This is my second quarter with Prof Hsu- I took 31A with her last quarter. She's a fantastic lecturer and professor, and I honestly enjoyed taking these classes even though I wasn't the best at math in high school. She's super fair in terms of content on the midterms: the first one had a lower average at around 60ish (most people had issues with timing instead of actual content), while the second had an average around the mid-70s (less questions after we gave her feedback) if I remember correctly. She 'curved' by adding a 12 point extra credit problem to the final using M1 content. Be warned: we had a take-home final this quarter due to the virus and campus shutdown, but her finals are much harder in terms of content and application compared to the midterms.

A few things: she added a quiz section to this quarter: there's four in total, with the lowest grade dropped. It's two questions, done in discussion, that are pulled from the previous week's homework, which you don't have to turn in. Lowest homework is dropped as well. She offers two different grading schemes that allow you to use the max of your two midterms or the average of the two.

All in all, I couldn't recommend taking her classes more. She's always super clear and helpful, and I loved learning from her.

I think she deserves a higher rating for 31B. This class is an awkward class that usually took by nonmath majors and by math majors like me who take it for various wired reasons. I can imagine for an upper div serious math class Chiyun will have a much much higher rating.

She is honestly one of the best teachers I have ever had. Disclaimer, I am TERRIBLE at math and I don't know how I finessed an A. But that's not why I love this woman, I got a C+ in her class in 31A and decided to take her again, cause that's how great she is.

She is a phenomenal professor and lecturer. Her lecturers are engaging, and she MAKES a worksheet for us every class so we have the problems she is going to do and the concepts we are going to learn. The lecture is pretty easy to follow, but they're really conceptual, which is fitting cause her tests are like that too. The homework is lengthy, and difficult, but if you do it you will do well in the class. It is also graded, so it depends if you REALLY do it or if you find the answers online.

This quarter she added quizzes, which test the topics on the homework from the previous week. These helped my grade, and are fair. Take the discussion on Thursday so you can find out what topics she tested on Tuesday. They aren't the same questions for each discussion, but the same topics from the HW.

The tests in this class are ROUGH. Midterm 1 had a 60 average, and the second one was around 75. I really studied for the second one, so I did fine on that one. The first one was impossible for me, and I felt really underprepared.

With Chi-Yun you have to know your stuff to do well. There's not much partial credit given, and small mistakes will cause big deductions in the score.

Cause of COVID, we took a take home final. Which was a lot harder than the test in class, but we had 24 hours, so it was fine. At first, I got a B on the final. Then, we get an email from her telling us that people posted a couple of the final questions on Chegg or something like that, so in order to not penalize people who didn't cheat, she'll mark the questions she found correct for everyone. This way, I ended up getting a 100 on the final.

With the grading scheme (one uses both midterms and one only uses one of them), I was able to get an A in the class. There's also extra credit, but it's only 1%.

Chi-Yun is very easy to reach outside of class, she is very kind, and if you do well in her class you have to really understand the content. The only problem with her is that she's so smart (I didn't feel this with any of my other professors here), that she skips steps or stuff seems obvious to her. But, she's always willing to help you out if you get lost in class.

I think Chi-Yun is great, and going to her class was something I was excited for, which was weird cause I hate math. Trust me, take her class. She's the best.

I think prof Hsu is a great professor! The homeworks, book examples, and lecture worksheets were all very helpful for the two midterms and final. She is not the type of prof to put super difficult material you've never seen before on the exams. I didn't love the true/false and multiple choice on the exams, but some were easy points. Also if you're taking this online she always posted her office hour recordings and pdfs and I really appreciated it because she went over hw problems in OH.

Also, I didn't always understand the material just based off her lectures , so I would recommend using YouTube, specifically professor Leonard, patrickJMT, and organic chemistry tutor. These YouTube channels really helped me to master the material

Hsu is a sweet professor who is always prepared for lecture. She makes a worksheet for every lecture and posts answers to them which is pretty helpful. Prof Hsu sometimes skips over steps while doing practice problems.

The tests were not too hard (our first midterm class avg was like a 98). If you understood the homework you'll get a good grade. There were no tricky questions/word problems. However, the material of the class gets significantly harder right after Midterm 1.

There's homework every other week and on the weeks you don't have homework you have a n easy 2 question quiz. Some of the homework problems were really tedious.

Overall, I think her class / grading is pretty fair!!!

This class is hard, doesn't really matter who your professor is. Professor Hsu does her best to put all the concepts the dept. makes students learn for this class so sometimes it feels like a lot of content, but its out of her control.

Exams are kind of challenging, takes some time to complete but make sure you score well on her quizzes and don't mess up on homework, you should be okay on exams.

At times, homework gets really heavy, but if you pay attention to them and use them as practice, the concepts are really helpful for the really hard questions on her final and midterms.

I honestly think I could have had a worse experience but Professor Hsu is pretty nice and will answer all your questions in OH's, which she is really helpful in and are often pretty quiet, so use them to your advantage!!

Do take this class if you really want to learn! Professor Hsu is amazing; she really has an extensive knowledge base for this course and manipulates this knowledge in the most intelligent of ways. It may be a little hard to keep up at first because the methods she uses to solve problems challenges us to think outside of the box but it is so worth it and eye-opening if you are into learning how to learn. Also-- she is very helpful during class and will pause to answer any questions in chat! HW is long in length but necessary to understand the material; as long as you complete the corresponding problems to the lecture before the next lecture, you should be on track in general and prepared for the quizzes. Exams are reasonable, I would just recommend having a qualitative and quantitative understanding since there are T/F and MC questions in addition to those that involve calculation.

I took Professor Hsu for 31A in Fall 2019, and she has undoubtedly bettered herself this Quarter for Math 31B and I loved her for how she made a point to learn from her evaluations whether from Fall or in Winter and better herself accordingly. Her Exams this Quarter were extremely simple. I am not great at Math, but I could complete her Midterm 1 in 35 minutes, and 2 in 20 minutes. For her Exams, solve each and every problem type, if not each and every problem.
Quizzes were also extremely simple and were from the questions she had assigned, no surprises, however, she assigned a large number of questions and that could be strenuous. The Homework was also problematic in that manner. Also, she added exercises in her syllabus that the other Math 31B Professor didn't do. In that sense, this Class can be intensive but it is extremely doable.
I will definitely recommend Professor Hsu if you are interested in learning. The level of easiness or difficulty in this Class depends on how much work you are willing to do outside her class. Do not let other reviews mislead you.

Okay, so I was extremely shocked at why I got a B in this class but I'm not complaining. Let's dive into the mechanics of this class (I'm sure most of you that are reading this right now have to take this class as a pre-requisite for your major)
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LECTURES
This is one of those classes where the lectures either work or don't work for you. She tends to focus on the concepts rather than the actual calculations and because of this, she always seems to rush through the material in a short fifty minute period. I can not tell you how many times I've come out of a lecture and was like "What the heck did I just learn?". She usually has a printed out worksheet for all the students, but she also puts them up on CCLE for those who prefer to take notes on their tablets or computers (although she doesn't put them up before every lecture so I recommend just getting one of the hard copies that she prints out for every lecture). The worksheets often contain notes and practice problems which are helpful to learn and understand the concepts.
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GRADING
If you took Math 31A/L, you would understand the general grading scheme. There are two grading schemes that you can use, but the one that is used for you personally is the one that gives you the highest score. The first grading scheme takes both of your midterms into account while the second grading scheme takes the HIGHEST of your two midterms and the final exam is weighted more heavily.
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HOMEWORK
On weeks that you have a quiz, there is homework assigned but you do NOT have to turn in (I'll dive into why you should do your homework even when you don't have to turn it in for credit later). I also find this pattern where she typically assigns a CRAZY amount of homework for the weeks that we have quizzes (I'm very very very salty about that one week where she assigned problems #1-50 on a week we had a quiz). On weeks that you don't have a quiz, you have roughly around 10-15 problems after each lecture that you have to submit before 9 pm on Sunday. Also, your lowest homework score will be dropped.
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QUIZZES
So back to why you should do your homework every week. Remember how I said that on weeks you have a quiz, you don't need to turn in your homework for credit? Well, she pulls questions from those homework problems and quiz you using them. The problems are EXACTLY the same so as long as you did your homework and remember the mechanics to solving those kinds of problems, you'll be fine. She only gives you two problems but it's out of ten points. Screw up one problem, you already got a 50% on that quiz (assuming you get the other problem correct). Also, your lowest quiz score is dropped.
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MIDTERMS
Where do I begin with this one? I hated every single exam she ever gave out. The average on the first midterm was 60%. A lot of people struggled with time management, but on the side, I personally struggled with both time management AND the problems on the midterm. The midterm was insanely difficult and tested us on some concepts that were never covered in class. The average on the second midterm was around 70-80% (can't remember), so there was definitely an improvement. I think she really took our first midterm evaluations seriously and lessened the difficulty and the number of problems on the second midterm. The structure of each midterm is usually as follows: five multiple-choice problems on the first page, followed by four-five short answer questions. There's always partial credit, so try your best to solve them.
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FINAL EXAM
Well, the situation that we had was certainly a unique one. Due to the rest of Winter Quarter 2020 and Finals Week being shifted online, she had to change her entire final exam. Following the structure of her midterms, I'm assuming that she would have also given us multiple choice and short answer questions that fit the general time frame of three hours. Instead, we had twenty multiple-choice questions, with one 12 point extra credit problem that would be added to our first midterm score to increase our score (since everyone scored so low).
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TAs
I sometimes found the TAs more helpful than the actual professor, but I think that's because the TAs work with smaller groups and are able to address more of the students' needs. If you can, go to your TA's office hours (or another TA's) for additional help. I went a few times and my TA was really helpful in helping me clear up some concepts.
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OFFICE HOURS/PROFESSOR'S CHARACTER
I personally didn't go to any of her office hours due to time conflicts, but she set aside about two-three hours for office hours each week. She usually reminds everyone in the beginning of each lecture when she's having office hours which is nice. Talking about her as a person generally, she's a nice professor and knows how to take critique (as demonstrated with how the average of the second midterm increasing). Also, I don't know if she has multiple of the same shirt, but I swear she wears the same shirt to every lecture. I just thought this was something funny I have to point out.
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EXTRA CREDIT
There's a few opportunities for extra credit but it's not much. There is a mid-quarter evaluation (after the first midterm), a final exam question, and the course evaluation that can be completed for some extra credit points.

I'll try to give a review without bursting out in anger and get all biased haha.
Her teaching style is really not for everyone. Honestly from what I have heard and seen from the students who took 31B with her was that you either understand what she is teaching or you don't. For me, I struggled HARD, and I had to teach myself the course all on my own. After the monstrosity of midterm 1 I stopped going to lectures (don't worry they were bruincasted). Her exams can be unpredictable and sometimes you won't even have enough time to do all of the problems. How she teaches the class may be very difficult to adapt to because she heavily focuses on the concepts and derivations of formulas and whatnot, instead of calculations. From the lectures I actually went to, she expects students to easily understand the lesson content and that may be why some students became frustrated with her because she sometimes does not slow down or fully explain what she is writing.
My best advice to truly do well in her class: after lecture, start doing the assigned homework problems so that you don't fall behind. on the textbook, go through what the textbook teaches you (to help you solidify the material) and then do the homework problems.
In my opinion, the TAs teach you better and give you more ways to do problems that will actually help you understand. I believe that a lot of people started to trust their TAs more than Hsu herself.
In a sense, Hsu does care for her students. She encourages students to go to her office hours if they were confused with the lecture material. She'll ask for feedback on the exams and she tries to adjust the exam material that fits the general strengths of her students. I believe that this quarter was the first time she has taught 31B, so I am sure she will adjust her course.
31B was all new material to me and I just did not like how she taught the class, but her method works for others. If you plan to take Professor Hsu in the future, I wish you luck.