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Stefano Filipazzi
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Stefano is not only a good professor but a good-hearted person as well. Despite the online environment, he was able to make the material understandable and keep the lectures mostly engaging. 32A was a difficult class, but the experience was more bearable because of Stefano.
The homework assignments were often a mixed bag. Some weeks were easier than others, obviously, but the number of questions ranged anywhere from 18 to ~35 problems. It's always assigned a week in advance, so it's definitely doable in smaller chunks. Out of 10, the lowest 2 homeworks are dropped.
The quizzes were complete nightmares, but only because of the time constraint (30-minute timer within a 24-hr period). Your best preparation was trying to understand the conceptual side of the material, because simply hoping for plug-and-chug questions won't cut it. These are worth a total 10% of your grade, so doing bad on one won't totally kill your grade, but it was still stressful.
The midterms and final... You have a full 24 hours to do them but don't fall into a false sense of security. Due to the exams being open-note, they were ramped up (mostly conceptually) to make up for it. I guess you can't really blame the professor, but it was still frustrating taking 3-6+ hours on an exam that was "designed to take 50 minutes" (or 3 hours for the final). After struggling on the midterms, I found that reviewing the theorems and understanding T/F scenarios really helped on the final. Stefano was also open to helping review more topics in depth and even provided a worksheet to practice for the final exam. Overall, just make sure you have a good conceptual understanding of the material. Easier said than done, but the TAs and Stefano were more than willing to help.
Overall, Stefano's a good lecturer, and all things considered, the exams and grading were fair. 32A isn't easy, so be ready to dedicate some time to really hammer down the material.
To those who plan to take this class remotely,
I wish you the best of luck taking this class. Although it will be challenging, you will nevertheless start to appreciate what mathematics really means in the intellectual world. Here is my best advice for you: Understand deeply about the concept itself, the theorems, definitions, and its conditions. In fact, most of the quizzes and exams will revolve around this fundamental idea. In your previous institutions, you may have focused much on the numerical calculations, which may have made you think that "math = numbers and plugging in into equations" subject. When you take this class though, not only you will calculate derivatives, limits, and vectors with numbers, but you will primarily focus on the how and why of math (which I mean theorems, definitions, and the conceptual derivations). If you can truly understand them, you will do great in this class.
Homework = 15% of the grade. Do NOT procrastinate on these because although not difficult, it can be time-consuming (there was a time in which it took me 7 hours to complete one weeks' worth of homework in one sitting). Break them into chunks, ask questions to TA/Prof. Filipazzi, and you'll be much more prepared for the tests.
The midterms (each 22.5%) and finals (30%) were given a 24-hour time limit, so you have time to carefully do the questions. But be careful, because a lot of these questions are conceptually based and require you to show work and explicitly state theorems, conditions, and present careful reasoning. It did take my a lot of time (3-9 hours) to do them, but I was nevertheless grateful to the math department for the 24 hours limit because I don't think I would have been able to do them within the 1, 3 hour time limit if the class was in-person...
The professor was very clear and engaging when doing the lectures, because he showed us why we should care about the concepts we learn in Math 32A and provided us careful reasoning (take good notes so that you can use that reasoning on the tests should it be necessary). Overall, I liked his personality and his genuine caring for his students during the pandemic. If you love math and love to delve into the how/why of calculus (which was me btw), you would be golden (and earn that proud A). Good luck and when the course ends, you will walk out of the class being mindblown and truly understand what math really means :)
This class was by all means not easy, but I did enjoy Professor Filipazzi's teaching. Although some of the lectures were a little confusing, him and the TAs do care about how well you understand certain concepts and will take the time to explain it to you until it makes sense. As some people have mentioned, the online tests were tough but they were doable if you took the time to attend office hours and go to discussion sections.
I honestly don't even know why I took this class... This was my first quarter at UCLA, and my major didn't even require this course. But boy was MATH33A DIFFICULT for a freshman (Doable, but you need a pretty solid foundation in theoretical math, which I didn't have). Might just be me since I haven't taken Math since my Senior Year of high school at community college.
My advice to you is to definitely go to more Office Hours (been to only one and Filipazzi was able to make me understand the information really well), and try to work through the homework problems he assigns every week, they are graded for correctness though so it was annoying trying to make sure everything was right. Discussion sections for this class were pretty useless since the TAs are not allowed to go over homework problems. As a result, only 5-6 people went to discussion after Week 2. The tests really vary, this was Filipazzi's first time teaching so the test he wrote was a bit confusing when first reading it, and the difficultly varies vastly (Got a B+ first test, straight F second test, and got a B- on the final).
Filipazzi still follows the textbook conventionally, all lectures are Bruincasted, and the homework was fair, it was mainly annoying that everything has to be spot-on correct. So overall, still a great teacher and worth taking! Just have better study strategies and go into MATH 33A with more preparation!
Professor Filipazzi is an analysis GOAT. His lectures were engaging and he covered a lot of material in class. He was always willing to answer the smallest of questions and always explained concepts in an intuitive manner in both OH and lectures.
The homeworks were time-consuming and sometimes quite difficult but they test your analysis fundamentals. Professor Filipazzi is always happy to give hints in OH. The homeworks helped me prepare for the midterms and final which were on a similar level of difficulty if not less.
The weekly quizzes were sometimes ruthless as they had around 10 questions and even getting one question wrong would drop 10% of the quiz grade. However, professor compensated for the difficult quizzes and homeworks by dropping 2 of the lowest for each.
I gained a very good understanding of concepts such as cauchy and convergent sequences, integrability, differentiability and continuity and would take any class with professor Filipazzi. It's unfortunate that he is probably leaving at the end of the spring 2021 quarter.
Prof. Filipazzi is a legend, just here to boost his ratings.
The class is definitely not easy, and the homework takes lots of time. But this man explains everything so clear and really cares about students. The best Math professor I have by far (haven't taken many Math classes tho).
This class is overall great. Filipazzi teaches really well and is super helpful. The TAs are amazing and helpful. Online tests were definitely super long and some parts were tricky. But these tests were fair. Knowing the theorems and way the formulas work the way they do helps on the quizzes and tests. Make sure you understand the concepts. If not in lecture, read the book. Great class
Filipazzi is a very helpful professor that makes an effort to help students learn the material. His lectures are clear, but not the most engaging. His tests are not difficult, but it's important to be careful and show as much relevant work as possible (eg. state conditions of theorems that you use). Workload averages around 3-4 hours a week.
Lecture and HW: I took this class on the Zoom format like many others and overall I have mixed feelings regarding the class. The class material itself is definitely harder and in order to succeed I would recommend using the textbook and going to office hours for any questions you may have. On the other hand, Professor Filipazzi is a nice guy! Yes, sometimes his lectures left me confused at what on earth was going on, but I knew he wasn't purposely trying to make it harder on the students during lecture. I made up for the confusion by going to discussion, reading the chapter in the book, and going through each homework problem in detail. (On a side note, the homework is a LOT if you try to do it all in one day, don't make that mistake. ) Even after all that I still would sometimes be confused and that's when I went to office hours for the TA or Professor and asked peers for homework clarifications.
Exams: Well, they were doable---given that they took me many more hours than they were supposed to. We were given a 24-hour time period to finish the exams and were told that the midterms were supposed to take us 1-hour and the final 3-hours. They all took me muuuuchhh longer than that (like 4-6 hours) and I'm not sure if it was because of the number of questions or me not studying enough. The exams had both calculation and theoretical questions, and there is always a tricky question in there that we didn't directly exemplify in class. I think the hardest part of the exams were not the exams themselves, but rather the grading. Since they were 50 point exams it was easy to drop a letter grade if you messed up a question. That being said, as long as you are detail oriented in answering your questions and really study ahead of time, you will do just fine.
Quizzes: To keep it to the point. 3 quizzes total, each 30 minutes. Kinda stressful. More theoretical questions than calculation questions. Not worth that much of your grade.
Grade breakdown:
10% quizzes
15% Homework
22.5% both midterms
30% final
Stefano is not only a good professor but a good-hearted person as well. Despite the online environment, he was able to make the material understandable and keep the lectures mostly engaging. 32A was a difficult class, but the experience was more bearable because of Stefano.
The homework assignments were often a mixed bag. Some weeks were easier than others, obviously, but the number of questions ranged anywhere from 18 to ~35 problems. It's always assigned a week in advance, so it's definitely doable in smaller chunks. Out of 10, the lowest 2 homeworks are dropped.
The quizzes were complete nightmares, but only because of the time constraint (30-minute timer within a 24-hr period). Your best preparation was trying to understand the conceptual side of the material, because simply hoping for plug-and-chug questions won't cut it. These are worth a total 10% of your grade, so doing bad on one won't totally kill your grade, but it was still stressful.
The midterms and final... You have a full 24 hours to do them but don't fall into a false sense of security. Due to the exams being open-note, they were ramped up (mostly conceptually) to make up for it. I guess you can't really blame the professor, but it was still frustrating taking 3-6+ hours on an exam that was "designed to take 50 minutes" (or 3 hours for the final). After struggling on the midterms, I found that reviewing the theorems and understanding T/F scenarios really helped on the final. Stefano was also open to helping review more topics in depth and even provided a worksheet to practice for the final exam. Overall, just make sure you have a good conceptual understanding of the material. Easier said than done, but the TAs and Stefano were more than willing to help.
Overall, Stefano's a good lecturer, and all things considered, the exams and grading were fair. 32A isn't easy, so be ready to dedicate some time to really hammer down the material.
To those who plan to take this class remotely,
I wish you the best of luck taking this class. Although it will be challenging, you will nevertheless start to appreciate what mathematics really means in the intellectual world. Here is my best advice for you: Understand deeply about the concept itself, the theorems, definitions, and its conditions. In fact, most of the quizzes and exams will revolve around this fundamental idea. In your previous institutions, you may have focused much on the numerical calculations, which may have made you think that "math = numbers and plugging in into equations" subject. When you take this class though, not only you will calculate derivatives, limits, and vectors with numbers, but you will primarily focus on the how and why of math (which I mean theorems, definitions, and the conceptual derivations). If you can truly understand them, you will do great in this class.
Homework = 15% of the grade. Do NOT procrastinate on these because although not difficult, it can be time-consuming (there was a time in which it took me 7 hours to complete one weeks' worth of homework in one sitting). Break them into chunks, ask questions to TA/Prof. Filipazzi, and you'll be much more prepared for the tests.
The midterms (each 22.5%) and finals (30%) were given a 24-hour time limit, so you have time to carefully do the questions. But be careful, because a lot of these questions are conceptually based and require you to show work and explicitly state theorems, conditions, and present careful reasoning. It did take my a lot of time (3-9 hours) to do them, but I was nevertheless grateful to the math department for the 24 hours limit because I don't think I would have been able to do them within the 1, 3 hour time limit if the class was in-person...
The professor was very clear and engaging when doing the lectures, because he showed us why we should care about the concepts we learn in Math 32A and provided us careful reasoning (take good notes so that you can use that reasoning on the tests should it be necessary). Overall, I liked his personality and his genuine caring for his students during the pandemic. If you love math and love to delve into the how/why of calculus (which was me btw), you would be golden (and earn that proud A). Good luck and when the course ends, you will walk out of the class being mindblown and truly understand what math really means :)
This class was by all means not easy, but I did enjoy Professor Filipazzi's teaching. Although some of the lectures were a little confusing, him and the TAs do care about how well you understand certain concepts and will take the time to explain it to you until it makes sense. As some people have mentioned, the online tests were tough but they were doable if you took the time to attend office hours and go to discussion sections.
I honestly don't even know why I took this class... This was my first quarter at UCLA, and my major didn't even require this course. But boy was MATH33A DIFFICULT for a freshman (Doable, but you need a pretty solid foundation in theoretical math, which I didn't have). Might just be me since I haven't taken Math since my Senior Year of high school at community college.
My advice to you is to definitely go to more Office Hours (been to only one and Filipazzi was able to make me understand the information really well), and try to work through the homework problems he assigns every week, they are graded for correctness though so it was annoying trying to make sure everything was right. Discussion sections for this class were pretty useless since the TAs are not allowed to go over homework problems. As a result, only 5-6 people went to discussion after Week 2. The tests really vary, this was Filipazzi's first time teaching so the test he wrote was a bit confusing when first reading it, and the difficultly varies vastly (Got a B+ first test, straight F second test, and got a B- on the final).
Filipazzi still follows the textbook conventionally, all lectures are Bruincasted, and the homework was fair, it was mainly annoying that everything has to be spot-on correct. So overall, still a great teacher and worth taking! Just have better study strategies and go into MATH 33A with more preparation!
Professor Filipazzi is an analysis GOAT. His lectures were engaging and he covered a lot of material in class. He was always willing to answer the smallest of questions and always explained concepts in an intuitive manner in both OH and lectures.
The homeworks were time-consuming and sometimes quite difficult but they test your analysis fundamentals. Professor Filipazzi is always happy to give hints in OH. The homeworks helped me prepare for the midterms and final which were on a similar level of difficulty if not less.
The weekly quizzes were sometimes ruthless as they had around 10 questions and even getting one question wrong would drop 10% of the quiz grade. However, professor compensated for the difficult quizzes and homeworks by dropping 2 of the lowest for each.
I gained a very good understanding of concepts such as cauchy and convergent sequences, integrability, differentiability and continuity and would take any class with professor Filipazzi. It's unfortunate that he is probably leaving at the end of the spring 2021 quarter.
Prof. Filipazzi is a legend, just here to boost his ratings.
The class is definitely not easy, and the homework takes lots of time. But this man explains everything so clear and really cares about students. The best Math professor I have by far (haven't taken many Math classes tho).
This class is overall great. Filipazzi teaches really well and is super helpful. The TAs are amazing and helpful. Online tests were definitely super long and some parts were tricky. But these tests were fair. Knowing the theorems and way the formulas work the way they do helps on the quizzes and tests. Make sure you understand the concepts. If not in lecture, read the book. Great class
Filipazzi is a very helpful professor that makes an effort to help students learn the material. His lectures are clear, but not the most engaging. His tests are not difficult, but it's important to be careful and show as much relevant work as possible (eg. state conditions of theorems that you use). Workload averages around 3-4 hours a week.
Lecture and HW: I took this class on the Zoom format like many others and overall I have mixed feelings regarding the class. The class material itself is definitely harder and in order to succeed I would recommend using the textbook and going to office hours for any questions you may have. On the other hand, Professor Filipazzi is a nice guy! Yes, sometimes his lectures left me confused at what on earth was going on, but I knew he wasn't purposely trying to make it harder on the students during lecture. I made up for the confusion by going to discussion, reading the chapter in the book, and going through each homework problem in detail. (On a side note, the homework is a LOT if you try to do it all in one day, don't make that mistake. ) Even after all that I still would sometimes be confused and that's when I went to office hours for the TA or Professor and asked peers for homework clarifications.
Exams: Well, they were doable---given that they took me many more hours than they were supposed to. We were given a 24-hour time period to finish the exams and were told that the midterms were supposed to take us 1-hour and the final 3-hours. They all took me muuuuchhh longer than that (like 4-6 hours) and I'm not sure if it was because of the number of questions or me not studying enough. The exams had both calculation and theoretical questions, and there is always a tricky question in there that we didn't directly exemplify in class. I think the hardest part of the exams were not the exams themselves, but rather the grading. Since they were 50 point exams it was easy to drop a letter grade if you messed up a question. That being said, as long as you are detail oriented in answering your questions and really study ahead of time, you will do just fine.
Quizzes: To keep it to the point. 3 quizzes total, each 30 minutes. Kinda stressful. More theoretical questions than calculation questions. Not worth that much of your grade.
Grade breakdown:
10% quizzes
15% Homework
22.5% both midterms
30% final