Worst professor I've had so far. Pray you don't have him, or your grade will suffer, even if you know the content. Literally assigns an insane amount of homework, and tests are needlessly impossible. Also doesn't understand the idea of a curve. He tried to curve only one class's grade and not the other's, and really thought that was a good idea, so he just made the curve less and destroyed everyone's life.

Pablo is the worst teacher I have ever had. He has no clue what he is talking about during class and cannot describe an integral for the life of him. He constantly makes mistakes, confuses everyone, and just seems like he does not know what he is teaching. NEVER take this class if he is the teacher. Honestly I’m going to stop going to lectures because they are the most unhelpful, confusing aspects to this whole course. I truly do not know how or why he was hired.

This is a professor who spends only half of his class time teaching because the other half is spent on apologizing for his error. Basically, for every two lines he writes on the board, one of them would be wrong. Students have to point it out for him. He effectively makes this class more challenging than it's supposed to be because I have to identify which things he teaches are correct and which are not.
Also, no recording, so you have to attend the 9 am class. It's only the fact that he dresses so badly that convinces me the school isn't keeping his job for his looks or sth. School's just stupid in selecting its professor.

Pablo's lectures are literally just him reading examples from the textbook word for word. That's all well and good for learning the basic concepts, but when the midterms and final ask you to apply them in ways you haven't been asked you before, you find yourself trying to teach yourself things in the middle of the test. I've heard his review sessions were helpful, but I had a class at the same time as them so I could never attend. The TAs were helpful, but having your homework be returned up to five weeks later meant we never really knew how we were doing on the concepts. His grading scale was very generous, which definitely helped me a lot, but I would definitely recommend a different teacher if you can.

Under absolutely no circumstances should you take a class with Pablo. None. Even if you have to wake up for an 8am class, or the other one is online, or you think the other professors will be worse -- trust me, do not choose Pablo.

Pablo gave multiple choice midterms (no partial credit) with problems taken directly from the textbook (but the hardest ones, which aren't like any of the examples from class or homework problems). They were 8 questions in 50 minutes. For the final, it was switched to free response with partial credit (24 questions in 3 hours). However, the grading was still unfair and not an accurate representation of what we know. A full half point was taken off my otherwise entirely correct problem because I forgot a '+ C' at the end of my answer. The '+ C' and the rest of my work are in no ways equal, but were weighted as if they were.

He does not record his lectures, so if someone were to get COVID or become very sick, they would be out of luck and have no option but to attend class.

Pablo teaches by copying problems from the textbook onto a chalkboard. He picks the easiest problems, and he often makes errors while copying his notes which makes it incredibly hard to learn from. He doesn't reexplain after being asked about the errors.

In short, don't take Pablo. Save yourself the frustration and tears.

If you didn't take AP Calculus BC I would NOT recommend this class with Ocal. If you did take BC, I've heard that this class is just an easy review of that ( I didn't take BC). I've never been one to struggle with math, I got a 5 on the AP Calc AB exam, but despite this I've never cried and struggled so much with a class in my life. His lectures were not very engaging and he would give examples to concepts but not explain how he got any of his answers. Luckily, he follows the textbook exactly so if you read the textbook you don't even really need to go to lecture. If you're not able to go to lecture, he doesn't record his lectures but he does post his notes for the lecture. His grading scale was fair but the exam questions are graded solely on the answer you get and not the work you show-- therefore I got terrible grades on the exams typically due to stupid mistakes in my calculations, but you don't get points for any correct work so I would get the whole question wrong. There is also no extra credit whatsoever. There was no material to review for exams except to review homework and do textbook problems. I studied non-stop for a week for the final, I've never studied so hard and so long for an exam, and I still ended up getting a 68 on it. Maybe I'm just stupid but I've genuinely never tried so hard in a class and failed so miserably. Overall, Ocal is not a great professor and I would recommend a different teacher for 31B. If you are taking him, good luck <3

Pablo's lectures are just the textbook chapter notes copy and pasted onto a chalkboard. He just goes over what the textbook says verbatim and doesn't try to use other examples. That being said, he is helpful when it comes to clearing doubts or questions, be it in class, during office hours, or via email. He is very responsive to emails, which could be seen as a plus side.

I personally found his exams to be tough despite keeping up with the weekly homework, attending office hours, extra review sessions, etc. His midterms were multiple-choice but there were only eight questions worth ten points total (four questions were worth one point while two were worth two). As a result, if you miss one or two questions, it brings down your grade significantly. The final was 24 questions, each worth one point. It was fairly comprehensive but focused more on series and sequences than the other topics. It wasn't multiple-choice due to a last-minute change to a free-response format due to cheating allegations.

I found the final somewhat easier than the midterms, maybe because I was desperate to do well on it and ended up doing all the textbook problems. I got an A on the final, which helped me get an A in the class despite getting a C on both midterms thanks to final grade calculations depending on three different grading schemes: (1) Homework 15%, Midterm 1 25%, Midterm 2 25%, Final 35%; (2), Homework 15%, Max. Midterm 35%, Final 50%; (3) Homework 15%, Final 85%.

If there’re alternatives, just don’t. This class was an experience of pain and confusion. Lectures are fast paced and textbook-copying based. The exam questions were chosen to reflect the hardest of topics. Midterms were multiple choice and in a crowded room so ofc grade means were high. The final was free response, also the same pattern of hard questions. I needed to close the door on myself for several days to do well on the final. Homework was another source of pain. A ton of questions per week (gets to 40 questions sometimes) with nothing to tell you whether your answers are right or wrong for three weeks. The discussion sections weren’t that organized as well. Pablo and the TAs were really great people when it comes to anything but math teaching. The TAs seemed to put in the effort but it just didn’t work. A good thing was the three grading distributions where you can drop one or both midterms.

I don't think I would take a class with him again for the sole reason that he did everything from the textbook. He would copy down exactly what the textbook had for each section and solve some of the much easier example questions. The homework questions would be based off the section exercises and were of a higher difficulty. The homework was also based off correctness but no answer scheme was given after so you could never really check whether it was right and what went wrong. All the exams were supposed to be multiple choice with no partial credit (not at all helpful for math). Three days before the final he changed it to open response but each question was still worth one point so partial credit really made no difference. Office hours were also relatively short and more or less reserved for clearing doubts on the homework. His review sessions were just him writing down the names of the topics on the board. Overall, it was not a well-managed class. However, the professor was accommodative in the sense that you could drop one or two midterms and he ended up dropping 3 homeworks as well. Considering that it was his first quarter here, I think he could improve but take him only if the other professors have much worse reviews.

In response to a previous comment, he doesn’t do any problems at all during review sessions. That person must have put their review under the wrong course. Actually, the review sessions were a really disappointing part of 31B with Pablo, because he essentially used the time to outline topics we would need to know on the exam (ex. Ration test. Root test. Taylor series; nothing we wouldn’t already know.) However, he is a really solid lecturer and someone I would definitely recommend. Our textbook is fantastic and he follows it almost exactly. I will say that he basically didn’t teach us Taylor series..l had to learn the entirety of that section on my own. Unfinished lectures were quite a problem for me personally. His grading scheme is generous, but our midterms were multiple choice, no partial-credit, 10 point exams (8 questions). The final was a 24-point partial credit exam- that’s how we should have been tested during midterms. I hope he sticks with that method for future students. Overall solid, and the other 31B profs have
horrible reviews. Go with Pablo!