Really smart and charismatic guy. I only went to one office hour right before the final, but he helped out so much. The class was great. He seemed so happy to be teaching and knew so much about his field that it motivated me to learn.

He's extremely fair on tests and if you get the problem mostly right except for an arithmetical mistake (such as multiplying one term wrong in a 3x3*3x3 matrix) and even if the whole answer is botched, if you show that your process is correct, he will give you most of the points for it, which is unlike some professors I've had. However, the tests are not "easy", you will have to know the material and be able to solve some complex problems.

I learned so much about algebra in 33A that I almost forgot I was in a lower division class. If you're willing to learn and go to office hours, you will have no problem passing his class.

Also he's one of the only math professors at UCLA who has a tan and keeps himself fit. A nice change from the usual pasty skin tone.

He is a fair professor and grader. He does make the occasional mistake during his lectures but he knows what he is talking about. Some other people mentioned that he focuses heavily on memorizing formulas but that's not true. He allowed us to use a note card on the final so that we could focus more on problem solving as opposed to straight memorization. Math 31B is not the most enjoyable class but Professor Taylor definitely makes it better.

Bad teacher. Very disorganized. He makes many mistakes in lecture and spends a lot of time trying to correct them. It also feels like he is more concerned with having you memorize formulas instead of actually understanding the concepts. I stopped going to lectures because his lectures ended up confusing me. I would recommend not taking math with this professor if you can.

Professor Taylor is a pretty decent professor. Math 132 involves a lot of theorems and concepts that you have to fully understand.

Although it was a lot of work to understand all of the concepts in the class, Professor Taylor did a good job of explaining them during lecture.

Some people get frustrated with complex analysis, but you need just to do a bunch of practice problems to understand it well.

Midterm and final were very fair. They were moderately difficult, but the questions were not trick questions. He simply tests you on the material you learn.

Overall, Professor Taylor is a good professor.

I honestly can't understand all those negative review about Dr. Taylor. Yes, he is a bit disorganized and he does make mistakes in lectures and posted material. However, for me it did not affect the clearness of the material given. Dr. Taylor explains everything pretty clearly and does it with passion, so the lectures are enjoyable. He is always very helpful in the office hours and his midterms/exams have a fair level of complexity. So, if you do end up with him as a professor, do go to the lectures and do the homework, then you should be fine. I learned everything on lectures and then used only summary in the book to revise the material.

I had him for 32A. I believe it was Dr. Taylor's first full academic quarter teaching, so he seemed nervous at times and did make mistakes during lectures.

That said, I do believe he was a very decent professor. He gave examples in class that were helpful for the homework. The fact that he did not give quizzes is also a plus. Also, his exams were quite fair and mostly computational. I lost points mostly for simple mistakes like using the wrong number and related issues. Unlike the other professors (Chayes and Williams) who were also teaching 32A at the time, Taylor was not one of those professors who goes too conceptual and focuses on the theorems.

His lectures, despite his mistakes at time, were understandable, except for one on curvature, but he fixed this during the next lecture. Also, if you have Ioannis Lagkas NIkolos as your TA, he goes a bit too fast during discussion but he is a good TA.

I did go to Taylor's office hours twice and he was helpful in both cases. In the second time I went, it was during finals week, and he gave me a tip that actually appeared on the final!

Overall, he was not too hard, but do your homework and do a lot of practice problems from the book. Go to discussion, look over your notes, and read the book as well.

So far THE WORST teacher at UCLA.
Very disorganized in lectures and we never get our homework back. Don't learn much in the lecture, so don't even bother going to the lecture unless you turn in homework.
We get practice exam's solution like the day before the test, and it is not even complete solution.
Try avoiding him.

I had Taylor for both 33A and 33B. Overall, I really liked him as a professor and would definitely recommend his class.

Pros:
He's a very enthusiastic teacher who obviously knows his stuff, and he's pretty concerned about students and is genuinely happy if students learn. If it counts for anything, he's always well dressed and definitely has a sense of fashion. His tests are very fair and in that sense predictable. He often posts a review aka "what you need to know for the midterm/final", which contains all the information that will be on the test, and nothing random or unexpected is tested. There will often be a practice test which is very similar to the midterm/final. Most test problems are either on homework level difficulty or slightly harder. Any problems that are slightly harder than homework can all be solved, provided you understand the material and use a bit of cleverness. There are always students who get 100%, or really close. As for his grading policy, he drops one or two homeworks, and drops a midterm if it will boost your final score. Midterms are 5 or 6 questions, with topics well distributed throughout. Be sure to know the important theorems (not the little ones, but the ones a whole section is devoted to) since there will always be a question on that.

Cons:
As you've read, people say he's disorganized. I have to disagree. He has his lecture outlined, but just because he doesn't copy his notes line by line doesn't mean it's bad. I think it's good that the lecture is organic. It's not a big deal. You've probably also read that he makes mistakes in lectures. That is true, but these are all arithmetic errors, not logical or huge faulty errors. Granted you pay attention and follow the lecture, either point it out or write the correct answer in your notes. If you're able to follow his errors, you understand the material well enough anyways. People who say that he just wants people to memorize formulas probably didn't go to lecture or didn't pay attention in lecture.

If you want an A or A-, do your practice problems, go to lecture (or not, I don't think it's necessary though I went to them), go to discussion (TA's are really helpful), and just do a ton of practice problems. You'll do fine in the class, and learn a lot.

i took this math 33A course in my first quarter at UCLA. This was a morning 8 am course. Almost, the whole class was asleep. The clarity of this instructor is low, which required a lot of time for us to comprehend the course after the lecture. In this quarter, I chose 4 courses. Among them, Math 33A occupied most of my time. Actually, the workload from the instructor was not too much and only required one problem set per week. However, we need to spend a lot of time on the material. Also, the final exam style is totally different from the in-class midterm. The final also included the content which was not included in the final exam study guide.

I DID NOT recommend to take Math 33A with this professor, and also DO NOT take math class at 8am.

First of all, I bet Taylor would be a much better teacher, if he wasn't teaching at 8 in the morning. He makes mistakes a lot, and he is not a clear lecturer. He would often lose his place or train of thought, or just straight up be really confusing during class. Sometimes he was even late. I found him terrible and thought I failed, but barely passed. The first two midterms are pretty straightforward, actually (although there's true false on every test and it kills me every time). The final was brutal, and I was very surprised given the almost "easiness" of his first two midterms (at least in hindsight the two midterms were straightforwards and no curve balls were thrown at you). If you can avoid him, please do.