Thick accent, difficult to understand. Used Khan Academy to pass the class, waste of time and money.

too easy to get an A. All the things on canvas. better than 95% courses in ucsb

Dai is funny at times and clearly had good intentions. However his inability to lecture and lack of clear explanations on almost everything means self-study is required. Homeworks are very difficult, while midterms are easy. The final counts for most of the grade and is challenging, but doable. This is only my opinion. Your experience may differ.

So that just happened

Dai's lectures were often very convoluted and hard to understand without external resources. Lectures were almost always pretty unhelpful. If you put in a lot of work outside of class and attend CLAS / use CLAS online resources it isn't hard to get an A. Lots of partial credit is given on tests, I got multiple problems wrong and got a 4/5 or a 3/4.

The professor seems very smart and knowledgable, but he cannot speak English. If you take this professor for 4A, sign up for CLAS group instruction and attend those instead of lectures/sections. The lectures are just him reading off the slides (which are posted), so I skipped most of them and did fine. Weekly homework, 2 online midterms, and final.

He is the absolute sweetest person, and clearly loves math so much. But he cannot teach. The subject itself is easy, but I only passed the class because 3blue 1brown, CLAS, the textbook, and the internet taught me everything. The final had straightforward questions, but I spent 99% of it just crunching numbers and holding back tears.

went from an A+ student to a D over the final. went to every class, section, and even took a ton of tutoring for this class. but the amount of cheating on the final, the harsh grading scale, and absolute disrespect from the TAs with their communication made this class go from one i would take again to never wanting to experience.

Lectures were not very helpful/were not explained well. Forced to relearn concepts on my own time/have TA reteach concepts in section. Final was initially worth 60% but then changed to 50% after the final due to cheating issues(?). 2 midterms each 15%, changed to 20%, which were online and unproctored.

The bad reviews are mostly from students who didn't study, skipped lectures, and are now coping with the consequences. The professor is very caring; he knew people cheated on the final and did his best to make it right, which resulted in many grade bumps. His lectures are mid, but his office hours are great. This is an elementary-level class.

This class is not as bad as everyone makes it seem. I would def recommend signing up for CLAS, because that is where I learned everything. The midterms were both online, easy 100's. The final was a tad harder but not awful, even though I got the one with impossible fractions. It was number based, not conceptual except for a couple of T/F questions.

Dai is not a good lecturer, and the final was unfair with lots of cheating and one version being much harder than the other. HOWEVER, students brought this to his attention and he did his best to fix it with generous grade bumps and changing the overall grade breakdown. He definitely cares about his students, the situation is just unfortunate.

Just study huge for the final. LOTS of grade bumps this year

Heavily weighted no calculator final, but also had different versions of the final with WILDLY different difficulties. For instance, one version of the final had very nice fractions like 3/10, and another version had 41/111 as an answer for the same question. This shockingly, is not great.

Lectures were unhelpful and rushed. Had some memes in between the topics, which was fun. Online midterms are useless, and they made your whole grade depend on the final. The final was also useless since they didn't try and stop anyone from cheating and messing up the curve. If you have to take 4A with him, make sure to self-study from the start.

Teaching should promote and encourage students to WANT to learn things so concepts can help them later. What an absolute joke of a job by Dai to prevent cheating, and absolutely screwed those who did not cheat. Disrespectful class to education and the UCSB Math department, this guy needs to be investigated.

Lectures are whatever but honestly just self study. Homework and midterms are very easy. Your grade is basically just what you get on the final(60% of your grade is nuts). Depending on your test version, you'll either have a chill time or get an aneurysm, a stroke and a heart attack due to the ungodly arithmetic. It is graded pretty nicely though

Lectures were hard to understand. The difficulty of the final depended on what form you got, but the grading placed more emphasis on knowing the concepts than getting the correct answers. I heard people chatting who whole 3 hours of the final and the proctors did nothing.

Not as bad as people say. The final was 60% but fair.

Definitely not as bad as everyone is saying. I got an 88% on the final, and felt the grading on it was very fair. I couldn't get to all the right answers since the numbers were large, but I got plenty of points for knowing how to solve every problem. Lectures were funny and I attended almost every one, just put in the effort and you'll be fine.

Lectures consist of theorems straight from the textbook with no explanation on how to apply them in a problem. Enthusiastic about the subject, but you're better off reading the textbook. The final is a brutal 60% of your grade, and is not difficult in content, but rather in being tedious to do without a calculator.

Professor Dai has to be one of the respected, hilarious and inspirational teachers at UCSB. He would always include silly memes, often from Star Wars, to keep his classes thoroughly engaging. I remember LOL'ing almost every single lecture due to his hilarious persona. The final is also not too bad!

Professor Dai really went about his way in his lectures to teach us the content. Honestly his class isn't that hard if you just do what you're told. I expected the final to be harder than it was.

For those peers who feel unfair, please email math department or ucsb academic integrity office to report this issue. Otherwise no one will save us.