Professor

Jose Ramon Madrid Padilla

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3.1
Overall Ratings
Based on 87 Users
Easiness 2.7 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 3.6 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 2.6 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 3.0 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (87)

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MATH 131A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Aug. 25, 2020
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A

Analysis is a hard class, especially during the 6-week summer session. Even though Professor Jose has accents, but he is very helpful: he is willing to spend much after-class time on answering questions, and also provides us with useful PPTs.

The tests are hard, but managable during a 24-hour period (we had take-home exams during the pandemic). The homework is quite easy, as they all come from the textbook.

Be prepared to learn a lot of knowledge, and spend much time on the material. As long as you follow the pace of the class, getting an A is possible.

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MATH 33A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 2, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: B-

The prof had a habit of speeding through the materials hella fast. I thought it was out of nervousness in week 1, but it kept going even with students continuously asking him to slow down, so we all unanimously gave up trying to remind him. By the time week 3 rolled around I had no idea what I was doing, so I gave up and followed the textbook instead, which was a lot more helpful and provided a variety of examples. Some methods they used were over-complicated though, like the bit on determinants of massive matrices, so I suggest you go to Khan Academy if you're stuck because they have a lot of resources as always.
First midterm was totally fine, and I accidentally missed the second midterm due to being overseas this quarter, but I heard it got quite difficult and people complained. I asked the prof if there was any way that I could retake the midterm, but he said no and that my excuse wasn't good enough and that he would talk with the department about it, which is fair enough. I didn't get a response for a few weeks though, so when I followed him up about it in week 10 he quite readily allowed my grade for my final to be the grade for my second midterm was well, which was nice.
Homework was pretty standard, everything came from the textbook, and were due once every two weeks. If you're stuck, look over the examples in that chapter and you'll find something very similar to imitate. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure the textbook answers are on Sl*der.
Overall, the class content itself wasn't that complicated, especially if you have a good grasp of basic algebra and simultaneous equations, but the prof made things a bit difficult.

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MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 26, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A

I took Math 31B with Padilla Winter Quarter 2020-21. While obviously remote learning hinders the ability of professors to actively teach and engage students, I felt that Professor Padilla made effort to help his students during lecture, and especially being extremely available and helpful in office hours.

The grading in general was significantly more lenient than I have heard it typically is - 24 hour exams and dropping lowest HW grade helped. I feel that Prof. Padilla taught an often challenging and unintuitive class quite well.

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MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 27, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A

I thought this class was alright. Dr. Padilla is an okay lecturer but his lectures can be confusing sometimes. The homework was on the lighter side and the lowest grade is dropped. The first midterm was easy. However, the second midterm and the final were tricker. It was still straightforward mostly but there were one or two questions that were tricky. Despite this, I still managed to do well enough on those to earn high grades on the exams. I would highly recommend Michael Johnson as your TA he was very nice and very helpful. I also heard he did curve grades at the end a bit.

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MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 27, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: B

Overall, the materials for this course wasn't hard, however the exams made it quite difficult for people of all skill levels. Personally, I struggled due to exams being AP style grading (meaning that you had to be super specific in your answers, show a ridiculous amount of work, and spell out every single step you took or else you wouldn't get full credit). Normally, this would have been ok, however the midterms and finals were out of only 40 points. (If you took calc BC in hs like I did and are taking the course because you got below a 5 on the exam, you have to act as though you've never learned calc before on the exams in order to get 100%. Any knowledge you have from calc BC will not count as credit on the exams.)

Lectures were helpful. Padilla explains what you need to know then teaches by example. Then the TAs would give further examples/the ability to ask questions during discussion sections which helped to solidify any knowledge. I can't say anything about office hours, as I didn't attend any.

For the first midterm there was a problem taken directly out of the textbook with a given formula for the solution. I ended up losing 13% on the midterm due to knowing a formula from the textbook. When I brought this up to the grader, I was told that I didn't show true mastery of the material, even though the textbook gave me the formula to use. Furthermore, I continuously lost points for not showing simple calculations, such as a one-step u-substitution. This would normally be fine, however once again the midterms and finals had such few points available that losing any would drastically harm your grade. Lastly, the exams were significantly harder than the homework, and would often times include questions with complex solutions that the class had zero exposure to either within lecture, homework, or the textbook.

However, some positives are that there is quite a light workload when it came to homework and homework is pretty easy overall. Furthermore, Padilla/the graders gave you all of your grades by the end of the class, including the final exam grade (which is something previous math teachers I've had failed to do). With any grade on gradescope Padilla and the graders would regrade any requests and give you adequate responses to your request, should you ask for it. My TA was wonderful in explaining questions in depth and in teaching us needed material when class slowed a bit. Lastly, the class was curved really well in the end. Raw percent wise I would've landed pretty squarely in the C range, however I ended the course with a B which is nice. I can't explain how much of a curve was given, but it's pretty generous to boost my grade a whole letter.

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MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 28, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A

i took calc BC in high school and i managed fine not even going to lectures. the tests weren't hard and my TA wasn't a bad grader so it wasn't too bad. but supposedly most of the TA's grading was pretty awful and since the tests were only out of 40 points little mistakes knocked your grade down a lot. the professor was also so hard to reach and never responded to his emails so it was pretty hard to communicate about anything. probably not a good idea to take this class if you haven't taken calc in the past or have a strict TA. definitely take it with Michael Johnson (TA) if you can he was super helpful.

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MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 29, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A

Overall, this class was decent. It was a little hard to understand professor Padilla at times, but it was manageable. Sometimes he goes off on a tangent/goes over stuff that isn't really relevant to the course material. However, his tests were really straightforward and easy. Due to COVID these were also 24 hrs, which made it better. He wasn't the best at responding to emails, but all of the TA's were. He may not be the BEST math professor, but he is pretty decent.

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MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
April 22, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A

What helps for tests is going to the discussions!! Many people found the questions on the exams unrelated to hw problems or problems Professor Padilla went over, but I personally was familiar with them because they had been discussed during discussions. Besides that, lectures mainly consisted of the professor going over problems the textbook went over. I think the professor explained concepts clearly and his accent was not a hinderance at all. I liked how the professor consistently expressed asking for help during office hours; I never went but it seemed like he really cared about students learning.

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MATH 131B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 8, 2021
Quarter: Spring 2021
Grade: B-

131B is definitely not an easy class. However, Padilla cared about out learning and he reminded us that he's not going to fail anyone. He curves the class to where most people will get A's and B's, and only a few will get C's. He told us that he will not fail anyone so he really cares about our learning.
He lectures with Apple Notes, which is quite odd and inefficient since he sometimes struggles to erase something from his notes. His lectures are pretty slow, and he does go overtime by 10 minutes often. He goes slow because he really wants us to learn and he doesn't want to rush any topics. Because of this, we didn't cover all the topics that we were supposed to cover so weeks 9-10 felt a little rushed. He does have an accent and his handwriting is a little sloppy but you get used to it. Aside from this, I think his lectures were pretty good. He tends to remind us every 10 minutes that if anything is unclear, then come to office hours, but he does that because he cares about us :]
The exams are tough, but that's to be expected with real analysis. There are 3 questions in each midterm. The first midterm had an average of 18.58/25 (74%) with a 18% standard deviation, but the second midterm was better with an average of 20.23/25 (81%) with a 12% standard deviation. Not sure what the final exam average was but he curved this class a lot. I got a B- with a 60% in the class.
We had 6 homeworks this quarter. The homework is difficult but our TA Raymond saved me this quarter. His discussions were helpful because he did some of the homework problems, and also he'll walk you through the homework solutions during his office hours. He hosted extra review sessions too!
Overall I would recommend this class. It's not easy but he won't fail anyone as long as you're trying. And if anything is unclear, then we can discuss this during office hours.

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MATH 131B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 20, 2021
Quarter: Spring 2021
Grade: A

I have mixed opinions on Madrid Padilla. I felt his lectures were a bit slow but I guess better too slow than too fast. What irked me about his class was his exams. He would give a problem on the exam on material from the lecture right before the exam. It felt a bit weird because he would only really tell us the basic definitions of those concepts and thats about it. His homework schedule was very random as well. We had 6 homeworks total. He has a bit of an accent and I honestly found it hard to understand what he said sometimes. Also, his handwriting isn't amazing (but also isn't terrible!). With all that out of the way, he is one of the nicest professors I have had. He is VERY generous with grading. The medians for the two midterms were 19/25 and 21/25 and undetermined on the final. I scored a 22,21.5 and a 49/60 respectively. After calculating my final grade, I had a 87.3% so I should have gotten a B+ but I ended up with an A! Maybe the final exam had a very low average or something but regardless, I am very happy he curved so generously. He said he was not going to fail anyone and after discussing in the groupme, it seems like most people received A,A-,B+,B,B- My TA Robert Housden (Robbie) is one of my favourite TAs in the department. You can tell he cares about each student and really puts his all into it. His material was significantly easier than Raymond's (the other TAs) stuff. Raymond carried us for homework, essentially doing every problem during his office hours. Overall, I am quite happy with my experience with this course.

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MATH 131A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A
Aug. 25, 2020

Analysis is a hard class, especially during the 6-week summer session. Even though Professor Jose has accents, but he is very helpful: he is willing to spend much after-class time on answering questions, and also provides us with useful PPTs.

The tests are hard, but managable during a 24-hour period (we had take-home exams during the pandemic). The homework is quite easy, as they all come from the textbook.

Be prepared to learn a lot of knowledge, and spend much time on the material. As long as you follow the pace of the class, getting an A is possible.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 33A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: B-
Dec. 2, 2020

The prof had a habit of speeding through the materials hella fast. I thought it was out of nervousness in week 1, but it kept going even with students continuously asking him to slow down, so we all unanimously gave up trying to remind him. By the time week 3 rolled around I had no idea what I was doing, so I gave up and followed the textbook instead, which was a lot more helpful and provided a variety of examples. Some methods they used were over-complicated though, like the bit on determinants of massive matrices, so I suggest you go to Khan Academy if you're stuck because they have a lot of resources as always.
First midterm was totally fine, and I accidentally missed the second midterm due to being overseas this quarter, but I heard it got quite difficult and people complained. I asked the prof if there was any way that I could retake the midterm, but he said no and that my excuse wasn't good enough and that he would talk with the department about it, which is fair enough. I didn't get a response for a few weeks though, so when I followed him up about it in week 10 he quite readily allowed my grade for my final to be the grade for my second midterm was well, which was nice.
Homework was pretty standard, everything came from the textbook, and were due once every two weeks. If you're stuck, look over the examples in that chapter and you'll find something very similar to imitate. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure the textbook answers are on Sl*der.
Overall, the class content itself wasn't that complicated, especially if you have a good grasp of basic algebra and simultaneous equations, but the prof made things a bit difficult.

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0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
March 26, 2021

I took Math 31B with Padilla Winter Quarter 2020-21. While obviously remote learning hinders the ability of professors to actively teach and engage students, I felt that Professor Padilla made effort to help his students during lecture, and especially being extremely available and helpful in office hours.

The grading in general was significantly more lenient than I have heard it typically is - 24 hour exams and dropping lowest HW grade helped. I feel that Prof. Padilla taught an often challenging and unintuitive class quite well.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
March 27, 2021

I thought this class was alright. Dr. Padilla is an okay lecturer but his lectures can be confusing sometimes. The homework was on the lighter side and the lowest grade is dropped. The first midterm was easy. However, the second midterm and the final were tricker. It was still straightforward mostly but there were one or two questions that were tricky. Despite this, I still managed to do well enough on those to earn high grades on the exams. I would highly recommend Michael Johnson as your TA he was very nice and very helpful. I also heard he did curve grades at the end a bit.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: B
March 27, 2021

Overall, the materials for this course wasn't hard, however the exams made it quite difficult for people of all skill levels. Personally, I struggled due to exams being AP style grading (meaning that you had to be super specific in your answers, show a ridiculous amount of work, and spell out every single step you took or else you wouldn't get full credit). Normally, this would have been ok, however the midterms and finals were out of only 40 points. (If you took calc BC in hs like I did and are taking the course because you got below a 5 on the exam, you have to act as though you've never learned calc before on the exams in order to get 100%. Any knowledge you have from calc BC will not count as credit on the exams.)

Lectures were helpful. Padilla explains what you need to know then teaches by example. Then the TAs would give further examples/the ability to ask questions during discussion sections which helped to solidify any knowledge. I can't say anything about office hours, as I didn't attend any.

For the first midterm there was a problem taken directly out of the textbook with a given formula for the solution. I ended up losing 13% on the midterm due to knowing a formula from the textbook. When I brought this up to the grader, I was told that I didn't show true mastery of the material, even though the textbook gave me the formula to use. Furthermore, I continuously lost points for not showing simple calculations, such as a one-step u-substitution. This would normally be fine, however once again the midterms and finals had such few points available that losing any would drastically harm your grade. Lastly, the exams were significantly harder than the homework, and would often times include questions with complex solutions that the class had zero exposure to either within lecture, homework, or the textbook.

However, some positives are that there is quite a light workload when it came to homework and homework is pretty easy overall. Furthermore, Padilla/the graders gave you all of your grades by the end of the class, including the final exam grade (which is something previous math teachers I've had failed to do). With any grade on gradescope Padilla and the graders would regrade any requests and give you adequate responses to your request, should you ask for it. My TA was wonderful in explaining questions in depth and in teaching us needed material when class slowed a bit. Lastly, the class was curved really well in the end. Raw percent wise I would've landed pretty squarely in the C range, however I ended the course with a B which is nice. I can't explain how much of a curve was given, but it's pretty generous to boost my grade a whole letter.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
March 28, 2021

i took calc BC in high school and i managed fine not even going to lectures. the tests weren't hard and my TA wasn't a bad grader so it wasn't too bad. but supposedly most of the TA's grading was pretty awful and since the tests were only out of 40 points little mistakes knocked your grade down a lot. the professor was also so hard to reach and never responded to his emails so it was pretty hard to communicate about anything. probably not a good idea to take this class if you haven't taken calc in the past or have a strict TA. definitely take it with Michael Johnson (TA) if you can he was super helpful.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
March 29, 2021

Overall, this class was decent. It was a little hard to understand professor Padilla at times, but it was manageable. Sometimes he goes off on a tangent/goes over stuff that isn't really relevant to the course material. However, his tests were really straightforward and easy. Due to COVID these were also 24 hrs, which made it better. He wasn't the best at responding to emails, but all of the TA's were. He may not be the BEST math professor, but he is pretty decent.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 31B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
April 22, 2021

What helps for tests is going to the discussions!! Many people found the questions on the exams unrelated to hw problems or problems Professor Padilla went over, but I personally was familiar with them because they had been discussed during discussions. Besides that, lectures mainly consisted of the professor going over problems the textbook went over. I think the professor explained concepts clearly and his accent was not a hinderance at all. I liked how the professor consistently expressed asking for help during office hours; I never went but it seemed like he really cared about students learning.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 131B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2021
Grade: B-
June 8, 2021

131B is definitely not an easy class. However, Padilla cared about out learning and he reminded us that he's not going to fail anyone. He curves the class to where most people will get A's and B's, and only a few will get C's. He told us that he will not fail anyone so he really cares about our learning.
He lectures with Apple Notes, which is quite odd and inefficient since he sometimes struggles to erase something from his notes. His lectures are pretty slow, and he does go overtime by 10 minutes often. He goes slow because he really wants us to learn and he doesn't want to rush any topics. Because of this, we didn't cover all the topics that we were supposed to cover so weeks 9-10 felt a little rushed. He does have an accent and his handwriting is a little sloppy but you get used to it. Aside from this, I think his lectures were pretty good. He tends to remind us every 10 minutes that if anything is unclear, then come to office hours, but he does that because he cares about us :]
The exams are tough, but that's to be expected with real analysis. There are 3 questions in each midterm. The first midterm had an average of 18.58/25 (74%) with a 18% standard deviation, but the second midterm was better with an average of 20.23/25 (81%) with a 12% standard deviation. Not sure what the final exam average was but he curved this class a lot. I got a B- with a 60% in the class.
We had 6 homeworks this quarter. The homework is difficult but our TA Raymond saved me this quarter. His discussions were helpful because he did some of the homework problems, and also he'll walk you through the homework solutions during his office hours. He hosted extra review sessions too!
Overall I would recommend this class. It's not easy but he won't fail anyone as long as you're trying. And if anything is unclear, then we can discuss this during office hours.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 131B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2021
Grade: A
June 20, 2021

I have mixed opinions on Madrid Padilla. I felt his lectures were a bit slow but I guess better too slow than too fast. What irked me about his class was his exams. He would give a problem on the exam on material from the lecture right before the exam. It felt a bit weird because he would only really tell us the basic definitions of those concepts and thats about it. His homework schedule was very random as well. We had 6 homeworks total. He has a bit of an accent and I honestly found it hard to understand what he said sometimes. Also, his handwriting isn't amazing (but also isn't terrible!). With all that out of the way, he is one of the nicest professors I have had. He is VERY generous with grading. The medians for the two midterms were 19/25 and 21/25 and undetermined on the final. I scored a 22,21.5 and a 49/60 respectively. After calculating my final grade, I had a 87.3% so I should have gotten a B+ but I ended up with an A! Maybe the final exam had a very low average or something but regardless, I am very happy he curved so generously. He said he was not going to fail anyone and after discussing in the groupme, it seems like most people received A,A-,B+,B,B- My TA Robert Housden (Robbie) is one of my favourite TAs in the department. You can tell he cares about each student and really puts his all into it. His material was significantly easier than Raymond's (the other TAs) stuff. Raymond carried us for homework, essentially doing every problem during his office hours. Overall, I am quite happy with my experience with this course.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
3 of 6
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