Given that 115A is a difficult class to begin with, it's hard to rate a professor not off of the curriculum they taught. But Nienhaus did a pretty good job of teaching what was a hell of a class. He was fairly reasonable when it came to rounding one of our midterms because we all did poorly on one of the problems (this was after our finals were graded though), which overall boosted my grade. He does a good job of answering students' questions and giving clear lectures (as clear as it can get for 115A). Though your best bet for understanding this material is using the textbook, watching youtube videos, and relying on office hours. Also, our TA, Matt Kowalski, was hands down the best TA I've ever had. Made such a big difference in my understanding of the class. Had one problem I really couldn't understand, went to his office hours (which he scheduled outside his normal OH times for us), he helped me understand it, and I aced it on the test. If you get the chance to take either Nienhaus or Kowalski, please do! Both are great for the math department!

Upon first impression, Nienhaus seemed like a new professor who didn't know what he was doing. He is young as he just got his doctorate in 2022 and is what I'm assuming is his first quarter teaching at least in UCLA. His lectures feel difficult to follow up at first as he goes in a quick pace jotting down notes on the chalkboard, especially with his proofs, but he's useful outside of class and will willingly clarify whatever material was confusing. As a recent student, he's aware of the stress other students may be feeling and so he's very sympathetic and flexible with his students, offering curves whenever he needs to and providing very light homework problems that can go as low as three problems per week. The exams, however, may be difficult as he does give off weird problems that combines ideas from different material into one problem. He doesn't give quizzes, so grades are heavily determined by exams. Overall, Math 115A itself is a difficult class but Nienhaus makes sure that his students don't feel as stressed for this class.