm not sure I'd take this class with her again.

Dr. Venugopal's style of teaching and responses to students' concerns are extremely unsupportive and discouraging. After midterm 2, her Piazza forum was flooded with complaints and concerns saying how unfair the test was. I agree with all the students who said that she inadequately prepared us for the exam, also because the practice exams that we were given were nothing like the midterm we were tested with. In class the following afternoon, she completely invalidated our concerns, which left many of us further discouraged and shocked at her response. I never expected Dr. Venugopal to shut all of us up and make us feel like we were incompetent. One student voiced her opinion on behalf of majority of the class, saying how the situation was unfair, and the entire class clapped very loudly; louder than any applause I've ever heard in a lecture hall. It was clear that most students were in accord with the said student.

Dr. Venugopal needs to better cater to the student's needs. She doesn't listen to us. When the entire class voiced their opinions being concerned about how unfair midterm 2 was, being all respectful, Dr. Venugopal tries to play victim and she even has the audacity to threaten to not post preparation materials for the finals. I am just blown away at her response as an instructor at such a prestigious institution.

Dr. Venugopal's style of teaching and responses to students is extremely concerning, and she is extremely unfair. She won't consider her students' complaints, even if it's the whole class, TAs, and LAs voicing their concerns. The midterm averages were terrible as well, with midterm 1 having a 72% average, and midterm 2 having a 68% average. This is one of the most basic math courses one can take here, and she overcomplicates things for no reason. I personally feel that she's the worst teacher I've had here so far. For context, I scored 92% on midterm 1 and 98% on midterm 2, so I am not biased because I have a terrible grade. I currently have and am expecting to end the class with an A+, and I strongly dislike her style of teaching and arrogance that causes her to fail to comply with student needs. Overall, Dr. Venugopal needs to change her style of teaching because it's very much just busy work and extremely ineffective to our learning, and she needs to be a lot more open minded when her entire class is voicing their concerns against her.

I was reluctant when I enrolled in this class because the reviews for Dr. Venugopal are all over the place. This class, in general, is super easy but I would highly recommend reading the textbook as it explains all concepts. Venugopal does explain the topics but at times she confuses you. I would definitely take another class with her because she was great overall.

There are a lot of people who dislike Dr. V, but she is truly an amazing teacher. She really cares about her students and provides materials for both studying and practice. The biweekly homework for this class was somewhat tedious, but was definitely doable for the time provided. She posts her annotated slides and lectures promptly, and the exams were well written and plenty of time was given to take them. I had her for LS30A as well, and though the structure was slightly different, I would recommend her to anyone.

So the deal with this class is that if you don't care about the material but want a good grade I highly recommend taking this class with Dr. V.
The live lectures have polls which is annoying, but I honestly joined them and would not really pay attention and do homework or watch tik tok and just do the polls because they were graded on participation.
The bi-weekly quizzes were sometimes kind of challenging but we had to attempts so getting a good grade was not too challenging.
We had bi-weekly homework due the day before the quizzes which were super easy and essentially a study guide for the quiz. The homework was also done with a group soo the individual work was pretty low, we split up the problems and then just reworded things before we submitted.
There were practice problems assigned but they weren't due and so I never did them.
Both the midterm and the final were taken with a group making them extremely easy to get a good grade in. The midterm was a bit more challenging and was pretty long but the final was painfully easy. One questions, worth 10 points, just required you to copy and paste come code into cocalc and then upload the graph.
Labs were kind of complicated but graders were super easy so it wasn't hard to get good grades.
OVERALL, I can't code for the life of me, barely learned the material, but because of the way this class was graded got a really good grade, so if this is just a requirement, highly recommend.