Professor Filipazzi is a really good professor and I thoroughly enjoyed this class with him even though it was pretty hard. The exams were definitely very challenging and long while given the 24 hour window to complete them. The exams are definitely very long to begin with but I think it's important to note that when you're given a 24 hour winds to take an exam you're definitely going to be trying to perfect every single answer and taking your time solving ones you don't know etc. I took like 8+ hours on the second midterm and final but that was also because I was studying the topics along the way to help me answer the questions lol. Though they were long, they weren't TOO hard as the average for Midterm 1 was a high B, almost low A. Second midterm was definitely harder and the average was a high C. The final however was long but easier in my opinion than the midterms and the average and median were A's. The exams were doable you just had to study and be careful showing your work.

Also a lot of people told him midterm 2 was extremely long and difficult and in return he sent us a long email explaining his perspective on the midterm and apologized for misjudging the length of the exam. He also further tried to help us by giving us tons of practice problems for the final and they were very similar to the final which is probably why the scores were so high. He also wrote long explanations about optimization and Lagrange multipliers since those are harder topics in the class to try and help us prepare for the final.

Also to the person saying he addresses his mistakes through cryptic code in the email: his email are from CCLE announcements. He writes them as announcements and then CCLE sends them as an email as a notification. When you read the announcements on CCLE they have the correct math symbols etc. It's not cryptic code lol

I'm dumb so I got a B (pretty sure a good chunk of people got A's since the averages were always so high) but I actually learned a lot from professor Filipazzi and recommend him as a professor. He cares about his students and genuinely wants them to succeed.

edit: he actually curved up so I ended with a B+. thank u filipazzi <3

I took this class during the COVID-19 pandemic in an online format.
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Overall, Professor Filipazzi is an excellent lecturer who is both engaging and helpful. The class itself is not easy, but the professor and TAs make every effort to try to answer your questions. You will find success in the class so long as you take the initiative to do homework problems early, attend office hours and discussions, and review both calculation and concept based questions.
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Many reviews comment on the difficulty of the exams. While I cannot speak for exams in an in-person format, the online exams were 24-hour, open note/textbook exams. The difficulty of the exams was likely ramped up due to the pandemic, i.e. more conceptual and lengthy questions were added so that people wouldn't just cheat with graphing calculators or things like Wolfram Alpha. The exams were certainly not easy, but if you do the homework and truly study the concepts, you will succeed. Rather than focusing on calculations, remember concepts, and especially conditions and exceptions to theorems. Also, when the test says "SHOW ALL WORK," it means show ALL work, including conditions for theorems and such.
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The quiz format is also about 80% conceptual, 20% calculation-based. Don't make stupid calculation errors, but definitely focus more on how theorems can be applied in different situations. After each class, review notes and think about how certain topics might be asked about.
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The homework seems like a lot, but only if you do it in one sitting. Try to split the work over a couple of days, and do it early so you have opportunities to ask about problems in office hours. You can practically get all problems done for you if you attend hours and listen to TAs explain problems.
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This was a great class overall, and was only slightly more difficult than anticipated. The professors and TAs tried their best to make the learning experience enjoyable. I would recommend Filipazzi for this class, just be prepared to put the time in to study the material well.

I took this class remotely due to Covid-19, but through Zoom, Stefano was still pretty engaging and explained the topics well. The homework was sometimes long and tedious, but as long as you don't procrastinate on it and do it during the week it's not that bad. The tests were pretty difficult, but I think he may have made them harder this year, since it was open book. Overall he is a good professor.

Took Multivariable Calculus in High School, but I still found this class tough. Lectures and discussion sections were great and helpful, but they were nothing like what was on the assessments. Quizzes were very conceptual. Midterms were long and split between procedures and conceptual concepts. Final took at least 6 hours. Overall, I think the class was a great experience, but expect to spend hours reviewing the conceptual parts of this course if you are taking 32A online.

This sure isn't an easy class, but professor Filipazzi definitely makes it more bearable. He's pretty much always willing to answer any questions you have in lecture and explains the concepts in ways that I found pretty helpful. A lot of people complained about the length of the midterms and finals, and I too spent about six hours or more on them. But like other people have said, when you have a 24 hour window to take a test, you'll spend so much more time than you usually would agonizing over every single line of work. Filipazzi certainly didn't design the tests to take that long on purpose and he genuinely does care about the welfare of his students. Overall, I've had a positive experience with this class and would definitely recommend him as a teacher.

Not to mention his final grade curve brought me from a mid B+ to an A- so I owe him my GPA for that one.

This is not an easy course by any means. His exams tend to hone in on conceptual understanding rather than 'plug and chug' mathematics you may have been exposed to in high school.

Regarding the professor, Filipazzi's lectures are fantastic and his teaching goes beyond the textbook. He provided helpful geometric interpretations of topics such as the gradient and the unit tangent vector, and his explanations are very clear. That being said, he doesn't do a lot of sample problems during lecture (he does a lot of proofs and concept building). After the midterms, Filipazzi did provide a lot of helpful advice. Example: after each lecture, write down the theorems and important concepts on a piece of paper, and pay special attention to the assumptions/limitations behind each theorem (ex: when does theorem X apply? what are some examples of when we can't use theorem X). This was very helpful during the timed online quizzes, which were almost entirely conceptual.

The exams were longer than expected, but keep in mind we had 24 hours to complete each exam. This would not have been the case in person. Averages for the midterms were around a B (88 for first midterm 82 for second). Before the final, Filipazzi did kindly provide some helpful practice problems (which ended up looking a bit similar to the actual exam). I would say the final ended up being slightly easier than the midterms for this reason. I realized every single problem on his exams were based off of some concept mentioned in lecture, so pay attention in class!

Overall, this course went very well; would definitely recommend. Note that the grade I entered for this review is the grade I predict I will get (since final grades aren't out yet).

Edit: I got an A+ in this course:)

This classed was mixed, but mostly positive. I took this class during the pandemic, and despite it being online I did actually grasp the material. Usually, the consensus regarding the online format for most classes was that it was harder to understand the concepts but easier to get a high grade, but this was the opposite. 32A is regarded as one of the "easier" math classes in the 31-32-33 series, but this felt much harder than any other math class I've taken due to the tests. The 24-hr midterms and final took on average 6-8 hours, and some people posted online about how it took them 17 hours. These death traps were meticulously graded and included the concepts we learned, just cranked up to an 11. Imagine taking the "challenge" questions at the end of the homework, and combining all of them for a single question. The worst part was that he outlined that these would take approximately the same amount of time during regular instruction (1 hr midterms, 3 hr final) but this was a lie. HOWEVER - since the in's and out's of every concept were included on the tests, you were forced to actually know how a parametrization or gradient actually functions in relation to everything you learned. Lectures were decent, and the weekly homework was tedious. Quizzes were very difficult since they were mostly conceptual. Lastly, discussion section was not too helpful but then again I stopped attending after a while.

TLDR: Tests are hard asf, and the homework is ok, lectures are decent at best. This class would have been easier in person, and was made more difficult to ensure we learn the material despite being under stay-at-home or quarantine or something.

Now I hate math.

i miss stefano the italian stallion and homie TA david already

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 :)