Stefano Filipazzi
Department of Mathematics
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3.6
Overall Rating
Based on 39 Users
Easiness 2.5 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Clarity 3.9 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Workload 2.7 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Helpfulness 4.2 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

TOP TAGS

  • Tolerates Tardiness
  • Useful Textbooks
  • Needs Textbook
  • Appropriately Priced Materials
  • Tough Tests
  • Is Podcasted
  • Engaging Lectures
  • Would Take Again
GRADE DISTRIBUTIONS
33.2%
27.6%
22.1%
16.6%
11.1%
5.5%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

ENROLLMENT DISTRIBUTIONS
Clear marks

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Reviews (29)

2 of 3
2 of 3
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Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: B
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Dec. 25, 2020

Stefano is not only a good professor but a good-hearted person as well. Despite the online environment, he was able to make the material understandable and keep the lectures mostly engaging. 32A was a difficult class, but the experience was more bearable because of Stefano.

The homework assignments were often a mixed bag. Some weeks were easier than others, obviously, but the number of questions ranged anywhere from 18 to ~35 problems. It's always assigned a week in advance, so it's definitely doable in smaller chunks. Out of 10, the lowest 2 homeworks are dropped.

The quizzes were complete nightmares, but only because of the time constraint (30-minute timer within a 24-hr period). Your best preparation was trying to understand the conceptual side of the material, because simply hoping for plug-and-chug questions won't cut it. These are worth a total 10% of your grade, so doing bad on one won't totally kill your grade, but it was still stressful.

The midterms and final... You have a full 24 hours to do them but don't fall into a false sense of security. Due to the exams being open-note, they were ramped up (mostly conceptually) to make up for it. I guess you can't really blame the professor, but it was still frustrating taking 3-6+ hours on an exam that was "designed to take 50 minutes" (or 3 hours for the final). After struggling on the midterms, I found that reviewing the theorems and understanding T/F scenarios really helped on the final. Stefano was also open to helping review more topics in depth and even provided a worksheet to practice for the final exam. Overall, just make sure you have a good conceptual understanding of the material. Easier said than done, but the TAs and Stefano were more than willing to help.

Overall, Stefano's a good lecturer, and all things considered, the exams and grading were fair. 32A isn't easy, so be ready to dedicate some time to really hammer down the material.

Helpful?

3 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 16, 2020

This class was by all means not easy, but I did enjoy Professor Filipazzi's teaching. Although some of the lectures were a little confusing, him and the TAs do care about how well you understand certain concepts and will take the time to explain it to you until it makes sense. As some people have mentioned, the online tests were tough but they were doable if you took the time to attend office hours and go to discussion sections.

Helpful?

4 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 16, 2021

Prof. Filipazzi is a legend, just here to boost his ratings.
The class is definitely not easy, and the homework takes lots of time. But this man explains everything so clear and really cares about students. The best Math professor I have by far (haven't taken many Math classes tho).

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A-
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 23, 2020

Lecture and HW: I took this class on the Zoom format like many others and overall I have mixed feelings regarding the class. The class material itself is definitely harder and in order to succeed I would recommend using the textbook and going to office hours for any questions you may have. On the other hand, Professor Filipazzi is a nice guy! Yes, sometimes his lectures left me confused at what on earth was going on, but I knew he wasn't purposely trying to make it harder on the students during lecture. I made up for the confusion by going to discussion, reading the chapter in the book, and going through each homework problem in detail. (On a side note, the homework is a LOT if you try to do it all in one day, don't make that mistake. ) Even after all that I still would sometimes be confused and that's when I went to office hours for the TA or Professor and asked peers for homework clarifications.

Exams: Well, they were doable---given that they took me many more hours than they were supposed to. We were given a 24-hour time period to finish the exams and were told that the midterms were supposed to take us 1-hour and the final 3-hours. They all took me muuuuchhh longer than that (like 4-6 hours) and I'm not sure if it was because of the number of questions or me not studying enough. The exams had both calculation and theoretical questions, and there is always a tricky question in there that we didn't directly exemplify in class. I think the hardest part of the exams were not the exams themselves, but rather the grading. Since they were 50 point exams it was easy to drop a letter grade if you messed up a question. That being said, as long as you are detail oriented in answering your questions and really study ahead of time, you will do just fine.

Quizzes: To keep it to the point. 3 quizzes total, each 30 minutes. Kinda stressful. More theoretical questions than calculation questions. Not worth that much of your grade.

Grade breakdown:
10% quizzes
15% Homework
22.5% both midterms
30% final

Helpful?

3 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A-
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 21, 2020

Filipazzi is a very helpful professor that makes an effort to help students learn the material. His lectures are clear, but not the most engaging. His tests are not difficult, but it's important to be careful and show as much relevant work as possible (eg. state conditions of theorems that you use). Workload averages around 3-4 hours a week.

Helpful?

3 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 16, 2020

This class is overall great. Filipazzi teaches really well and is super helpful. The TAs are amazing and helpful. Online tests were definitely super long and some parts were tricky. But these tests were fair. Knowing the theorems and way the formulas work the way they do helps on the quizzes and tests. Make sure you understand the concepts. If not in lecture, read the book. Great class

Helpful?

3 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: B+
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Dec. 19, 2020

Filipazzi lectures where great and even when I was lost during lectures, it ended up making sense overtime. This was the first math class after taking Calculus BC in high school, and let's just say it is a jump from the level of rigor in high school to that at UCLA. The first midterm was not that bad the class averages where high and it was a fair test, however the second midterm was harder and the class average went down a letter grade.
Filipazzi focuses on conceptual material in quizzes and test you must know the theorems in order to answer some of the questions. One aspect of the test are the computation which guarantee you at least a 70 percent for the midterm, but if you want that A, study the theorems, go to office hours and get more tutoring on the theorems, and ask for scenarios when the theorems don't work.
The homework is also time consuming but are good preparation for what is going to be on the midterms, and the last few problems go over the theorems which is neat and organized. I expect to get a B+ since grades haven't came out yet. But other than that I recommend Filipazzi and it not about the doing the math, but understanding it.

Helpful?

2 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: NR
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 19, 2020

This was not an easy class in my opinion. Filipazzi's lectures were pretty good, and he gives lots of opportunity for questions and clarification. However, the exams are unreasonably difficult. The midterms, meant to take an hour, took over to 3 hours, and the final, meant to be 3 hours long, took almost 7. The content was also very challenging on exams and quizzes; the weekly homework problems were basic whereas all of the tested material were comparable to "challenge" questions that required an understanding of the material I feel was not taught. Overall, I feel that my grade suffered a lot from the difficulty of the exams, which was the worst part of the course.

Helpful?

2 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 24, 2020

I took this class virtually due to COVID-19. Grades were determined based on homework, quizzes, two midterms and a final. Homework was long (just don't do it in one sitting) but it helped me prepare for the exams. The quizzes were timed, so definitely more challenging if you don't perform well under a time crunch/don't have a deeper understanding of concepts. Our first midterm was pretty doable, but the second midterm was more conceptual and graded more harshly (remember to include theorem conditions, etc). Final was also fair.

Overall, Professor Filipazzi was very helpful and clear, and cared a lot about his students and how they understood the material. He even apologized because of how we were caught off guard by the second midterm. His lectures could be confusing at first because he would explain proofs and concepts in detail, but looking back they helped me understand the content really well. Would definitely recommend this class and Professor Filipazzi!

Helpful?

2 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 29, 2020

Keep in mind this review was during remote learning, so things may not apply for in-person classes. The meant 24-hr midterms/finals.
Overall, Filipazzi was a good professor. He was willing to answer questions and was pretty chill. The only questions he would put off were those unrelated to material, but mostly for the interest of time. I did not go to office hours with him, so I have no comment for that.
Midterm 1 was pretty straightforward and easy. The avg was an A in my class for that.
Midterm 2 was bad for a lot of people. The avg was B- -C+ on it. However, based on my own test and the group chats, this was mostly due to the grading being picky and taking off points for non-rigorous justifications/imprecise classification. Some of the problems were different that what was provided in the homework, which I think threw a lot of people, including myself, off.
The Final was very similar to the Midterms, but longer. So while I think it was similar difficulty to Midterm 2, what helped me personally was that I knew what work/specificity was required by reviewing the Midterm answers. A few of the questions were extremely similar to Midterm questions and the same justifications could be used. The avg was about a B+ - A- for the Final.
The quizzes were 30 mins long (online format). Because they were multiple choice/true-false, they tended to be very different than homework/conceptual. In my opinion, they were harder than the midterms/final.

HW was 15% graded on completeness/randomly selected correctness. 2 lowest scores were dropped.
Midterms (2) were 22.5% each.
Quizzes (3) were worth a total of 10%
Final 30%

A good portion of the material needed was covered in lecture except for a few times he had us read from the textbook. Some homework questions definitely required self-study of textbook or office hours to understand.
Based on the released medians/means of the midterms/quizzes my class the mean was around 87 and the median was around 89, where the cutoff for an A- was 90. I heard he may have rounded or shifted the cutoffs though (not sure).

I just read some other reviews. Tests definitely were not as unreasonable as some people made it out to be, but I do think that they may have been more strict/rigorous with grading because tests were 24 hrs open note/book. But agree with him being a good-hearted person. To the person that mentioned "undecipherable symbols", that was just LaTeX not loading properly lol. I think most math professors that can use computers prefer to write in LaTeX, so that's just something you might want to get used to.

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: B
Dec. 25, 2020

Stefano is not only a good professor but a good-hearted person as well. Despite the online environment, he was able to make the material understandable and keep the lectures mostly engaging. 32A was a difficult class, but the experience was more bearable because of Stefano.

The homework assignments were often a mixed bag. Some weeks were easier than others, obviously, but the number of questions ranged anywhere from 18 to ~35 problems. It's always assigned a week in advance, so it's definitely doable in smaller chunks. Out of 10, the lowest 2 homeworks are dropped.

The quizzes were complete nightmares, but only because of the time constraint (30-minute timer within a 24-hr period). Your best preparation was trying to understand the conceptual side of the material, because simply hoping for plug-and-chug questions won't cut it. These are worth a total 10% of your grade, so doing bad on one won't totally kill your grade, but it was still stressful.

The midterms and final... You have a full 24 hours to do them but don't fall into a false sense of security. Due to the exams being open-note, they were ramped up (mostly conceptually) to make up for it. I guess you can't really blame the professor, but it was still frustrating taking 3-6+ hours on an exam that was "designed to take 50 minutes" (or 3 hours for the final). After struggling on the midterms, I found that reviewing the theorems and understanding T/F scenarios really helped on the final. Stefano was also open to helping review more topics in depth and even provided a worksheet to practice for the final exam. Overall, just make sure you have a good conceptual understanding of the material. Easier said than done, but the TAs and Stefano were more than willing to help.

Overall, Stefano's a good lecturer, and all things considered, the exams and grading were fair. 32A isn't easy, so be ready to dedicate some time to really hammer down the material.

Helpful?

3 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
Dec. 16, 2020

This class was by all means not easy, but I did enjoy Professor Filipazzi's teaching. Although some of the lectures were a little confusing, him and the TAs do care about how well you understand certain concepts and will take the time to explain it to you until it makes sense. As some people have mentioned, the online tests were tough but they were doable if you took the time to attend office hours and go to discussion sections.

Helpful?

4 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
March 16, 2021

Prof. Filipazzi is a legend, just here to boost his ratings.
The class is definitely not easy, and the homework takes lots of time. But this man explains everything so clear and really cares about students. The best Math professor I have by far (haven't taken many Math classes tho).

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A-
Dec. 23, 2020

Lecture and HW: I took this class on the Zoom format like many others and overall I have mixed feelings regarding the class. The class material itself is definitely harder and in order to succeed I would recommend using the textbook and going to office hours for any questions you may have. On the other hand, Professor Filipazzi is a nice guy! Yes, sometimes his lectures left me confused at what on earth was going on, but I knew he wasn't purposely trying to make it harder on the students during lecture. I made up for the confusion by going to discussion, reading the chapter in the book, and going through each homework problem in detail. (On a side note, the homework is a LOT if you try to do it all in one day, don't make that mistake. ) Even after all that I still would sometimes be confused and that's when I went to office hours for the TA or Professor and asked peers for homework clarifications.

Exams: Well, they were doable---given that they took me many more hours than they were supposed to. We were given a 24-hour time period to finish the exams and were told that the midterms were supposed to take us 1-hour and the final 3-hours. They all took me muuuuchhh longer than that (like 4-6 hours) and I'm not sure if it was because of the number of questions or me not studying enough. The exams had both calculation and theoretical questions, and there is always a tricky question in there that we didn't directly exemplify in class. I think the hardest part of the exams were not the exams themselves, but rather the grading. Since they were 50 point exams it was easy to drop a letter grade if you messed up a question. That being said, as long as you are detail oriented in answering your questions and really study ahead of time, you will do just fine.

Quizzes: To keep it to the point. 3 quizzes total, each 30 minutes. Kinda stressful. More theoretical questions than calculation questions. Not worth that much of your grade.

Grade breakdown:
10% quizzes
15% Homework
22.5% both midterms
30% final

Helpful?

3 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A-
Dec. 21, 2020

Filipazzi is a very helpful professor that makes an effort to help students learn the material. His lectures are clear, but not the most engaging. His tests are not difficult, but it's important to be careful and show as much relevant work as possible (eg. state conditions of theorems that you use). Workload averages around 3-4 hours a week.

Helpful?

3 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
Dec. 16, 2020

This class is overall great. Filipazzi teaches really well and is super helpful. The TAs are amazing and helpful. Online tests were definitely super long and some parts were tricky. But these tests were fair. Knowing the theorems and way the formulas work the way they do helps on the quizzes and tests. Make sure you understand the concepts. If not in lecture, read the book. Great class

Helpful?

3 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: B+
Dec. 19, 2020

Filipazzi lectures where great and even when I was lost during lectures, it ended up making sense overtime. This was the first math class after taking Calculus BC in high school, and let's just say it is a jump from the level of rigor in high school to that at UCLA. The first midterm was not that bad the class averages where high and it was a fair test, however the second midterm was harder and the class average went down a letter grade.
Filipazzi focuses on conceptual material in quizzes and test you must know the theorems in order to answer some of the questions. One aspect of the test are the computation which guarantee you at least a 70 percent for the midterm, but if you want that A, study the theorems, go to office hours and get more tutoring on the theorems, and ask for scenarios when the theorems don't work.
The homework is also time consuming but are good preparation for what is going to be on the midterms, and the last few problems go over the theorems which is neat and organized. I expect to get a B+ since grades haven't came out yet. But other than that I recommend Filipazzi and it not about the doing the math, but understanding it.

Helpful?

2 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: NR
Dec. 19, 2020

This was not an easy class in my opinion. Filipazzi's lectures were pretty good, and he gives lots of opportunity for questions and clarification. However, the exams are unreasonably difficult. The midterms, meant to take an hour, took over to 3 hours, and the final, meant to be 3 hours long, took almost 7. The content was also very challenging on exams and quizzes; the weekly homework problems were basic whereas all of the tested material were comparable to "challenge" questions that required an understanding of the material I feel was not taught. Overall, I feel that my grade suffered a lot from the difficulty of the exams, which was the worst part of the course.

Helpful?

2 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
Dec. 24, 2020

I took this class virtually due to COVID-19. Grades were determined based on homework, quizzes, two midterms and a final. Homework was long (just don't do it in one sitting) but it helped me prepare for the exams. The quizzes were timed, so definitely more challenging if you don't perform well under a time crunch/don't have a deeper understanding of concepts. Our first midterm was pretty doable, but the second midterm was more conceptual and graded more harshly (remember to include theorem conditions, etc). Final was also fair.

Overall, Professor Filipazzi was very helpful and clear, and cared a lot about his students and how they understood the material. He even apologized because of how we were caught off guard by the second midterm. His lectures could be confusing at first because he would explain proofs and concepts in detail, but looking back they helped me understand the content really well. Would definitely recommend this class and Professor Filipazzi!

Helpful?

2 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
Dec. 29, 2020

Keep in mind this review was during remote learning, so things may not apply for in-person classes. The meant 24-hr midterms/finals.
Overall, Filipazzi was a good professor. He was willing to answer questions and was pretty chill. The only questions he would put off were those unrelated to material, but mostly for the interest of time. I did not go to office hours with him, so I have no comment for that.
Midterm 1 was pretty straightforward and easy. The avg was an A in my class for that.
Midterm 2 was bad for a lot of people. The avg was B- -C+ on it. However, based on my own test and the group chats, this was mostly due to the grading being picky and taking off points for non-rigorous justifications/imprecise classification. Some of the problems were different that what was provided in the homework, which I think threw a lot of people, including myself, off.
The Final was very similar to the Midterms, but longer. So while I think it was similar difficulty to Midterm 2, what helped me personally was that I knew what work/specificity was required by reviewing the Midterm answers. A few of the questions were extremely similar to Midterm questions and the same justifications could be used. The avg was about a B+ - A- for the Final.
The quizzes were 30 mins long (online format). Because they were multiple choice/true-false, they tended to be very different than homework/conceptual. In my opinion, they were harder than the midterms/final.

HW was 15% graded on completeness/randomly selected correctness. 2 lowest scores were dropped.
Midterms (2) were 22.5% each.
Quizzes (3) were worth a total of 10%
Final 30%

A good portion of the material needed was covered in lecture except for a few times he had us read from the textbook. Some homework questions definitely required self-study of textbook or office hours to understand.
Based on the released medians/means of the midterms/quizzes my class the mean was around 87 and the median was around 89, where the cutoff for an A- was 90. I heard he may have rounded or shifted the cutoffs though (not sure).

I just read some other reviews. Tests definitely were not as unreasonable as some people made it out to be, but I do think that they may have been more strict/rigorous with grading because tests were 24 hrs open note/book. But agree with him being a good-hearted person. To the person that mentioned "undecipherable symbols", that was just LaTeX not loading properly lol. I think most math professors that can use computers prefer to write in LaTeX, so that's just something you might want to get used to.

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
2 of 3
3.6
Overall Rating
Based on 39 Users
Easiness 2.5 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Clarity 3.9 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Workload 2.7 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Helpfulness 4.2 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

TOP TAGS

  • Tolerates Tardiness
    (22)
  • Useful Textbooks
    (28)
  • Needs Textbook
    (24)
  • Appropriately Priced Materials
    (18)
  • Tough Tests
    (23)
  • Is Podcasted
    (15)
  • Engaging Lectures
    (22)
  • Would Take Again
    (19)
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