In the beginning of the term, I heard some call him "unnecessarily complicated," and while I understood his vector explanations, later lectures were a mix of last-minute examples and mumbled answers to students' questions. He writes small; I often sat in the front but relied constantly on my phone camera as a magnifying glass. He knows his stuff and gets into the backbone of why certain theorems/equations are the way they are (read: proofs), but as a new teacher, he isn't used to teaching people who don't get concepts like he does.
His lessons and HW come from the book (pdf available on Reddit), with HW graded on part completion and accuracy - he won't tell you which problems are for accuracy. Quizzes are doable if you do the homework and have a TA who reviews concepts right before. The lowest of three scores is dropped.
Tests were similar to practice midterms and did cover topics taught, but his midterm questions went HEAVY on technical computation like chain rule and improper integrals (which were not reviewed in-class), and the proofs. God, some of these proofs... The questions themselves were not totally out of the blue, but the 50 minute timeframe made these exams hellishly difficult unless you have a solid pre/outside-class understanding of math. I studied by rereading the book's explanations with the professor's notes, doing extra practice problems in the book (especially the post-chapter exercises), and attending office hours. You cannot cheese these exams. The biggest slap for me was the psychological shock of test time management. Flip through all the questions first and plan accordingly, or get swamped with one minute left on the clock.
First midterm was extremely hard, with a mean of 60 that was curved 2-3% after the 2nd midterm was over. The second midterm had a mean of 67 but was even harder than the first though he explicitly said in office hours and emails that he would try to make it easier. I got a B- and C on midterms 1 and 2 pre-curve. To be fair, he checked over his final exam with other math professors and his TAs, resulting in reasonable questions for our 3 hour test period. My raw A- on this final pulled up my grade.
As a person, this professor tries to be forgiving, engaging, and flexible, but as a professor, this person has caused a lot of unnecessary stress and ennui. I would not take this class until he gains more teaching experience.

Do not take this class!! Although I ended up with an A, I basically learned everything from YouTube and my TA. He is a nice person but not a good instructor. The two midterms created a lot of anxiety, but the final and homework are doable.

whatever you do... TAKE THIS CLASS!!! Yes you heard me right; take Mark Ebert's class. His hair is beautiful. His outfits are tough. I was going through some tough times, but he showed me the beauty of life again. He is also a holy man. His lectures are inspiring and engaging, gorgeous and fantastic, rambunctious and glorious. His outfits are beautiful; he is the toughest man I have ever met. Not only did he allow me to fall in love with math, but life as well. You will regret not taking this class

Reading the other reviews, I have to say that Prof. Ebert genuinely is a nice, albeit very socially awkward, person and you can definitely tell he is really smart and thinks everyone else is on his wavelength. The problem is that he's just so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so bad at teaching. In seriousness, if you're willing to put in the effort to basically teach yourself the material, it's gonna be fine. Go to discussion and do the practice stuff and teach yourself through the homework or through other means. I felt like the content itself isn't that bad, esp if you already have good foundations.

Just self-study everything, don't go to his lectures. I didn't get shin's waitlist, so I took it with him. His lectures are disorganized, and even on one-on-one occasions, he's still not good at explaining things. However, I think he simply isn't good at communicating verbally. One time I asked him a question after class, and he tried to answer it while we walk back to his office (from bunche to bolter). During this roughly 10 minute walk, I don't think he produced one grammatically complete sentence. However, it's evident that he's trying. In the end, he told me to email him. He replied with a clear written explanation.
His tests are indeed hard, but do extra practice, and study hard, it's not impossible to get above 90s. I went to about 15% of his lectures and self-studied everything else and managed to get a grade of 92 or sth before any curves.

I'd like to thank Mark Ebert... for absolutely NOTHING. While this class is difficult based on content alone, Ebert did not make multivariable calculus any easier (actually a hell of a lot harder). His lectures were hard to follow in practically every aspect. First off, he only uses the chalkboard, no slides or projector whatsoever. This is problematic because he can't write in a way that students can understand. No spaces between words (looks like a big jumble of letters that you have to strain your eyes at to read clearly), puts decimal points so high that it looks like "2 times 6" instead of "2.6," and ultimately writes too small to read anything even if his writing was perfect. The only question ever asked by students in lecture would be "What does that say??" Secondly, though you would think him talking through everything that he's writing would help you understand what he wrote on the board, it doesn't. He can't get through a full sentence without either trailing off into oblivion or ending in "so..." without getting to what he was going to say. Many times it would sound like he was going to say something helpful but would leave me disappointed as he failed to finish the thought and would erase whatever he started writing on the board. Though sometimes students asked clarifying questions related to content, most of the time he would chop up his answers to "you'll just know" when asked about strategies for solving certain problems. Finally, he could not draw to save his life. In a class where we're being introduced to 3-D shapes and planes that are already hard to visualize on a 2-D surface, his attempts to get us to visualize anything 3-D failed, the shapes looking like blobs every time. You know it's bad when he starts off saying "I'm not the best drawer" yet REFUSES to use the projector to show what the shape would actually look like. While his lectures are recorded, I'd honestly say you should go in person because the person recording (not at the fault of Ebert) would either stay zoomed out so you couldn't read any writing (not even Chat could discern it) or will zoom in but not pan the camera so you're stuck looking at nothing and relying on words only to get through the lecture. Lectures truly sucked so studying for tests sucked way harder. If you have to take this class, lecture-only study will not work. You have to read the textbook (the standard calc book every lower-div math assigns), watch Youtube, literally the definition of self-study. Coming from being a humanities major, I underestimated how much of the work would be on me and not only needing to complete whatever was assigned. In the assignments department, the class was actually fairly generous with only one homework assignment (24 textbook problems) per week with some weeks skipped due to midterms. No discussion assignments so technically it's optional to go. But as I said, you'll have to do a lot more work than the homework to actually understand anything. The grading scheme is 25% homework (none dropped so pls do them as this saved my grade), 20% for each midterm (2 total), and 35% final. There's an alternate scheme too with one midterm counting for 30% and the final counting for 45%. Tests aren't any easier, never felt fully confident in any of them. But if you feel this way, chances are everyone else is too. Midterm 1 average was a 52%!!!!! I was so baffled at my first failing grade but the curve truly saved me. To be fair, Ebert seems knowledgeable in this work and I will say that I never took advantage of office hours so maybe this is on me, but in the teaching department, he really can't be understood. Overall, avoid if possible!!

Prof Ebert is very helpful in terms of availability to answer questions and overall provides a good class experience. Lectures progressed well and the course was well taught. Would take the class again and thought the content/material was tested fairly on exams. Would recommend to anyone taking 115a, advise would be to read the textbook before lectures to really solidify learning, though this is more of a general truth for most/all upper divs.

Professor Ebert is very nice, and incredibly helpful. His office hours are incredibly valuable as he can spend a bit more time explaining material that he couldn't expand on in the lecture. The homework is generally quite challenging, and the exams were very difficult with a generous end-of-quarter curve to move the grades up.

main takeaway from this review:
DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR!! I REPEAT DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR!!!!!!!

To preface this review, I really think Ebert is a nice guy deep down and that he has no ill intention of wanting his students to fail or purposefully making his class miserable. I honestly think he is completely oblivious to JUST how bad of a teacher he is. Anyway, this does not excuse the fact that you should do everything possible to not have him as a teacher. I thought math 31A and 31B were a walk in the park and while I expected 32A to be significantly harder, Ebert made it impossible to succeed. He has no skills in teaching. Lectures consist of him mumbling incoherent words that no one can hear, and even if you could, wouldn’t make any sense. He also writes extremely small and messy. Pretty much all he does is copy stuff from the textbook but make it WAYYY more confusing. It was much better to just skip lecture and teach the concepts to myself from the textbook. This was quite the struggle for me personally because I’ve never been the type to understand math just from reading a textbook. As you can probably tell from reading other reviews, the midterms were insanely difficult. He would give midterm reviews that made a lot of sense and weren’t too challenging, so I went into both midterms with a false sense of confidence that I was prepared for them. I was definitely not. I got a 63 and 59 on the midterms. Fortunately, he seemed to learn from his mistakes and made the final MUCH easier and actually comparable to the final review and I got an 85 on it. The one good thing I can say is he does have a very generous grading scheme. I think in any other class I would’ve gotten a C or C- for how much I know but I ended with a B. This class was so miserable and put constant stress on me the whole quarter. Now I feel completely unprepared for Math 32B. Seriously DO NOT take this class, please trust me.

I am not using this site to vent. Dr.Ebert doesn’t know anything, he reads off his iPad and without it he solves the questions wrong (he couldn’t do proofs or solve examples many times in the class). Ironically we’re expected to memorize everything (the way to solve questions, formulas, …) but he doesn’t even know this info himself as seen by his constant glancing to the ipad. Such hypocrisy. This class is actually not hard but the textbook sucks-Beep and the examples he gives in class are stupid and easy and not as complicated as homework. And there’s no way to check your answer because we have to lose points on gradescope first before we can figure out how to solve them (even then we’re not allowed to have solutions). The final grade median was a 76.3 which means half the class performed worse than this number. This material is actually not hard, but you have to memorize everything (formulas, TxtBKreadings, homework problems, and EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE IN CLASS). I would have performed twice as well if I had a notecard for each midterm but since I don’t have a photographic memory to memorize hundreds of formulas and questions then I guess I’ll work at MacDonalds heating up expired nuggets. Every other class (31a,b, 33a) allowed a notecard for each exam, so it seems that this professor is particularly harsh with exam policy. I strongly know I would have done better if I took the time to memorize every formula/example/homework/textReading for this class. That’s all you have to do is memorize all these things. Understanding is not enough b/c if you can’t remember/recall the info on an exam then what’s the point? I received As in 31AB/33A so it just goes to show that the professor is the issue here. But he has tenure and you’re all stuck with him so unless you have a photographic memory then I suggest you take this exact same class at community college (costs $200 vs $2000 at UCLA) and your grade will make you much happier and more importantly you’ll actually learn a lot more and perform better. Math is such an important subject and I actually like the class but……………..
P.S. If an instructor is reading this then can tell you that a common teaching mistake is to copy things on a board. Especially eg with partial derivatives where many cognitive steps are being done at once, you cannot just copy and write things down, you have to read aloud what you’re saying and explain what you did from step to step. Because it’s easy to learn the wrong thing when you just write things down. I didn’t realize that I was solving partial derivatives wrong until I did an example in the textbook reading. So this teacher could greatly improve if he would just explain instead of copy. Copying is not enough, you also need to explain as you write. There’s also very few examples and practice problems and I learn by doing. So it would have been nice to have similar high level levels questions to practice so that I know that I have mastered the skill. Just one example is just not gonna cut it. So please give students more practice problems so they can learn by doing and not feel like they only have one example to go off of. Good luck everyone and I will concede that my poor grade has made me more inclined to be more vocal about this class. But again, I am not venting.