Professor
Gang Liu
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Most Helpful Review
Average professor. Definitely not the best you will ever have but also not the worst. Got a B+ in the class. Selling the book for this class, Single Variable Calculus by Jon Rogawski, Second Ed. used for Math 31A and 31B. E-mail me at lnt009@ucsd.edu if you're interested. I also have the solutions manual which I'll include in the purchase. I don't go to ucsd, I go ucla, I just like to use my ucsd email for convenience.
Average professor. Definitely not the best you will ever have but also not the worst. Got a B+ in the class. Selling the book for this class, Single Variable Calculus by Jon Rogawski, Second Ed. used for Math 31A and 31B. E-mail me at lnt009@ucsd.edu if you're interested. I also have the solutions manual which I'll include in the purchase. I don't go to ucsd, I go ucla, I just like to use my ucsd email for convenience.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2017 - Gang Liu is the G.O.A.T. It took me a whole quarter to be able to understand his accent, but his class and the midterms are purely computational and much like the homework. (Speaking of homework, the weekly homework can be done all in one night, which is what I did every week of the quarter). His final is longer and more difficult than the midterms but the curve compensates for it. One of my favorite things about Gang Liu is his attire. He wore the same iconic blue-shirt brown-pants outfit every single day of the quarter, and so far he has continued to wear the same outfit every day of 32B as well. Does he only own one pair of clothes? Maybe he just has a closet filled only with identical blue shirts and a drawer filled only with identical brown pants. We may never know. Overall 10/10 Gang Liu is the reason I get up in the morning.
Fall 2017 - Gang Liu is the G.O.A.T. It took me a whole quarter to be able to understand his accent, but his class and the midterms are purely computational and much like the homework. (Speaking of homework, the weekly homework can be done all in one night, which is what I did every week of the quarter). His final is longer and more difficult than the midterms but the curve compensates for it. One of my favorite things about Gang Liu is his attire. He wore the same iconic blue-shirt brown-pants outfit every single day of the quarter, and so far he has continued to wear the same outfit every day of 32B as well. Does he only own one pair of clothes? Maybe he just has a closet filled only with identical blue shirts and a drawer filled only with identical brown pants. We may never know. Overall 10/10 Gang Liu is the reason I get up in the morning.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2018 - I'm writing this before the final grades are posted, just trying to avoid possible bias based on a letter grade. Professor Liu has his styles, which is like "computation with tricks" and "inspiration", and you would agree with me if you have attended his lectures and seen the test problems. He always said "this is nothing but just ..." when emphasizing an important concept or a kind of abstract notion in lectures, not so hard to follow. He has accents, for sure. But such pronunciation problems only have minor influence on the lectures as a whole as long as you do not fall sleep and miss something in the transition from one idea to another. The grading scale seems kind of harsh; after all it is a lower division math class: Scheme A: 10%HW + 40%Midterms + 50%Final ( you may find it really easy to understand your final raw score for this course since Prof. Liu gives 2 midterms of 20 points each and a final of 50 points). Scheme B: 10%HW + 90%Final (Final is really hard, not just cumulative in contents covered, but also "tricks". Fortunately, in lectures he covered most of his "tricks" appeared in tests problems. If you find something really tedious to compute, then please think of some "tricks" you may be not so familiar with.
Winter 2018 - I'm writing this before the final grades are posted, just trying to avoid possible bias based on a letter grade. Professor Liu has his styles, which is like "computation with tricks" and "inspiration", and you would agree with me if you have attended his lectures and seen the test problems. He always said "this is nothing but just ..." when emphasizing an important concept or a kind of abstract notion in lectures, not so hard to follow. He has accents, for sure. But such pronunciation problems only have minor influence on the lectures as a whole as long as you do not fall sleep and miss something in the transition from one idea to another. The grading scale seems kind of harsh; after all it is a lower division math class: Scheme A: 10%HW + 40%Midterms + 50%Final ( you may find it really easy to understand your final raw score for this course since Prof. Liu gives 2 midterms of 20 points each and a final of 50 points). Scheme B: 10%HW + 90%Final (Final is really hard, not just cumulative in contents covered, but also "tricks". Fortunately, in lectures he covered most of his "tricks" appeared in tests problems. If you find something really tedious to compute, then please think of some "tricks" you may be not so familiar with.
Most Helpful Review
His accent is horrible; I'm still not used to it. But his exams were fair, as they were all computational (except the final, which included 1-2 proofs out of about 11 problems). I agree that the material in 33A doesn't really start to sink in until after the first midterm. The average for the midterms was usually in the C range for our class, so it's not hard getting an A. He doesn't put your homework scores or midterm grades online, so you go into the final with no knowledge of where you rank in the class. I went to class once a week for about 20 minutes, but went to my discussion every week, because my TA was really helpful. I highly recommend going to Professor Liu's "reviews"; he basically tells you what to study for the exams.
His accent is horrible; I'm still not used to it. But his exams were fair, as they were all computational (except the final, which included 1-2 proofs out of about 11 problems). I agree that the material in 33A doesn't really start to sink in until after the first midterm. The average for the midterms was usually in the C range for our class, so it's not hard getting an A. He doesn't put your homework scores or midterm grades online, so you go into the final with no knowledge of where you rank in the class. I went to class once a week for about 20 minutes, but went to my discussion every week, because my TA was really helpful. I highly recommend going to Professor Liu's "reviews"; he basically tells you what to study for the exams.
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Most Helpful Review
Yes, he has an accent. No, it does not hinder your ability to learn the material. However, I found my overall experience in Math 115A with Prof. Liu, frustrating to say the least. He's not really good at teaching the material (understatement) and communicating his ideas across. Even though it's supposed to be an intro to proof-based courses, he never really went over the basics of proofs. He assumed proofs would to come to us naturally, over time... which for me was like towards the end of the course ahaha. So if you can take Math 115A with a different professor, I would definitely recommend it, especially if you're a math major, since I feel as if Prof. Liu doesn't really prepare you for more abstract material. Don't get me wrong, he's not the worst, but yeah, I definitely spent the whole quarter self-learning the material--even the TA was pretty bad at explaining the material. In terms of midterms and the final, the first midterm, the medium if I recall correctly, was 8.5/20, the second 12.5/20 and I don't know the scores for the final since Prof. Liu never posts the scores on myUCLA, only the final grade for the class. The first midterm I think was a bit difficult since it was more proof-based but the second midterm was a lot more manageable and computational. The midterms had 4 questions, 5 points each and the final had 10 questions, which were mostly computational. Trust me, you want the questions to be computational since those are the same topics covered in Math 33A. So if you did well in Math 33A, you'll do well in Prof. Liu's Math 115A course. ;) However, out of the other 4 professors also teaching Math 115A, Prof. Liu had the most students drop out of his class so while it definitely is manageable to get an A, I would be very careful... He's definitely fair and wants students to do well, but everything else about him: his inept "style" of teaching, his unfriendliness in office hours and when you ask him questions (politely mind you), etc. sort of make him lean towards the "not-so-great professors" category.
Yes, he has an accent. No, it does not hinder your ability to learn the material. However, I found my overall experience in Math 115A with Prof. Liu, frustrating to say the least. He's not really good at teaching the material (understatement) and communicating his ideas across. Even though it's supposed to be an intro to proof-based courses, he never really went over the basics of proofs. He assumed proofs would to come to us naturally, over time... which for me was like towards the end of the course ahaha. So if you can take Math 115A with a different professor, I would definitely recommend it, especially if you're a math major, since I feel as if Prof. Liu doesn't really prepare you for more abstract material. Don't get me wrong, he's not the worst, but yeah, I definitely spent the whole quarter self-learning the material--even the TA was pretty bad at explaining the material. In terms of midterms and the final, the first midterm, the medium if I recall correctly, was 8.5/20, the second 12.5/20 and I don't know the scores for the final since Prof. Liu never posts the scores on myUCLA, only the final grade for the class. The first midterm I think was a bit difficult since it was more proof-based but the second midterm was a lot more manageable and computational. The midterms had 4 questions, 5 points each and the final had 10 questions, which were mostly computational. Trust me, you want the questions to be computational since those are the same topics covered in Math 33A. So if you did well in Math 33A, you'll do well in Prof. Liu's Math 115A course. ;) However, out of the other 4 professors also teaching Math 115A, Prof. Liu had the most students drop out of his class so while it definitely is manageable to get an A, I would be very careful... He's definitely fair and wants students to do well, but everything else about him: his inept "style" of teaching, his unfriendliness in office hours and when you ask him questions (politely mind you), etc. sort of make him lean towards the "not-so-great professors" category.
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