This class was terrible. If you can take any other math series, do that instead. Throughout the course, I went to office hours 1-2 times per week, went through all my homework, did all the practice midterms and finals they gave as well as past ones students gave me, went on Zoom review and in-person sessions, and still failed to do well in this class. I felt like I was understanding the content, did well on the practice tests, but when I got to the tests, they were nothing like the past content we did and were very conceptual. Bennoun is willing to help if you go to the office hours, but they are always so busy, so get there early. The labs were also stupid, but if you have a good group of people to work on it with, you are good.

Class is very conceptual-heavy and not so much math-heavy. Bennoun is a good lecturer who posts his own annotated slides after class. The coding labs are a breeze if you get a good TA, if not then just attend office hours. Overall, this class certainly requires effort but the homework and tests are manageable.

Bennoun is the goat for this class. Sure, his midterms are actual hell and I definitely got the shock of my life because it was my first midterm ever, but going over lecture slides and using the textbook as a resource really helps!! Scored well on the final and pulled off an A-. For F25, grading was done using one of two schemes, they automatically use the scheme that gives you the highest grade.

At a glance, this class seems "easier" than your typical calculus course due to it being more concept heavy. Many call it "fake math." If computing calculus is not your strong suit, but understanding concepts and the "why" behind calculations rather than the "how," then this course is for you. Do not be intimidated by the math itself, or the coding aspects. I'd say these are one of the easiest parts of the class.

During lectures, Prof Bennoun may seem intimidating because he lowkey judges you if you get the answer wrong in his participation questions. However, that shouldn't deter you. Go to his office hours: he's patient and will explain and go through the problems with you step by step to ensure your understanding. He's a great guy and has a bit of an accent, but is still understandable.

MIDTERM and FINAL
The midterm will catch you off guard if you are unprepared. Some students say the final is easier than the midterm, but in my opinion, the difficulty is relatively the same. Prof Bennoun will give you practice exams and the TAs will provide review sessions; however you should not solely rely on them. There are two grading schemes: one that accounts for both your midterm and final, or one that only uses your final grade.

TIPS to SUCCEED
- ATTEND OFFICE HOURS 2+ TIMES A WEEK: Whether it be for homework or general questions, use these hours to your advantage to ensure you fully understand the concepts
- GO THROUGH EACH LECTURE AGAIN: Especially when studying for exams, the lectures and clicker questions are a great resource for understanding the concepts visually
- ASK QUESTIONS DURING LAB: Your TAs are a great resource for understanding topics especially if office hours are full.
- REDO HOMEWORK: Don't just memorize answers--understand the processes of solving them
- SKIM/READ TEXTBOOK: The textbook goes more in depth about concepts and has some practice problems you can do

SUMMARY
Getting an A in this class is possible if you prepare ahead of time and fully understand the concepts. Take advantage of the resources you have and you will succeed. Good luck to everyone taking this course!

As long as you do all the homework assignments and labs with effort then you should pass this class. If you didn't take calculus in high school, you'll probably have a rough time with the calculus aspects of this class. I didn't take calc and there wasn't a lot of time put into learning derivatives, so I had to put a lot of effort into learning what they were and studying them. Definitely reach out to the people that have taken calc for help in that portion. Bennoun is chill and can be pretty funny at times, I would totally have liked to have him for 30B if his class worked with my schedule. Just show up to class, put in effort for your work, and you'll pass the class.

This class was really something. I think the material is interesting surprisingly, but it is not at all similar to a classic calculus class. Bennoun definitely explained well and was a good lecturer, but he could come off as a little bit condescending when answering questions.
This class is inevitable as a pre-med or life science major, so just prepare for it as best as you can, it's definitely bad but not impossible.
The workload is very easy with the labs that you can usually finish in lab time (although they are horrible), and the once-a-week homework. Don't mess up submitting the homework, those were almost the only times I lost points.
But because of this and how niche this class is all you can really study with are the practice midterms and finals. Those are very helpful but often not definitive as to what the exam will be like. Our midterm was so hard that one of the questions the TA couldn't even solve. I studied for 30 hours for the final and got an 80%, which was lucky compared to what I heard from some. I was fully expecting to have a B in this class, but the 30A instructors curved final grades surprisingly. I know a lot of people whose GPAs were done dirty by this class. Go to office hours and be prepared to really investigate these niche math topics.
Textbook is absolutely not needed.

DO NOT TAKE THE 30 SERIES
If you're reading reviews trying to decide to take the 30 series, the 31 series or the 3 series, PLEASE take this review into consideration, and DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. If I could go back to little orientation me, I would tell them to take the 3 series instead of whatever this class was. Bennoun is goated, don't get me wrong, but this class is the spawn of hell. Getting an A is truly luck of the draw. The lectures make it seem like the concept is reasonably manageable, then you open the homework and its like 20 questions and 6 pages. This class isn't even math, its mostly word problems, where its "describe how you know" instead of showing much arithmetic. The midterm was actually terrible, because they post practice midterms, then the midterm will be NOTHING like the test, and everyone hated it. In this class, there's two grading schemes, one where you can rely on the score of your midterm or final, or where you're final can replace your midterm score. After the midterm, almost everyone was praying for the final to save their grade because it was that bad. After the midterm, I locked in basically everyday, doing textbook problems, going to office hours, emailing my TA, everything everyone tells you to do when you don't understand. I was so confident going into this final from all the time I spent studying, and as soon as I opened that final I had to start praying for any little hope (mind you i'm not religious and this class had me praying). I asked my TA after the midterm why they made it so difficult, and he admitted to me that the class itself would be too easy if they just worded it normally, so they word it extra complicated for the pure purpose of confusing people in hopes they'll get it wrong, to truly test "how much they know." No amount of "knowing" will help if you cant decipher the practical hieroglyphics they give the questions as. Also for the lab section of this class, its coding which isn't too bad coming from someone who only took comp sci principles in high school, but the site they use is unbearable and never works, making it 10x harder, especially with how they word the questions. Labs and homework are graded on correctness, and they are NOT lenient at all.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take this review into consideration when taking this course, if you want to save your GPA dont do it to yourself. If this review can save one person from not taking this class, it would make my day, PLEASE dont do it to yourself. Listen to the bad reviews of this class, and know the grade distribution is not accurate, everyone I know started with an A and ended with a C or lower. PLEASE.

This class is hard. It's a mixture of calculus, coding, and frankly, some weird graphical math I'm confident is unique to UCLA. The midterms and final are difficult, but not impossible, and it's entirely plausible to end with an A or A-. I didn't take calculus in high school, and I was nervous about how this course would pan out, but taking it with Dr. Bennoun definitely helped me succeed. His lecture slides are very well put together and he's a very clear lecturer, but he will also stop to answer any questions you might have. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the type of course you can coast by in and not study for, but being in Bennoun's class makes it much easier. He gives one homework and one coding lab every week, along with extra credit surveys every once in a while. The grading schemes weight the exams pretty heavily, but don't look over the easy grades like labs or iClicker participation. Speaking of exams, they are rough. The midterm will smack the sense into you, but don't fret. There are two grading schemes, one that weights both the midterm and the final and one that only weights the final (65% of your total grade), and most people end up with the latter scheme. To study, I would do the practice midterms, additional problems in the textbook, review the slides and Clickers, and study with friends. This isn't a collaborative course, but relying on your professors and your friends will increase your chances of success.

Definitely NOT an easy A.

When I initially took this class, everyone told me that it was an easy A and that it was one of the easiest math series at UCLA. This is NOT TRUE. I never felt catfished by a course until now.

The grading is interesting, in that either your midterm is 27.5% of your grade and your final is 37.5%, or you can make the final exam worth 65% of your grade and have your midterm worth nothing. To some, this was good because the midterm was very, very difficult. Most people whom I have talked to earned subpar scores on the midterm (<70%) and needed to rely on the second grading scheme to even have a chance at a better score. Although this might be forgiving in the sense, the final exam wasn't much easier than the midterm. When I took this class, everyone was saying not to worry about the midterm grade because the final exam would be "so much easier," but I did not think the final was easier than the midterm. Having gotten a 90% on the midterm, I scored lower than that on the final exam. The average for the midterm was rumored to be around 60%, so take that as you will.

In terms of the content of this course, it is, but it isn't math at the same time. The extent of calculus concepts that were taught was derivatives, integrals, Riemann sum, and Euler's method. The rest were some "modeling" stuff (this was arguably the most difficult part of the course), feedback loops, and more abstract material that was difficult to grasp if you are used to calculus. However, it is not impossible to understand, as this professor tries to explain it well. I did notice that the slides and lecture would be doable, but once I got to the homework, it was different and almost REQUIRED you to go to office hours to complete it.

Homework and labs were graded based on accuracy, and the lowest score was dropped at the end of the quarter. The TA office hours were always packed to the brim, because, as I said earlier, it was difficult doing the homework by yourself and only with the lecture notes. The lectures are recorded and uploaded, and attendance is mandatory on iClicker, BUT you can miss 4 lectures/be absent 4 times with no penalty. The lab sessions involved coding and a worksheet based on one concept that was taught earlier in the week, and they were very doable. The coding labs were on CoCalc; you have to pay $20 at the beginning of the quarter, and they involved Python coding. The coding is very manageable if you have a good TA who will help you. The coding was also very direct and gave you step-by-step directions on exactly how to do it. It was not tested on either exam, but I know it was tested before in the past so watch out for that.

In terms of workload, it was very doable. Two 1:15 hr lectures during the week and 1 discussion, which was nearly 2 hours. There was one homework assignment and one lab due every week. This is 100% a class where if you just do the bare minimum, you will not succeed (unless you are very smart, of course). This class requires you to put in a LOT of effort outside of lecture, homework, and labs if you want to score well on the midterm and final exam. One tip I have is to read the textbook and watch the Alan Garfinkel UCLA modeling videos on YouTube. They are created by the person who created the textbook and course, and I often found them to be more helpful than the professor's lectures. There were some extra credit opportunities, which were surveys that gave you 1 point for completing them and were weighted 0.25% of your grade, so they did nothing at all.

Overall, I'd say that this class is definitely a weeder class. Most premed people take this, and I will warn you now, it is not an easy A. You need to work for it. Take this as you will, and best of luck if you take this with Bennoun.

Bennoun is a boring lecturer, I was really tempted to skip lectures. I didn't speak to him even once all quarter long, Lol. He does walk around during lecture and answers ppls questions. Lectures are recorded, attendance is iClicker and you can miss 4 lectures/iClicker grades without affecting your grade. There's only one homework a week and the lab is free points as long as you check your answers with the TA/LA in your session. Highly recommend going to office hours, TAs are all goated and were super nice. Sonia, Ayush and Adwoah were my GOATs. Be prepared for the final and midterm to whoop your ass: the practice tests Bennoun gives are way too easy and different question types will appear on the actual test. Some concepts are hard to grasp, pretty unrelated to high school/AP Calculus concepts. Overall, I think the other reviewers are exaggerating the difficulty. If you are better at understanding concepts vs. just relying on memorization, you'll be fine. There is extra credit, lots of grade padding and only 2 big tests.