Fantastic professor. He REALLY knows his stuff and he focuses on trying to help us develop a very intuitive understanding of the material overall. Very challenging homework (can submit it in groups), but his exams are consequently a breath of fresh air (for 118, at least). Super helpful in office hours. He really wants everyone to get the material.

Ponce is very unique in the UCSB math department. While most professors seem approachable in class, and intimidating in office hours, Ponce is the opposite. He goes very fast, and is a little hand wavy sometimes, but he cares more than any other teacher that you're learning. Go to office hours, ask him to explain things in lecture, you'll do fine.

Very thick accent and mumbles a lot, so sometimes lectures were hard to understand. Explained things in a way that was usually more complicated than needed (if he did explain concepts). Wanted students to do well. Math TA saved me, best I've had. Literally did not know anything that was going on and got an A. Still don't know what a vector is.

This man might be the worst lecturer OAT. I did not gain a single thing from him reading off the slides, and 3blue1brown carried this class. He also got emasculated when he couldn't solve problems, saying things like "i don't usually do these computations." Lin alg is fascinating and he didn't convey this at all.

While the class is relatively easy to get through, the homework was frustratingly long and I never really got what he was talking about in lecture. He works through things fast and doesn't spend time explaining much. I know a friend who went to lecture once the whole quarter, studied the week before the final, and got an A. The final is worth 40%..

I went to every lecture, but didn't gain much. Occasionally, he would mention a topic that may show up on the midterm. A large lecture issue was the computational errors. (multiple times per lecture) Also, even my TA didn't understand one of the homework problems. The final was 40% and no partial credit, but the problems and curve were fair.