Professor Xiang has a belief that the best students do not attend lectures. With lectures at 9 am, I usually walked out more confused than when I came in. That being said, the online book is the best place to learn for this course. Lecture slides are posted and you can get the same out of the lecture if you took notes on slides during your own time. Discussions are the best place to walk through example problems with your TA and likely where you will clear up most of your confusion. If Professor Xiang hosts office hours, it is in your best interest to attend. He is an extremely nice and understanding professor. He also offers a cheat sheet for midterms and the final which is very useful given the complex formulas taught in this course. Overall, if you are taking Math 31B do it with Professor Xiang. He is better than the other professors.

This class was really hard, but all the professors are said to be difficult. Midterms and final were extremely difficult and homework was graded harshly.