My experience with him was a mix of instructional strengths and several interpersonal and policy-based issues that made the class more frustrating than it needed to be. The workload was definitely too much in the beginning but got better throughout the quarter. Overall, the material was good and the exams were fair, but Moraga’s behavior and handling of students often felt immature, which overshadowed the strengths of the course.

Pros:
Moraga clearly knows mathematics well. His board work, both on whiteboards and chalkboards, is excellent: neat and organized. He also provides solid test preparation materials and gives exams that feel fair and aligned with what he teaches. Looking back, the actual course content wasn’t overtly difficult.

Cons:
The difficulties came mostly from classroom policies and interactions. Early in the quarter, he enforced unusually strict homework formatting rules, such as requiring assignments to be written only on printer paper, not lined paper. Although I understand the need for clarity for graders, he initially refused to accept assignments without offering second chances, even though the instructions were not entirely clear. This was not a great start to the class.

Another early red flag occurred before class one day when a small group of us were talking (more than 5 minutes before class) and getting to know each other. Moraga told us that if we had time to talk, we should instead be reading past lecture notes or the textbook. He later added that "talking before class makes it seem like the class is too easy." I asked whether socializing could actually help us form study groups or learn the material collaboratively, but he shut that down by saying socialization should happen "out there," pointing outside the room. That exchange made the classroom feel a little uncomfortable from then on to be honest. It felt like an attempt to control how students behaved before class, which felt inappropriate and not conducive to a healthy learning environment.

His lecture slides were also difficult to navigate: each slide was just the previous slide with one additional sentence added. This ballooned 40-slide lectures into 200-300 slides, which made finding information a chore. I think he could use "\documentclass[handout]{beamer}" in his LaTex code to fix that but after my previous interactions with him, I didn't really want to say anything.

Although he used Discord for class communication, he managed it in a surprisingly inflexible way--frequently removing messages and responding selectively, which discouraged open discussion rather than facilitating it.

There were also inconsistencies in his expectations on exams. He told us to avoid doing lengthy computations and instead focus on demonstrating conceptual understanding. I followed that instruction and still lost 40% on a problem because I hadn’t included the calculations he said not to do. The mixed messaging made test strategy confusing.

Toward the end of the quarter, I asked him privately about my grade--not to negotiate, but because I genuinely wanted to understand what material I had mastered and where I fell short, especially since we didn’t know our grades (until the last week) or how they were calculated (still don't know, he never responded). Instead of responding to me, he told another student that I was trying to ask for a higher grade, which was deeply upsetting and quite unprofessional. I simply wanted a direct, respectful conversation about my performance.

Moraga, I enjoyed the mathematical material, and I appreciated the clarity of your lectures. I just wish the rest of the class had matched the quality of the content. I wanted to be treated like a human being and have open conversations when needed, and I'm still not sure what I did that made you respond the way you did.

Interpret this as you will--this was my experience in the course.

I took this class because I found a reddit thread saying 115AH with him was a "solid 9/10."

He has an oppressive personality. He's funny during lectures but they too fast -- moving on from questions before we can process the information. He always has to run away right after lectures so you can't really talk to him. Homework takes 10+ hrs/week, and he deletes your Discord messages (yes, the class uses only Discord, not Canvas) if you ask questions about the homework that he does not like. The homework also has overly strict rules as to how they are submitted. For example, he says that only printing paper can be used. Someone asks in class whether line paper may be used and he said yes. Come Week 4, 1/3 of the class submits their homework on binder/notebook paper. He holds one up and says that "this won't be graded" and tries to move on with his lecture. When I stop him and remind him what he said, he said to "complain after class." Come the end of class, I bring the homework back up, again reminding him what he said. He then DMs me at 5pm saying that he disliked my "belligerant posture." Knowing full well that I was not even disrespectful, I apologize anyways, then remind him a third time what he said. He then said that line paper is not necessarily binder paper, implying once again that he would throw away our work. He then tells me off again saying that I wasn't listening to him and saying I had an "aggressive reaction." I apologize again and tell him that I would be dropping his class as I no longer felt safe with him anymore. He then tells me I'm overreacting and that I shouldn't make decisions "hot-headed." But no. I'm completely collected in my decision to leave his classroom and to end my suffering.

Try not to take this class with him. But if you do, buy some printing paper and a stapler, and form large study groups to work on homework problems together. And be careful around him. That's all I know.

Edit: Scores have been adjusted to compensate for what seems to be a false review.

This class is HARD. In his words, he aims to make it "one of the hardest classes you will take at UCLA". With that being said, it is definitely manageable if you stay on top of the work. Sometimes his slides explain better than the textbook, sometimes vice versa, so always read the textbook, especially for the later units. He does offer extra credit, but his "credit" is applied before the curve so it more or less becomes "mandatory credit".

Moraga is an objectively good teacher. The slides he uses in lecture are clear and concise, his handwriting is incredibly neat, and his accent is very understandable. The tests are fair, though they tend to be much more heavily based on computations than the lectures and homework would make you think. I would have no complaints taking him again.

Note: only take honors if you're a masochist, really think you can handle it, AND really want your grad school application to look as good as possible. From what I've heard, the normal linear classes are significantly easier, and don't cover about 4 weeks worth of topics that honors did (namely: dual spaces, rings, decomposition theorems).

Grading was 25% homework and quizzes, 35% midterm, and 40% final. Homework was only graded on completion, leading to the quizzes making up much of that 25%. There were 3 quizzes I believe, all announced in advance. The first was extra credit for the midterm. The second was pretty unfair, with the class average sitting at a healthy 2.5/10, but the third was very easy. The final grading curve was said to be 1/3 A, 1/3 B, and 1/3 C and below. I'm not sure what the cutoffs were for +/- for each letter.

He gives a lot of extra credit for both the midterm and the final. Personally, I earned 5 extra credit points on the midterm (midterm was out of 30), and 10 on the final (out of 70). I think the mean score on the midterm pre-extra credit was 17/30, and 21 after EC. Median was something like 19 pre-EC, 24 after it. To prepare you for each test, he gives a practice test with one problem guaranteed to be on the actual test. For the final specifically, he told us that one problem would be from the midterm, one from the practice final, one from a past homework, and one of the student submitted problems in the discord. Of the 4 remaining problems, there was another that was somewhat similar to a final practice problem, and two that were pretty similar to a different midterm problem.

For the tests, make sure you know how to apply what you've learned in lecture more than anything. The actual proofs that we spend most of the class learning are not as important as knowing the consequences and applications of the theorems.

He does not have a difficult or abrasive personality. He is obviously autistic, which certainly caused a couple awkward moments, but overall it is clear that he cares about his students and the class. I didn't talk to him one-on-one very much, but I never had any negative experiences with him.

Having an official class Discord was nice. Moraga and the TA were always available to answer questions on there, though having all of the materials posted on there was sometimes a bit confusing. My main complaint with it was the lack of a running grade throughout the semester. You could estimate your grade yourself, but nobody knew their actual grades until most of the way through the quarter when he posted our current grades on MyUCLA.

This class is a dream come true if you're competitive and love to be praised by the professor, because he certainly has favorites and makes them known to the class. This was a bit annoying, but not as annoying as the actual students vying for his attention. My class had a small group of somewhat insufferable students like this, constantly taking up lecture/discussion time with irrelevant questions about advanced topics tangentially related to the material we're learning or otherwise annoying me with their enthusiasm. Most of the people in the class were normal enough though, so there's still plenty of opportunities to form trauma bonds with your classmates.

Finally, I don't understand why people complain so much about the printer paper thing; just use the right paper and you'll have no issues. The paper thing was all people in the discord were talking about week 1, and yet some people STILL used the wrong paper. Moraga didn't accept those, but allowed those students to resubmit it later that day. That's the only thing he was ever hyper-specific about, by the way. Tests, extra credit assignments, and quizzes were all completely normal.

Honestly, this is the first review I have ever written. He was the worst professor I've ever taken. Once, a lot of students (like basically a quarter of the class) were outside his office hours waiting to ask questions about the extremely hard homework and he straight up said "I'm only answering questions about concepts, no homework at ALL". He actually made me want to drop my major (I actually fw math) because of how ridiculous the class was. Please actually save yourselves 😭🙏 ts not light fr

As I write this review I find myself tearfully reminiscing on my earliest days as a UCLA math undergrad. 115AH with Moraga was my first math course at UCLA and it couldn't have been any more perfect. I only decided to write this review after witnessing the absolute libel brought upon by a misguided former student, knowing that I had to rectify the wrongdoing. I agree with said redditor that the class is a 9/10 if not 10/10. It is an honors course and with that comes an honors workload. Prepare to learn all of 115a and 115b in one course and to have your critical thinking, functional memory, and logical decision making skills tested. But remember, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” - Matthew 5:7. In the end Moraga always comes in clutch. You get what you put in, and a true desire to learn will allow this class to become one of the most informative and useful ventures a math major can have at UCLA, preparing you for any course that should come your way (131AH). Also discord class >> canvas class.