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.