Professor
Olga Radko
1 of 3
Most Helpful Review
Professor Radko has a great personality. She is really nice and helpful. She tries to be as straightforward as possible, unlike some other math professors. She does a lot of examples and explains each step throughly. That being said, sometimes she jumps right into examples before introducing the concept. In cases like that, I suggest you read the book. Sometimes a quick scan of the book helped me more than being in class and going to discussion. I had a tough time with the material at the beginning of the course and had to do a lot of practice problems to keep up, but once I learned to work hard, I was able to slack off at the end. My opinion of each test- Midterm 1: HARD. Average was 60% Average was Midterm- EASY Average was 62% FINAL- VERY HARD! STUDY FOR THE FINAL. Do not be like me and leave it to the last minute! (Literally, I studied from 12-4:30 the day of) The average was 46% I got a 60/60 on both midterms, 82/120 on the final, and A in the class. Overall, I suggest you do a lot of practice problems and attend office hours. Pay attention to your notes because she draws a lot of test examples from that. The class is hard work, but feels rewarding at the end! Good luck Bruins!
Professor Radko has a great personality. She is really nice and helpful. She tries to be as straightforward as possible, unlike some other math professors. She does a lot of examples and explains each step throughly. That being said, sometimes she jumps right into examples before introducing the concept. In cases like that, I suggest you read the book. Sometimes a quick scan of the book helped me more than being in class and going to discussion. I had a tough time with the material at the beginning of the course and had to do a lot of practice problems to keep up, but once I learned to work hard, I was able to slack off at the end. My opinion of each test- Midterm 1: HARD. Average was 60% Average was Midterm- EASY Average was 62% FINAL- VERY HARD! STUDY FOR THE FINAL. Do not be like me and leave it to the last minute! (Literally, I studied from 12-4:30 the day of) The average was 46% I got a 60/60 on both midterms, 82/120 on the final, and A in the class. Overall, I suggest you do a lot of practice problems and attend office hours. Pay attention to your notes because she draws a lot of test examples from that. The class is hard work, but feels rewarding at the end! Good luck Bruins!
AD
Most Helpful Review
Radko is a nice Russian lady (accent is not distracting) who tries to help you out, but she clearly is too smart for the material and grazes over the basics sometimes. Lots of book learning. If you took any previous Calculus course 31A should be relatively easy. She purposely puts hard/weird math problems on the midterm/final so you have to study.
Radko is a nice Russian lady (accent is not distracting) who tries to help you out, but she clearly is too smart for the material and grazes over the basics sometimes. Lots of book learning. If you took any previous Calculus course 31A should be relatively easy. She purposely puts hard/weird math problems on the midterm/final so you have to study.
Most Helpful Review
I took 31a with radio and 31b with someone else, got an A in both. Radko was very available, but she was hard. Her midterms were pretty difficult and her final was very difficult. Just study as much as you can because the classes is graded on a curve so if you fail but others fail worse, you will still get a good grade lol. What I did was, I would go back and reread and do all the problems again in the book, I did this for 31a and 31b, and it helped.
I took 31a with radio and 31b with someone else, got an A in both. Radko was very available, but she was hard. Her midterms were pretty difficult and her final was very difficult. Just study as much as you can because the classes is graded on a curve so if you fail but others fail worse, you will still get a good grade lol. What I did was, I would go back and reread and do all the problems again in the book, I did this for 31a and 31b, and it helped.
Most Helpful Review
She's an excellent professor. She isn't that hard to understand with her accent. Her midterms were difficult but she never tries to trick you or pull a fast one. She makes sure that you understand the concepts inside and out. She's not easy by any means, but she'll definitely make sure you learn calculus.
She's an excellent professor. She isn't that hard to understand with her accent. Her midterms were difficult but she never tries to trick you or pull a fast one. She makes sure that you understand the concepts inside and out. She's not easy by any means, but she'll definitely make sure you learn calculus.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Radko is a pretty decent professor. I suggest going to her lectures whether you already know the material or not because she often drops hints as to what will be on her midterms or her final. She writes neatly and explains the concepts well. Her midterms are fair, but tricky. There's only five questions on her midterms and 10 on her final so her questions often require you to apply multiple topics in order to just solve one problem. Her final was completely conceptual and required you to really understand the material. It was harder than the midterms but it's too terrible if you studied. The best way to study is to do many practice problems and read through the concepts. I ended up with an A in the class. I would definitely recommend taking her course. And she grades everything really fast. I got my midterm grades within 48hrs which is pretty fast. Take Radko!
Radko is a pretty decent professor. I suggest going to her lectures whether you already know the material or not because she often drops hints as to what will be on her midterms or her final. She writes neatly and explains the concepts well. Her midterms are fair, but tricky. There's only five questions on her midterms and 10 on her final so her questions often require you to apply multiple topics in order to just solve one problem. Her final was completely conceptual and required you to really understand the material. It was harder than the midterms but it's too terrible if you studied. The best way to study is to do many practice problems and read through the concepts. I ended up with an A in the class. I would definitely recommend taking her course. And she grades everything really fast. I got my midterm grades within 48hrs which is pretty fast. Take Radko!
Most Helpful Review
It took time getting used to Professor Radko's softspoken voice and her accent, but after the first two weeks, her lectures were easy to follow. However, she pretty much took examples from the book, which meant that the only reason to go to class was to turn in homework. She gives you all of the assignments ahead of time, so if you're the kind of person that skips class, just make sure to show up on Fridays. She always got our exams graded in a very timely manner, which was nice. It was my first and only (so far) A- at UCLA, and but that's because it took me some time adjusting to the way her exams were structured; 4 questions, and 5 T/F questions (where NO partial credit was given for this part). Our final was extremely hard, but the curve was generous.
It took time getting used to Professor Radko's softspoken voice and her accent, but after the first two weeks, her lectures were easy to follow. However, she pretty much took examples from the book, which meant that the only reason to go to class was to turn in homework. She gives you all of the assignments ahead of time, so if you're the kind of person that skips class, just make sure to show up on Fridays. She always got our exams graded in a very timely manner, which was nice. It was my first and only (so far) A- at UCLA, and but that's because it took me some time adjusting to the way her exams were structured; 4 questions, and 5 T/F questions (where NO partial credit was given for this part). Our final was extremely hard, but the curve was generous.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2015 - This class was instructed by Prof. Radko, but was taught by a grad student. Each instructor is different, but my instructor, who was a TA, was very difficult. Although he explains very well, but sometimes the materials are just too much for first years who don't have a lot of experience in math. The grading was terrible, the class of 15 was curved to 1/3 A's, 1/3 B's, and 1/3C's. Again, I am speaking from personal experience.
Fall 2015 - This class was instructed by Prof. Radko, but was taught by a grad student. Each instructor is different, but my instructor, who was a TA, was very difficult. Although he explains very well, but sometimes the materials are just too much for first years who don't have a lot of experience in math. The grading was terrible, the class of 15 was curved to 1/3 A's, 1/3 B's, and 1/3C's. Again, I am speaking from personal experience.
Most Helpful Review
Professor Radko was really really nice and was extremely willing to help, but I don't think her teaching methods were very effective for this particular course. I like the fact that she did example problems in class, but she fell short on explaining the concepts, thus resulting in the TAs explaining the concepts to us. Because each and every problem is different, it would have helped if she did proofs or explained the concepts more thoroughly so we can figure out how to do any type of problem. Her quizzes and midterms were really easy, and the homework wasn't exactly hard, so basically a lot of people, even the people who just memorized the steps rather than know the concepts, did well on those. However, her final was very, very hard, which was really unexpected because her midterms and quizzes were so easy. There were a lot of nasty calculations and a lot of confusion because there were so many theorems to know that when it comes to the problems, it's hard to figure out which theorem you want to use. Even if she allowed us to have a notecard during the final, it didn't really help much. I personally do not trust her practice midterms and finals because her solutions always have some sort of calculation errors, which leads me to question whether her method was wrong or whether I just did it wrong. I was rather disappointed in this class because I actually liked the material that was taught, but I don't think Professor Radko prepared all of us adequately for her final, which was ridiculously hard.
Professor Radko was really really nice and was extremely willing to help, but I don't think her teaching methods were very effective for this particular course. I like the fact that she did example problems in class, but she fell short on explaining the concepts, thus resulting in the TAs explaining the concepts to us. Because each and every problem is different, it would have helped if she did proofs or explained the concepts more thoroughly so we can figure out how to do any type of problem. Her quizzes and midterms were really easy, and the homework wasn't exactly hard, so basically a lot of people, even the people who just memorized the steps rather than know the concepts, did well on those. However, her final was very, very hard, which was really unexpected because her midterms and quizzes were so easy. There were a lot of nasty calculations and a lot of confusion because there were so many theorems to know that when it comes to the problems, it's hard to figure out which theorem you want to use. Even if she allowed us to have a notecard during the final, it didn't really help much. I personally do not trust her practice midterms and finals because her solutions always have some sort of calculation errors, which leads me to question whether her method was wrong or whether I just did it wrong. I was rather disappointed in this class because I actually liked the material that was taught, but I don't think Professor Radko prepared all of us adequately for her final, which was ridiculously hard.
AD
1 of 3
