Professor
Preston Wake
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2016 - If you are not a mathematics major, taking 31B with Wake is a terrible decision. He teaches the class in an extremely conceptual manner, making it very hard to actually apply what you learn in lecture to the tests and quizzes. Though the curves are generous, the averages are quite low (60% range), practically making it impossible to succeed without one. The lack of graded homework is disappointing, as that usually provides a nice cushion on your grade. In Wake's 31B, there are weekly quizzes in discussion worth 10% of your total grade (each quiz worth 1%). This just adds difficulty, as depending on your TA, you will not receive that nice grade cushion. Wake himself is extremely soft-spoken and somewhat awkward, speaking in a quiet voice that is often difficult to understand. He will ask questions about how to proceed even when we haven't even touched on the material in question, leaving awkward 15 second gaps until some brave soul ventures a guess at the answer he is looking for. Overall, Wake is a nice guy but should stick to teaching higher level math, as us non-Math majors are set up to fail in his class.
Winter 2016 - If you are not a mathematics major, taking 31B with Wake is a terrible decision. He teaches the class in an extremely conceptual manner, making it very hard to actually apply what you learn in lecture to the tests and quizzes. Though the curves are generous, the averages are quite low (60% range), practically making it impossible to succeed without one. The lack of graded homework is disappointing, as that usually provides a nice cushion on your grade. In Wake's 31B, there are weekly quizzes in discussion worth 10% of your total grade (each quiz worth 1%). This just adds difficulty, as depending on your TA, you will not receive that nice grade cushion. Wake himself is extremely soft-spoken and somewhat awkward, speaking in a quiet voice that is often difficult to understand. He will ask questions about how to proceed even when we haven't even touched on the material in question, leaving awkward 15 second gaps until some brave soul ventures a guess at the answer he is looking for. Overall, Wake is a nice guy but should stick to teaching higher level math, as us non-Math majors are set up to fail in his class.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2016 - Professor Wake is awful. He is the most awkward man I've ever encountered and it shows in lecture. He doesn't articulate his thoughts well at all and often gets confused while doing a problem on the board. He is very soft spoken and hard to understand. Lecture became useless and I basically had to teach myself the class. Also, his 2 midterms and final were all computational multiple choice questions, which might actually be the worst method possible to gauge a students understanding of high level calculus. You can miss 3 questions (30%) on a test due to arithmetic errors even though you solved the differential equation correctly. Overall, avoid professor Wake at all cost, of the 6 math professors I've had at UCLA he is by far the worst.
Winter 2016 - Professor Wake is awful. He is the most awkward man I've ever encountered and it shows in lecture. He doesn't articulate his thoughts well at all and often gets confused while doing a problem on the board. He is very soft spoken and hard to understand. Lecture became useless and I basically had to teach myself the class. Also, his 2 midterms and final were all computational multiple choice questions, which might actually be the worst method possible to gauge a students understanding of high level calculus. You can miss 3 questions (30%) on a test due to arithmetic errors even though you solved the differential equation correctly. Overall, avoid professor Wake at all cost, of the 6 math professors I've had at UCLA he is by far the worst.
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