This professor is so bad. She will destroy your GPA. Her lectures are boring, she does not care about her students. I went to her office hours to see where I can improve and she told me I can not do math. Her exams are unreasonably hard, and the class stresses students. Her homeworks take 8 hours to solve. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS.

DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS! Please save yourself. She doesn't really care about her students. Class is really boring. AND HER GRADING IS ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. On the first day of class, she said I don't like curving classes, so this class isn't curved at all. Lets face it we all want to learn but want a good grade. If you care about your GPA, STAY away from this class. She gave way too much HW and after some point it was so difficult to even finish the HW in time and it legit took 6-8 hours. While the content was pretty interesting, I hated the lectures and grading scheme. The course material is challenging and does involve a lot of visualization. Therefore getting your concepts clear is as important as practicing. And this lecture did not help me understand any kind of concept. This class almost made me hate math. If you like math or yourself stay away from this class

Clover May was the worst professor I have had at UCLA so far. It's not that her teaching is bad (she's actually a decent teacher), but it's the way she runs the class. Here's a breakdown of Clover May:

1) Homework: she assigns A LOT of homework each week. The homework isn't graded for completion (a few of the questions are graded) and literally takes 7-10 hours a week to complete. Additionally, the homework isn't very similar to exam questions but is still valuable. She does drop two homework assignments, which is a plus.

2) Exams and Grading: The exams in this class are HARD. She does provide practice exams (which are harder than the actual exams), but the actual exams are still difficult. The final, in my opinion, was easier than the midterms but was still on the difficult side. Her grading is horrible. She takes off points for not writing down theorems in the exam and other stupid peculiarities, as she never clarifies as to what exactly she wants. For example, if the question asks for amount of work done and if you don't write down the formula for work, you will get docked even if you set up the integral correctly and get the correct answer. On top of everything, SHE DOES NOT CURVE. This was definitely ridiculous. Her exams are not easy enough to have absolute grading, and because of that, even if you beat the median by say 15 points, you still are not safe. This is unacceptable in my opinion, as her class should have DEFINITELY been curved.

Overall: May is good at clearly presenting the material, but on her exams, she always likes to pull stuff that's a bit off-field. This would be fine, but since the class is not curved, her exams are very stressful and are hard to finish in 50 minutes, which caused me to have a very difficult quarter with her. If she decides to curve her class in the future (which I doubt she will), she will be an okay choice, but if not, avoid her.

(see end for tl;dr)

I had Dr. May for two quarters, for 32A and 32B. On the good side, she is a very good and engaging lecturer, was pretty responsive to email and helpful in office hours. She also gives practice exams before each exam, which were similar to the actual ones.

However, I did not enjoy my experience with Dr. May. For this class, she gave ~7 hours of homework per week, which were graded on correctness by the TAs and could drop your grade significantly (worth 10% of your grade, and NOT a guaranteed grade boost).

On her exams, she would mark you off for not doing something that was not specified in the problem (ex: if a problem asks you to solve for work, you would only get full credit if you wrote out the general formula for work, even if you solved the problem correctly and showed your steps). I feel like this kind of grading artificially drives down exam scores and doesn't really assess a person's understanding of the material.

She also does not curve the class, and each exam had really low averages, generally in the low seventies. I consistently got ~13 points above the mean on each exam, and still ended up with a B in the class (would be average in most other classes). At the end, I got an 87 average, which was apparently NOT a B+. Shoutout to my TA, Eli, for making this class bearable.

Tl;dr -- take this class if you want to have a good lecturer and don't mind anal grading policies that make the class harder than it has to be.

Do not take this class if you care about your grades. She does not curve even though her tests are killer. You will learn some in, but it is not the concepts on the test. The examples she does in class are elementary but the homework problems are very difficult and time-consuming. And that would be fine, if that is not for the fact that the book problems are nothing like the midterms and finals. She is rude and condescending, I had her for two quarters because of time conflicts and I regret it deeply.

Terrible professor

I can highly recommend May. She is a clear professor, and her tests are very fair. fair tests. Most of the homework is optional, so you can do as much work as you like. Overall, she is a great prof, and talking her class was totally worth it.

Exams were hard, but you will learn a lot. The class isn’t curved, so you have to do well.

In one sentence: much better than what you expect from other negative comments, but avoid if you have better choice or you want something less challenging.
Grading: As what others stated, she does not curve, but she will adjust everyone’s score if the average is too low to make things look nicer, so not too bad. Her midterms and finals are reasonable and doable, and have average around 70s to 80s. I even got 90s on final.
Homework: She used to give 20 questions every week, which is a lot. I spent 4-5 hours every week doing homework. She listened to our complaints though and changed to 15 after second midterm.
Lecture: As contrast to what others say, I think her lectures are pretty engaging, clear and helpful. Do go to her lectures.
Material: Math 32B itself is very challenging, slightly more difficult than 31B, and much more difficult than 31A/32A. Expect to do lots of practice and self study. Read textbooks very carefully before and after lectures. People who hate her simply because they cannot do well on difficult materials are absolutely clueless.
Other: I think she is a responsible professor and actually cares about her students. She made some nice video lectures on CCLE to keep up the schedule or mention points that she was unable to explain clearly during recent lectures. Also, she was willing to change her policies and teaching styles and listen to what students say. Overall I will say the only downside you need to worry about is the workload, but given that she just changed her policy, no need to worry too much. Let’s be honest, for 32B it is just inevitable to do lots of practice if you want to do well. I feel like I learnt A LOT after taking this class. I really mean A LOT.

This review is for math 120A. I'm a senior in pure math, and I've been writing proofs during most of my undergrad years. I lost points in an exam just because I used "=>" in my proof instead of the English word "so," even though she uses "=>" in her lectures as well. This is the most ridiculous thing ever happened on me, lmao. (Btw, I also lost points in ALL exams because of "incomplete sentences" and "lacking explanations" without any comment from Dr. May. I suggest math department open a Writing I for Dr. May to fulfill her dream of being an ENGLISH professor. :))