MATH 61
Introduction to Discrete Structures
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: courses 31A, 31B. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 180 or 184. Discrete structures commonly used in computer science and mathematics, including sets and relations, permutations and combinations, graphs and trees, induction. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
4 of 6
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2018 - This review is for MATH 31A. Take it with this professor, he explains the materials clearly and thoroughly. The concepts of this course are simple enough and he does not overcomplicate it, there are no surprise questions that are out of the scope of his lectures in the exams. Light workload with weekly homework that does not require submission and weekly 1-or-2-question-quiz except during exam week. Andrew Marks also gives out study guides prior to the exams so you'll know what to expect and prepare yourself well for it.
Winter 2018 - This review is for MATH 31A. Take it with this professor, he explains the materials clearly and thoroughly. The concepts of this course are simple enough and he does not overcomplicate it, there are no surprise questions that are out of the scope of his lectures in the exams. Light workload with weekly homework that does not require submission and weekly 1-or-2-question-quiz except during exam week. Andrew Marks also gives out study guides prior to the exams so you'll know what to expect and prepare yourself well for it.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - I really appreciated how she became more and more accommodating to people's circumstances and learning pace as the quarter progressed. She turned the weekly quizzes into SYOP where you present your own problem and solve it yourself, and is 0% or 100% only based on effort you put. You can just grab a question from the textbook (that isn't answered in the textbook) and solve it yourself, or talk about any new concept you learned or had difficulty grasping in the class. After the first midterm, she also gave extra 0.5% credit for each Zoom lecture you attend for a total addition of 5% extra credit. She really tried her best to explain the lectures clearly and you could really tell, but sometimes things can get really hard to understand especially when there is so much content to cover in 10 weeks. Sometimes, homework or test questions wouldn't even be like what was explained in class, and would have you take the extra mile to understand the lesson which I thought at first was unfair, but I guess it was cushioned by all the opportunities for leniency in other places. Overall, I enjoyed my quarter with Nina, and she is extremely friendly in Office Hours too!
Fall 2020 - I really appreciated how she became more and more accommodating to people's circumstances and learning pace as the quarter progressed. She turned the weekly quizzes into SYOP where you present your own problem and solve it yourself, and is 0% or 100% only based on effort you put. You can just grab a question from the textbook (that isn't answered in the textbook) and solve it yourself, or talk about any new concept you learned or had difficulty grasping in the class. After the first midterm, she also gave extra 0.5% credit for each Zoom lecture you attend for a total addition of 5% extra credit. She really tried her best to explain the lectures clearly and you could really tell, but sometimes things can get really hard to understand especially when there is so much content to cover in 10 weeks. Sometimes, homework or test questions wouldn't even be like what was explained in class, and would have you take the extra mile to understand the lesson which I thought at first was unfair, but I guess it was cushioned by all the opportunities for leniency in other places. Overall, I enjoyed my quarter with Nina, and she is extremely friendly in Office Hours too!
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2025 - Overall Professor Ouellette teaches well and makes the concepts easy to understand. However, his way of grading is genuinely abysmal. You can have the correct answer and justification for your answer, and he will still maybe only give you have credit because your justification is not the specific justification he wants. I got every answer correct on a midterm and provided justification for them but still ended with a B on it because he claimed some of my justification was incorrect. My justification was correct in every textbook I had found, however, I did not use his form of justification and therefore got those points off. He will also grade your homework with this brutal strategy as well. I have gotten every answer correct on every homework with justification, but have never gotten above an 18/20 because he will mark your justification as incorrect/missing if you do not provide the justification he wants. I truly enjoy the subject material of this class and it is so interesting to me, but Professor Ouellette's way of grading and restricted mindset makes this class so much more frustrating and unenjoyable. Its such a shame that his lecture quality is overshadowed by his closed-off manner in which he grades practically everything.
Summer 2025 - Overall Professor Ouellette teaches well and makes the concepts easy to understand. However, his way of grading is genuinely abysmal. You can have the correct answer and justification for your answer, and he will still maybe only give you have credit because your justification is not the specific justification he wants. I got every answer correct on a midterm and provided justification for them but still ended with a B on it because he claimed some of my justification was incorrect. My justification was correct in every textbook I had found, however, I did not use his form of justification and therefore got those points off. He will also grade your homework with this brutal strategy as well. I have gotten every answer correct on every homework with justification, but have never gotten above an 18/20 because he will mark your justification as incorrect/missing if you do not provide the justification he wants. I truly enjoy the subject material of this class and it is so interesting to me, but Professor Ouellette's way of grading and restricted mindset makes this class so much more frustrating and unenjoyable. Its such a shame that his lecture quality is overshadowed by his closed-off manner in which he grades practically everything.
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2020 - I took this class during summer session A 2020 (things may be different because summer + covid), but the breakdown was the better score between 20% quizzes, 30% midterm, 50% final or 20% quizzes, 15% midterm, 65% final. There were 5 quizzes total and the lowest 2 were dropped. Professor Ozel is incredibly helpful and clear. He would handwrite the notes for the entire chapter beforehand and upload them to ccle so you could follow along during lectures. His notes were organized and provided clear definitions and many examples. He was always willing to answer questions and re-explain concepts. Although there were no homework assignments, he provided a list of homework questions from the textbook that you can practice from. His quizzes and exams were fair. Overall, I really enjoyed this class, and I would definitely take professor Ozel again!
Summer 2020 - I took this class during summer session A 2020 (things may be different because summer + covid), but the breakdown was the better score between 20% quizzes, 30% midterm, 50% final or 20% quizzes, 15% midterm, 65% final. There were 5 quizzes total and the lowest 2 were dropped. Professor Ozel is incredibly helpful and clear. He would handwrite the notes for the entire chapter beforehand and upload them to ccle so you could follow along during lectures. His notes were organized and provided clear definitions and many examples. He was always willing to answer questions and re-explain concepts. Although there were no homework assignments, he provided a list of homework questions from the textbook that you can practice from. His quizzes and exams were fair. Overall, I really enjoyed this class, and I would definitely take professor Ozel again!
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