It’s been 2 months since my UCLA math classes ended. Do I even remember anything? I wanted to go over the classes I took, both how I felt about the class’s content while taking the class, and their usefulness for future classes. I won’t go over my impressions of the professors or TAs since that would be a bit too personal (and can vary wildly across years even if multiple people have the same opinion of a professor), but I’ll review purely what I learned during those classes.

Fall 2024: MATH 32AH - Honors Multivariable Calculus (Part 1)

This was my first math class at UCLA last fall, and it was a lot of fun for my introduction to college math classes. Unlike the regular class, we started with set theory in $\mathbb{R}^n$, going over the definitions of open and closed sets, compactness, and the core parts of math needed for us to go over creating and proving different theorems relevant to multivariable calculus, including limits in multiple dimensions, Jacobian determinants, the chain rule, etc. Not only is this content useful for my calc-related lower div classes (like 32B, and Physics 1B-1C), but the general concepts of set theory and proofs are useful for all of my math classes going forward.

Winter 2025: Math 61 - Introduction to Discrete Structures

Though this class is for my computing minor, it’s a math class and thus will be included here. This class included basic set theory like 32AH, but we also went over probability and graph theory. For most people this is their first class learning proofs since 32AH is only available in the fall, and thus this class acted a lot more like a review class for me; nonetheless, this class is also really useful for any proof related classes I take in the future, and the concepts learned during graph theory are also useful for my future CS classes.

Winter 2025: Math 33B - Differential Equations

I’ve actually written about this class before, and this class was fun (though repetive at times). Made for both math majors and STEM non-math majors (like all the 31 to 33 math classes), this class focuses a lot on computing answers to specific scenarios unlike 32AH (which catered to though more interested in pure mathematics). The class also goes over some of the basics of linear algebra right before going over solving systems of differential equations, which helped me a lot since I haven’t taken linear algebra yet (I’m taking it this fall). Overall, only a few concepts from this class will be used in my future classes, but it’s still a good class to take if you’re interested in differential equations or need it for engineering, finance, or physics classes.

Winter 2025: COMPTNG 10A: Introduction to Programming

This class is required both for my major and my minor, and it’s just a basic introduction to programming in C++. I mostly code in Python and Javascript (for Google Sheets), and I never touched C++ before this class, so it was a bit hard at first to get the syntax correct. However, once I got it down, it just felt like doing a normal coding course, and it was just a matter of converting the Python code I normally write to C++ for class. For a person who has never programmed before, this class is a great way to get started, but can be rough at the start since there are so many new concepts and C++ is a much more complex language to type and read than Python or JS.

Spring 2025: MATH 32B - Multivariable Calculus (Part 2)

Unfortunately, I couldn’t take 32BH, which is why I took the regular class. It’s a lot of integrals, and I’m not sure how much I got out of it, given that it was mostly us learning slightly different ways to take integrals. For non-math majors, it’s perfect to understand calculating flux and and other physical properties, but I don’t think it helped me a lot.

Spring 2025: Physics 1B - Physics for Scientists and Engineers: Fluids, Oscillations, Waves, and Electricity

The name is self explanatory; in this class, I learned about fluids, oscillations, waves, and electrostatics. I actually learned more multivariable calc in this class, given the more concrete examples of flux and weird volumes to calculate. Fun class, though this and Physics 1C are going to be my only physics classes going forward.

Spring 2025: MATH 142 - Mathematical Modeling

The latest class I took, and my first upper division, 142 was an interesting class, building off of 33B with some multivariable calc from 32B to teach us modeling different phenomena and solving some instances of PDEs. It was a very informative class and will definitely help when I take a upper division differential equations class in the future.