Hood Chatham
Department of Mathematics
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3.4
Overall Rating
Based on 51 Users
Easiness 2.9 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Clarity 2.6 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Workload 4.0 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Helpfulness 3.6 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

TOP TAGS

  • Gives Extra Credit
  • Tolerates Tardiness
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Reviews (28)

3 of 3
3 of 3
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Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A-
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Jan. 14, 2022

Hood was very unclear in his lectures so it's hard to understand the concepts and it's very boring, to be honest. I basically self-studied throughout the whole quarter. He gave practice midterms and finals beforehand, but his tests weren't hard in terms of the concept, it's the calculations that screw people up. He didn't give us enough time to finish the tests and sometimes it's really hard to simplify the answers. Also, he said he would curve the tests, but he didn't at all. I wouldn't take this class again with this professor.

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Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Jan. 7, 2022

Personally I loved having Chatham as a teacher. He was very funny in class and explained most concepts pretty well. Although the first test was difficult, he gave extra credit opportunities later on in the quarter to make up for it. He really wanted everyone to succeed. Also the hw load is very light, sometimes only taking about an hour per week. All in all, I would definitely recommend taking this class.

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Quarter: Fall 2021
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.
Jan. 5, 2022

If you are generally confident in your math skills you will be fine in this class. I am a non math major so I struggled a bit with this class but came out of it okay. I could tell that most math majors had a pretty easy time with this class, but If you need some extra support in the subject, it may not be the right fit.
The grade breakdown was nice as it allowed you to drop one midterm score in exchange for a bigger weight on the final. (I did bad on both midterms but my final raised my grade.) The midterms weren't too bad looking back on them as they were very similar to the practice midterms he made beforehand, same with the final. There is also one extra credit opportunity that was very easy but also didn't count for much.
This was Chatham's first time teaching and you could definitely tell, but he had a lot of improvement throughout the quarter and I can see him becoming a better teacher with more experience.
The TAs varied a lot for this class, some were really bad, but if you get the chance to have Michael Johnson, he was one of the most helpful TAs I have ever had and really tried to help me understand points of confusion.

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Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: C
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.
Jan. 4, 2022

Not a great class in general or if you actually want to learn multivariable calculus, but DO THE PRACTICE EXAMS. THE EXAMS ARE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT WITHOUT THEM, and the practice exams are almost exactly the same as the real exams. I learned that way too late in the quarter and my grade suffered.

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Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Jan. 4, 2022

1. 10% homework + 30% best midterm grade + 60% final exam
2. 10% homework + 25% Midterm 1 + 25% Midterm 2 + 40% final exam

One extra credit assignment was given worth one hw assignment in the 10% homework category.

Weekly hw assignments due Friday with approximately 30 math problems.

The professor gave us practice midterms/final that were structured basically the same as the actual midterms/final along with very similar questions. The solutions to the practice midterms/final were often filled with mistakes though.

The first midterm was at the end of week 3 and the second was during week 7.

Tests are graded by the TAs, and they can be harsh if you're unlucky. A lot of the mistakes I made were not thoroughly understanding the midterm solutions and also making simple calculation errors.

I went into this class having already learned the material so I won't speak on the difficulty of it. I personally am indifferent about this professor but I'm not against taking another class taught by him.

Hope this helped!

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A
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.
Jan. 3, 2022

Professor Chatham was a new professor to UCLA this quarter, and in the first few lectures it definitely showed. Lectures were full of mistakes and very sloppy in general. However, the professor was genuinely trying his best and lectures were much better by the end of the quarter. In terms of grades, partial credit on tests was generous but you definitely have to put in some elbow grease to get an A. I'd say tests were challenging but definitely did not demand anything completely unreasonable.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Jan. 3, 2022

I took this class in Hood's first quarter teaching at UCLA. His inexperience showed in the first couple weeks of class as he was a bit unclear and disorganized at first, but his lectures improved significantly as the quarter progressed. The two midterms and one final were very similar to (though more difficult than) the practice exams he sent out. Since this was the first quarter back in-person, the math department itself was a mess logistically, so Hood wasn't even given an office or regularly scheduled office hours for several weeks. Despite these bureaucratic delays, I thought he did an amazing job communicating with students on when and where we could find him.

My one major problem with this class, however, was that the homework was very unhelpful and amounted to busy work. Hood didn't really lecture out of the textbook but all the homework was taken from it, which often resulted in us having to do many problems that weren't very relevant to the course. Homework was also graded by some arbitrary mix of completion and accuracy, which I guess is a department-wide thing but seems really stupid to me, as it essentially became a take-home open-book open-note open-Internet quiz where only an arbitrary half of the questions actually count.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: N/A
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. 7, 2021

Professor Chatham is a very friendly person, and he always sounds very animated and excited in his lectures. He is not the best at explaining topics, but that is also because math 32A is quite abstract compared to single variable calculus/AP Calc. Nonetheless, he's a kind guy and you can tell that he's passionate for the subject. He makes miscalculations during lectures and on practice exam keys often though. His exams are quite challenging, but the practice midterms he posts before the exam often contain questions nearly identical to those on the actual test. His final was a killer (for me), and it's best to pay attention to your mistakes and be ready to tackle challenging questions on a topic that may seem simple. Homework is rather light in this class, but he does assign even-numbered questions to which there are no answer keys to. Overall, I am not entirely sure if I would take this class again, but I do indeed like Chatham's personality. He always seems happy.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A-
Jan. 14, 2022

Hood was very unclear in his lectures so it's hard to understand the concepts and it's very boring, to be honest. I basically self-studied throughout the whole quarter. He gave practice midterms and finals beforehand, but his tests weren't hard in terms of the concept, it's the calculations that screw people up. He didn't give us enough time to finish the tests and sometimes it's really hard to simplify the answers. Also, he said he would curve the tests, but he didn't at all. I wouldn't take this class again with this professor.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A
Jan. 7, 2022

Personally I loved having Chatham as a teacher. He was very funny in class and explained most concepts pretty well. Although the first test was difficult, he gave extra credit opportunities later on in the quarter to make up for it. He really wanted everyone to succeed. Also the hw load is very light, sometimes only taking about an hour per week. All in all, I would definitely recommend taking this class.

Helpful?

0 0 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 2021
Grade: B+
Jan. 5, 2022

If you are generally confident in your math skills you will be fine in this class. I am a non math major so I struggled a bit with this class but came out of it okay. I could tell that most math majors had a pretty easy time with this class, but If you need some extra support in the subject, it may not be the right fit.
The grade breakdown was nice as it allowed you to drop one midterm score in exchange for a bigger weight on the final. (I did bad on both midterms but my final raised my grade.) The midterms weren't too bad looking back on them as they were very similar to the practice midterms he made beforehand, same with the final. There is also one extra credit opportunity that was very easy but also didn't count for much.
This was Chatham's first time teaching and you could definitely tell, but he had a lot of improvement throughout the quarter and I can see him becoming a better teacher with more experience.
The TAs varied a lot for this class, some were really bad, but if you get the chance to have Michael Johnson, he was one of the most helpful TAs I have ever had and really tried to help me understand points of confusion.

Helpful?

0 0 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 2021
Grade: C
Jan. 4, 2022

Not a great class in general or if you actually want to learn multivariable calculus, but DO THE PRACTICE EXAMS. THE EXAMS ARE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT WITHOUT THEM, and the practice exams are almost exactly the same as the real exams. I learned that way too late in the quarter and my grade suffered.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A
Jan. 4, 2022

1. 10% homework + 30% best midterm grade + 60% final exam
2. 10% homework + 25% Midterm 1 + 25% Midterm 2 + 40% final exam

One extra credit assignment was given worth one hw assignment in the 10% homework category.

Weekly hw assignments due Friday with approximately 30 math problems.

The professor gave us practice midterms/final that were structured basically the same as the actual midterms/final along with very similar questions. The solutions to the practice midterms/final were often filled with mistakes though.

The first midterm was at the end of week 3 and the second was during week 7.

Tests are graded by the TAs, and they can be harsh if you're unlucky. A lot of the mistakes I made were not thoroughly understanding the midterm solutions and also making simple calculation errors.

I went into this class having already learned the material so I won't speak on the difficulty of it. I personally am indifferent about this professor but I'm not against taking another class taught by him.

Hope this helped!

Helpful?

0 0 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 2021
Grade: A
Jan. 3, 2022

Professor Chatham was a new professor to UCLA this quarter, and in the first few lectures it definitely showed. Lectures were full of mistakes and very sloppy in general. However, the professor was genuinely trying his best and lectures were much better by the end of the quarter. In terms of grades, partial credit on tests was generous but you definitely have to put in some elbow grease to get an A. I'd say tests were challenging but definitely did not demand anything completely unreasonable.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A
Jan. 3, 2022

I took this class in Hood's first quarter teaching at UCLA. His inexperience showed in the first couple weeks of class as he was a bit unclear and disorganized at first, but his lectures improved significantly as the quarter progressed. The two midterms and one final were very similar to (though more difficult than) the practice exams he sent out. Since this was the first quarter back in-person, the math department itself was a mess logistically, so Hood wasn't even given an office or regularly scheduled office hours for several weeks. Despite these bureaucratic delays, I thought he did an amazing job communicating with students on when and where we could find him.

My one major problem with this class, however, was that the homework was very unhelpful and amounted to busy work. Hood didn't really lecture out of the textbook but all the homework was taken from it, which often resulted in us having to do many problems that weren't very relevant to the course. Homework was also graded by some arbitrary mix of completion and accuracy, which I guess is a department-wide thing but seems really stupid to me, as it essentially became a take-home open-book open-note open-Internet quiz where only an arbitrary half of the questions actually count.

Helpful?

0 0 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 2021
Grade: N/A
Dec. 7, 2021

Professor Chatham is a very friendly person, and he always sounds very animated and excited in his lectures. He is not the best at explaining topics, but that is also because math 32A is quite abstract compared to single variable calculus/AP Calc. Nonetheless, he's a kind guy and you can tell that he's passionate for the subject. He makes miscalculations during lectures and on practice exam keys often though. His exams are quite challenging, but the practice midterms he posts before the exam often contain questions nearly identical to those on the actual test. His final was a killer (for me), and it's best to pay attention to your mistakes and be ready to tackle challenging questions on a topic that may seem simple. Homework is rather light in this class, but he does assign even-numbered questions to which there are no answer keys to. Overall, I am not entirely sure if I would take this class again, but I do indeed like Chatham's personality. He always seems happy.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
3 of 3
3.4
Overall Rating
Based on 51 Users
Easiness 2.9 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Clarity 2.6 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Workload 4.0 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Helpfulness 3.6 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

TOP TAGS

  • Gives Extra Credit
    (33)
  • Tolerates Tardiness
    (26)
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