Her lectures are nice but her tests and exams are horribly unfair. The final exam covered things that were significantly more difficult than anything we had ever done in this course, and even the TAs had trouble with some of the problem sets in this course. If you want to learn calculus in a fair system and save your GPA, take MAT137. I should have.

Failed to be an english teacher so decided to ruin mat135 instead. she turns every math question into a paragraph long english question so it's really easy to be misinterpreted. The lack of examples in class and increased difficulty of the exams set students up for failure. Good luck

The course is just poorly organized. Quizzes are so unfair. Her lectures are not helpful either as she focuses on non-math related things too much. Final was a nightmare. I felt like I barely did any math in the course, instead it was mainly English.

Great English course! Learned more English than I did in 4 years of high school! I genuinely feel bad for people who are not good at English. The final was difficult, especially if you're an average student in math. I was lucky to know everything beforehand so I did well, but the average student won't.

Honestly the exam was just pure trash. She turned high school calculus with a bit more stuff into a literacy test. Questions were absolute unfair on the exam and the difficulty was just pure pure unfair.

Horrible prof/course coordinator. The department is so disorganized. Her exam was not representative of what was taught in class. She spends too much time on word problems which would've been fine if we actually learnt some math first. She expects you to know stuff without teaching. Her questions are wordy and confusing, it's not English class. Run

Great English exam for the Fall Semester 2017

As the course coordinator, her quizzes and exams did not reflect what we learned during lecture. The homework questions were too easy to be of any help, and 70% of the exam was application based, much harder than the questions we did during lecture. I've learned all the material in high school and had 95%+ but this course left me shaking my head.

Horrible, I feel like Im learning how to write composition instead of math

the exam included everything except things taught in the lecture. a good course english course also.

Tests were extremely hard.

Taking exam is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you are getting.

She puts the integration in "let's integrate English into a math course".

Great! it almost like an English course than a Math course then!

Her tests are difficult and irreverent.

AMAZING ENG CLASS

Making a math class like a mess

I already had my english credit going into university, but now I have an extra english credit so I think I'm going to major in English now. Shakespeare plays about clocks incoming

I feel like my English skills in addition to my math skills have gotten worse after reading her word problems lol

Seems to be suffering from a vertical asymptote in the middle of her brain. She must have failed at being an English teacher badly, so she's taking out her frustration now. But don't worry, no way she'll be in charge of anything next year. She's too insecure, has no respect from anyone, and looks like a lost soul in the position she currently holds

won't curve tests or make them easier even when half the students fails bc she thinks the tests are "fair" smh

It is just too hard to get a "fair" grade in this course.

bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad baddest

Does not take criticism well despite many complaints after she took over as MAT135 coordinator, especially about the exam. I usually never expect curves but the content was truly a mess compared to what was taught in class (english or math exam?) . I wish I had been able to be in the batch with the last coordinator.

I thought I was good at math until I took her course. Have never felt so stupid in my entire life. Felt like I was taking an english course instead of a math one. Would NOT recommend.

Extremely hard and doesnt give fair tests despite her constant claims that they are.

Her lectures were full of rainbows and unicorns and creating personal goals. Dont expect to actually learn math. Must know how to write an essay, with a few numbers thrown in there, if you want to pass the test.

This was honestly such a great English class!!!

Best mathematician I know. It is always horrifying when memes become reality.

Take 137 kids, easier than her 136.

Tests are unfair

she should be an elementary school teacher

She always says that if you do readings, homework, PAR, and tutorial questions, you'll be good. The only problem is that the level of difficulty on the test does NOT match the homework. Honestly we were the guinea pigs, save yourselves, take it in the summer, or whenever shes not the course coordinator, better chance of doing good.

Mayes tang always asks for feedback and for students to evaluate her lectures, and she really does try to improve them, but when it comes to tests, she cannot handle any constructive criticism. She is not ready to admit that her tests are extremely unfair. This course is supposed to be for life science students not mathematicians.

Finished with 100% in high school calculus; admittedly, final IB curves helped. Nonetheless, I am (computationally) a strong math student and good critical thinker. Mayes-Tang makes it impossible to demonstrate true ability because you're required to write paragraph-style answers instead of working through problems the way a real thinker would.

Hoped to gain something from having the COURSE COORDINATOR as a prof (after the trainwreck that was MAT135). Unfortunately, not the case. Skims over the most difficult examples but spends ages talking about "education strategies" and demonstrating how to slice a lemon. Overall: bad, bad, not good. Take MAT137 if you have ANY mathematical skill.

Taking MAT136 because I like calculus, don't even need it, but this course coordinator found a way to ruin even that lol. She takes away the integrity of mathematics by making you deal with WRITING and describing your answer. She does NOT care about students. Can't see how a caring professor would ever do this to a first year math course. Shameful.

Really wouldnt take her again. Wants us to explain us by writing everything we do in our solutions. Really not what maths is about.

worst prof I've ever had. Totally unreasonable and fails to deliver the content required to do well in the course.

She wouldn't reveal the midterm average yet she still thinks the midterm is fair LOL. This is the worst and messiest course I've ever taken.

Penalizes us for not stating theorems and explaining our answers in words. Peer Assisted Reviews are the dumbest idea ever for a math course. Material covered in WebWorks is pretty much irrelevant to content on the test. Definitely not qualified to be a Math course coordinator.

I am a life science kid with no aspiration of majoring in English. I feel like after taking this course I have earned the credits to graduate with a Specialist Degree in English. If you're interested in even learning basic math do not take this course

She has a lot of unnecessary things to do like PAR and Webwork. It's like an English class and math should not be like that. Also, in terms of the exams, even if you have the correct answers, you'll still lose a lot of points because you didn't write ALL specific explanations.

I did all practice finals on the portal, PAR, Webwok, everything she tells us to do well but the test is a whole new level. I'm a top math student in high school and I'm really having doubts about math after taking her course.

Worst prof I've ever had

like for real, the lecture materials are bounded but exam difficulty goes to infinity

Frankly among the worst professors I have ever had. She has a background in education and yet she is unable to effectively educate. Her teaching style is erratic and near-impossible to follow. Her tests are anything BUT reflective of the material at hand. Mayes-Tang has managed to turn a simple first year maths course into hell.

I loved Calc in high school and passed with 100% but Mat 135 + 136 were just no. She tries, but her lecture style is often extra and not helpful. Lectures and assigned work are nothing compared to exams- which is definitely going to destroy you with impossible questions and basically an english test... also doesn't take constructive criticism. RUN

So hard for the tests

too hard

Mrs Mayes Tang came in as a course coordinator and provided little to no practice exams, and the ones she provided were not nearly close to the difficulty of her tests. I truly hope that she manages to fix this mess of a course because compared to last years the course has become absurdly hard.

REALLY Regret taking MAT136 thanks to her. I used to get 98 in high school calculus and received 4 out of 5 on AP Calc BC, and ended up getting 61% on 136 Midterm. She refused to give Midterm answers, grading criteria and class average. And, she refused to curve up. Thanks to her, I lost interest in higher level of math.��

She changed MAT136 to ENG136&PHY136.

You are not doing math, you are writing essays

The Previous MAT135-136 coordinator Anthony Lam has more then a 4.5 star rating average, while hers is 1.6. Know why? Because she is BAD! She doesn't know how to teach a math course without horrible application questions. Let specialized courses teach calculus applications, and math courses teach actual math, not the reverse!

Let's keep this short and simple, I got a question wrong for using the wrong method of integration when my answer was correct and it did not specify which method to use. Just the kind of nonsense this english course involves.

10/10 I learned how to deal with dead bodies now.

Literally, if u want to learn the material, u have to watch the 137 profs video.

Best course to improve your English reading skill LOL.

Worst prof i've ever encountered. Turned my best subject into my worst subject by turning math into English. They should go back to the OLD STYLE of exams that were used for the previous 20 years not this TRENDY English math.

Why can't she allow calculus to focus on math, and not a bunch of applications and paragraph long questions.... there are other courses that teach us how to apply calculus concepts, but if she messes up and skims over your fundamental understanding of calculus, you can't possibly apply calculus concepts well!! Worst prof ever!

Terrible. Might as well be an English class. Farthest thing from math I have ever seen.

Watch out for this one. She takes the math out of math. If you like math courses take a different one because this one isnt going to feel like one.

dropped.

She teaches University students like they are in grade 7. We have assigned seats and stops class whenever someone is talking over her in a lecture of 250 students, so pretty frequently. We are currently spending 15 minutes of class writing up a "group contract" stating what makes us good classmates instead of learning calculus concepts.

The math course was nothing like what I expected. homework was useless and the practice exam was useless. She even assigned us research and reading for applied communication tasks.. Dont know if she is trying to teach math or writing.

She makes math feel like a nightmare when it really shouldnt be....

Focuses way too much on applications then on the actual math concepts. As her application questions are quite poorly written, You end up with having to relearn how to apply calculus to courses requiring it and additionally burdened by inadequate understanding of calculus concepts

I would have enjoyed this class if it were not for the Applied communication tasks. They were the biggest waste of time, extremely frustrating and did absolutely nothing to enhance my understanding of calculus. I would rather just write another exam. I signed up for calculus not English. Every time we got assigned a new ACT, I dreamt of dropping.

As a course coordinator, Mayes-Tang makes it her personal mission to ensure that the course is non-standardized between the many profs that teach the course, and that the work students do feels as meaningless as possible. The projects are not beneficial to learning, and her assessments have bs questions.

Many errors in the solutions of the final exam package she uploaded. Does not respond to emails. She's basically teaching English not Calculus.

Lectures are the most useless thing I've ever experienced. Essentially just her posting 10 questions and having us discuss them for the entire lecture. Course is not difficult though. Just need to get used to the abstract wording of the test questions. ACTs are a massive time sink and do not improve my knowledge of mathematics.

She expects you to teach yourself - lectures are basically useless. homework is easy, but gives you a false sense of security because quiz questions seem completely unrelated. The homework does not prepare you in the least, nevermind lectures that waste your time. Its frustrating to say the least. Horrible, unclear and unfair.

Abominable prof. Quizzes are long, difficult and completely unrelated to course content - lecs, tutorials, homework, textbooks - all of which I follow thoroughly. She puts strong emphasis on intermingling essays with math but poorly executes her ideas. The "extra" 40 mins she gives for tech issues is not enough when the quiz is so hard itself.

I totally dont understand why I need to write papers for math

Not much to say. I take her cuz I have to. Quizzes have nothing to do with what we learnt.

I appreciate her work on this course, but I am not taking calculus in the university to write ESSAYS!

Okay, here is the thing. The lectures are extremely disorganized. She does not explain any concepts but only goes over examples that turn out to be completely useless. SMT assigns us very basic and very easy homework problems, but the quizzes and tests are extremely hard and completely unrelated to the things that we have been practicing. TERRIBLE.

A disappointing professor. Many programs require MAT135/136 instead of MAT133 as a prerequisite since they need higher mathmatical skills instead of the ability of reading and writing. Mayes-Tang's class cannot show any of your mathmatical skills. The grading criteria are definitely confusing and unfair. Never Never Never take her course.

This is not a calculus course, more like an English class. If you've never taken calculus before or already know it, don't take this course. I don't even know how to pass this course anymore. No matter how much work you put in, it never pays off. It's so sad to see my GPA and future programs I had in mind gone due to an inconsiderate professor.

she makes the hw way easier than the tests

Is this mat135 a mathematics course or a English course

The HW and lecs for the class were good but did not reflect the material put on quizzes. We had a quiz each Mon that varied between a reflection quiz, written quiz, and M/C quiz. The reflection were marked by a rubric that we did not have access to until after grading and were too specific for reflections. The written was unlike the HW or lecs.

Awful prof, even after doing all homework assignments, attending lectures and asking questions, the quizzes (which are worth nearly 2/3 of the grade) are extremely difficult and some of them barely have anything to do with math.

You'd think a math class would be about math, nope write an essay based on a rubric that is dropped after the test. Tests are based on stuff we never went through in the lectures or how or tuts, (ive done them all) and the lectures use the entire hour to explain one simple question. please don't take this course unless you need it.

This class is aimed for students who are pursuing studies in life science, so it makes sense to have written/applied math in this course. But because of the grading, lack of communication between TA's, unfair test questions, and poorly structured lectures, it seems like I'm teaching this course to myself. It's me and my textbook against the world.

The course is unorganized, lectures are useless, I've been teaching myself the entire course from the textbook. Quizzes are worth most of your final grade and questions are 10x harder than the homework questions. They basically said it's impossible to get higher than a 75% on reflection quizzes. Don't take this course unless you absolutely need it.

Probably the most inconsiderate/rude prof. I dropped this course because rather than calculus, my mark was based off of whether my PDF was in the right order and english essays on her little scenarios. She provides 2 sentences to TA's on how to mark questions and it's impossible to get over a 75 on "reflection quizzes". Don't take a class with her.

Does not care about her students at all... Makes us write useless reflection essays without providing a rubric, then marks us as if we had access to the rubric beforehand. Has almost no interactions with her students. TA's are the only saving grace for this class. Worst teacher I have ever had hands down. Absolute ape!

Well, how shall I put it... Math is better without SMT

Useless lecture, Useless homework, Useless quizzes. I get a good mark, A or A-, but I'd rather get B or B+ in any other courses because this course is purely wasting my time in U of T.

No rubrics for written and reflection quizzes so they take marks off for things that arent even included in the question. Barely any lecture content or explanations entirely self taught class so make sure youve got a textbook! Very inaccessible so dont even bother emailing because you wont get a reply.

Quizzes are way to hard. There is no sessions to actually learn the content, its just problem solving sessions with profs that cant teach at all. This course is absolutely horrible and made me hate math. DO NOT take it unless you want to fail. Seriously.

The reason I got a good grade for MAT135 is that I took AP Calculus last year, not because of materials in MAT135. I spent time on ACTs and Reflections when I could review for other courses. I wish the lecturer could spend more time and effort on their lectures than us on our ENG-like ACT writing assessments.

all i gotta say is that, i bet the only reason why course evaluation hasn't opened yet is because she knows she will get lots of 1/5. just like what she gave out.

This course was absolutely terrible. Half the material you were assessed on wasn't taught or reviewed in class. The quiz review was pointless, had nothing to do with what was being assessed. You better be good at conceptual problems and applying math to writing because that's basically the whole course. I use to love math, now I hate it.

Rude, and puts minimal efforts into the quizzes- literally typos everywhere

She makes calculus students take useless reflection quiz (and yes we are graded on it) about how useful her course is. She asks us to be respectful but she does not respect her students at all. Never admits her faults or mistakes . This course is very unorganized, the worst course I have taken in uoft.

You'll only pass the reflection quizzes if you say the course is amazing and that it saved your life. Lectures are useless, they teach you only the most basic things and they are nothing compared to the written quizzes. They make typos and errors all the time but expect you to have perfect grammar. Two essays and a video assignment. Just a mess

This class is a complete joke, you don't have to be good at Math, you just have to be good at English because she makes you write 2 math essays and 1 video presentation. Live Lectures were totally useless, spent most of the time in breakout rooms and hope someone would respond. If you are hoping to learn Calc in this course, this is not the one

Unprofessional. The actual quizzes and practice ones are full of typos but students' mistakes aren't looked at with the same leniency. Bizarre marking rubrics. The material is very easy but most quizzes worth a lot in % are out of very few marks (out of 4/5/6 etc). One mistake and 17 -25% gone right there.

TBH, the material is not hard(basically grade 12 calculus) But the quizzes are hard (at least for me) For the final MC quiz, I focused on practicing math questions, but there are lots of interpreting the functions. By that I mean it is like you have to read a passage and convert the words into the function, so I did poorly on the quiz :(

I don't normally give bad reviews and I'd love to give the benefit of the doubt with this course but I just couldn't because I would be lying. I feel like I learned close to nothing in this course. Major assignments were papers (ACTs) and quizzes were marked so harshly despite lectures not being so helpful.

Email the undergrad chair your course evaluation, that is what I am doing so that at least someone hears our voice. Even if they don't read it you still tried.

Absolutely terrible. Apparently organic chemistry and biosynthesis is not a research area according to here dumb reflection quizzes. These things will rob you of a 3.7 and give you a 3.0 instead. Creates the worst marking schemes known to mankind.

I cannot gather enough words to explain how horrible this prof is. Avoid SMT at all cost

synchronous lectures make this course seem like a bird course, but quizzes are not easy at all. All these writing assignment and reflection quiz are so damn hard and not making any sense.

The material in this course isn't difficult but the way it is presented makes it seem impossible. The quizzes are confusing and it's usually hard to know what they're looking for, especially on the reflection quizzes. I understand that this course is supposed to teach concepts instead of just "math" but the way it's being taught isn't effective.

I enjoy math but didn't enjoy MAT135! The quizzes didn't reflect the homework we worked on and instructors weren't clear on what they were looking for in the written +reflection quizzes. The lectures were not helpful at all. Better organization, clarity, and communication DEF needed. The online hw is a mark booster but quizzes are discouraging :(

I did really well in calculus in high school. (High 90's). HOWEVER, I have never gotten so many zeros in my life. I failed all the reflection quizes except for one. They were really open ended questions that did NOT involve math or computation at all. We were only given the rubric AFTER we got the quizes back. Really bad format.

The professor is trying to "re-invent" the way math is taught, however, goes about it poorly. From constant typos on quizzes, constant technical difficulties, and obscure grading systems Mayes-Tang really makes you question what this course is actually trying to teach you: math or how to upload a file in a million different ways.

There is no rubric provided for reflection quizzes and they have a total mark of a low number. The loss of a mark significantly reduces the total % mark. Lecture videos are not helpful and the difficulty of the homework does not match the difficulty of the quizzes. The textbook is hard to understand without any explanations from the professor.

Ridiculous testing. 1/3 of the quizzes in this course are reflection quizzes, which in my opinion don't belong in a math course. The lectures are seldom useful and the tests/assignments are difficult and annoying. Also they are unhelpful if you email them about a question.

Online lectures are of little use and most learning is exclusive to the textbook. The department was extremely disorganized and unhelpful. Tests were also formatted badly and unreflective of course content.

I do appreciate her effort in trying to make this class "interactive," however this class is basically self taught. The only reason I was able to do well in this class was because I learned everything in this course in HS and there are many free marks in this class.

Very confusing format, learn everything yourself, would not take another class coordinated by her.

I am in my final year at U of T and I still get nightmares about my experience with her in first year. This course is practically designed to lower your GPA and somehow manages to take the math out of a calculus course.

it's like she treats math like a trend rather than what math is supposed to be. her effort to "modernize" math basically turned it into an english class. she needs to learn the difference between math and english class because i don't recall signing up for an english class but ended up in one apparently. UofT's worst, least understanding. just run.

course structured so bad i ended up changing my program of choice just to avoid taking another math class

All mayes tang does is talk about her personal life the whole day. She makes Math a Pan through countless essays and quizzes that don't even make sense! Her idea that math is to be applied is understandable, but how do you apply math if its not taught well. Teaching myself tbh.

If you don't read the textbook, you don't stand a chance in the course. The lectures are useless and you are better off sleeping. Don't take this course unless you need the credit.

New graduate from the 1st generation of SMT math here. Came back to say that MAT135 remains one of my least pleasant courses from one of the least understanding departments. Not the absolute lowest grade I've received in these 4 years, but it's definitely down there. Really, REALLY think about if you need this class for your degree before taking it

Do not take this course with this prof at all. She never teaches anything useful in class for exams.. She gives pretty inaane brutal tests too. Seriously, take anithr MAT if you want a better learning experience and fair tests. At least in other courses, they don't try to trick you and makes them long.. Worst course seen so far.

Didnt learn a thing in her classes, both MAT135 and MAT136. Had to teach everything to myself in order to get a high mark. If you dont have past knowledge of calculus, do not take this course with this teacher, theres nothing worse than trying to do difficult calculus questions without helpful guidance.

Can't be bothered, she made my first semester at UofT a horrible experience.

Didn't learn anything in this course even though I got a very high mark. This course was so poorly structured and run, that I changed gears and was too scared to take up second-year calculus classes.

Didn't learn a single thing from MAT135 and MAT136. Earned my grade solely with previous knowledge of calculus from high school.

I had to drop MAT136 half way due to the course structure being all over the place. I completed all questions and more from textbook+ online and come quiz time, everything seemed drastically different. This is a 100% self learning shoot in the dark course with very little teaching. Took it in the summer with another prof and did very well.

She's so bad, I want to give her a 0. But that's not possible. So I give her: a 1.

No Teaching, makes you figure out everything on your own, very slow talker and goes on tangents, doesnt sound like she knows what she's even teaching, deviates from the standard model of syllabuses and tries to be fancy by changing the grading method adding extra complications to already fine practices

My worst prof ever.

Course content was interesting but the poor organization and weird course structure ruined the overall experience. Instead of having weightings for different assignments and exams like every other class, a weird EMPX scale is used with a table in an effort to improve the way math is taught when there is nothing wrong with normal math courses.

Felt more like a liberal arts class than a maths class with all the pointless group based assignments, "exploration" assignments, etc which gave no value in terms of learning course content and seem more like material profs would use for education research.

Worst professor ever! Her syllabus is extremely unclear and complicated which even make her confused sometimes.There are lots of work to do and too much details that is not easy to follow up. She almost never reply emails and always make mistakes.This makes students always feel anxious and panic. Tough semester. Worst class experience.

Very unprofessional. Complicated syllabus with no important information (such as grading standard) defined. Tried to use a new teaching method but failed. She also tries to interpret problem related to genders, which is not the case since we are studing math.

Lectures are unorganized, almost never completed, doesn't do math problems and doesn't explain concepts.

Lectures are so disorganized. Doesn't explain problems in class. One person in the lecture gets the answer correctly and she assumes everyone else got it. Barely do any math in class. We have to annotate the textbook, plus a bunch of assignments due every week. We have to write essays...it's a math class. The whole math department is awful.

2 hour lecture that covered 2 slides 4 weeks into a university calculus course covering 1st-week high school calculus concepts dropped her mic pack on the floor and proceeded to rant about how the design was sexist (only for ~30 minutes :D)

Never teaches during lectures and will ramble about who knows what which will waste over half the lecture time. Talks like a kindergarten teacher and acts like one too, wants to give us assigned seating (yes you read that correctly). I think we're mature and old enough to sit where we want, but SMT doesn't seem to think so for some reason.

You know that meme where the class- and homework are easy (2+2=4) but the test is full of stuff you never learned at all (like "calculate the mass of the sun")? That's Mayes Tang's class in a nutshell.

Makes you read aloud slides and repeat after her, will get easily annoyed and tell everyone how rude they are for interrupting her (when a couple of desks were quietly having their own conversations), asks students to get up in front of the class and act out skits to try to teach math concepts. She teaches us like we're five years olds.

She does not teach. It's one day before midterm, and she's just walking around the lecture room for 2 hr. She gets confused looking at her own slides, and her TAs are better at teaching than her. Please change your lecture section before it's too late - choosing her class was one of the worst decisions in my life.

I feel she has only the best intentions for her students, but the way she teaches the course absolutely nonsensical. She always calls people out for "talking over her," but no other prof seems to care. She expects you to read the textbook before class even though it's useless. Please don't take her class. Any of the other math profs are better.

SMT had a podcast at the end of each of her modules. A podcast. A recorded hour where she talked about her life and she just posted it talking about what she did in her free time. Do with the information what you will. She also doesn't teach well and expects you to be an expert on the topic.

TERRIBLE TESTS, THE WORST COURSE

Her teaching ability for the class material is inadequate. Don't expect good quality education and you have to teach all the course material by yourself to excel on the tests.

With so many other decent professors for 135h1 as an option, she's not worth it. Tuition money bye bye

She does teach calculus, but only she understands what she teaches. I have not learnt anything new in this course. The quizzes make you lie about how relevant mat135 is, and you lie because you won't get grades otherwise.

I did not enjoy this class at all. We had four assignments every week, and her lecture barely covered any material from the objectives. Most of the learning was done when I would attend other lectures/ study from the textbook. She would bring up questions, and be doubtful of her answer, that is if she answered at all.

whole course was unorganized

I took this class because it was a part of my program. Unfortunately, it was very difficult to learn with Dr. Mayes-Tang as a professor. Compared to some of the other professors (we once had Bernardo come in to teach for one class), Dr. Mayes-Tang does not explain things or engage students very well. Definitely don't recommend taking MAT135 w/ her.

simply bad

Awful, disorganised and helpless.

does not teach. either learn it yourself, switch profs, or fail.

TERRIBLE DO NOT PICK THIS PROFESSOR IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME AND IF YOU RESPECT YOURSELF. SHE DOES NOT TEACH IN LECTURES (would rather talk about sexism, gender, and indigenous people than math), PROBABLY THE WORST CLASS I HAVE EVER TAKEN IN MY LIFE. AVOID AT ALL COSTS OR DROP OUT BECAUSE THIS TEACHER WILL NOT BENEFIT YOU WHATSOEVER. BE ADVISED.

I dropped this course

Course is disorganized. Lecture material is practically useless, with almost none being applied to assignments or exams.

MAT135 soldiers....just take the winter semester course. Awful, useless lectures

I have never learnt a single thing from her. All the classes were trick questions with no explanations.

bad teacher

Took 135 during COVID. Every other prof tried to keep course structures simple, but 135 had 8-10 online tools (some of them paid). SMT posted facts about POC mathematicians every week on the course webpage but never cited her sources/credited them. Another prof called SMT out and instead of crediting them she just stopped posting about POCs.

Explanation for choice of tags * get ready to read: a bunch of useless words forming an incoherent syllabus (i.e. yapping) * hilarious: grading system is a joke 0/10 would not recommend this prof

Two page questions is silly and useless

If you value everything in your sanity please take with any other professor for MAT135 She doesn't teach actual math she only talks about irrelevant content and then expects you to know everything

Lectures are useless, she talks about theory and history while the tests are strictly math. Do not take her lecture if you are entering first year.

she makes the course difficult for no reason. why do we have to do an assignment using AI that barely uses any math? it makes no sense. she makes fun of students in class and purposefully over complicates things. i hope i never have to take one of her classes again

one of the worst professors I have ever had. if I could give her a lower rating I definitely would, she doesn't teach anything and treats MAT135 like a middle school class. please for the love of god do not choose her as your instructor

Makes the MAT135 much more complicated than before. The syllabus has 29 pages but it is still unclear, and she makes the grading rubric complex and gives us more work to do to get a good mark, the rubric is totally unfair. Her MAT135 includes everything except for math.

This is the worst professor I have ever had. She treated the class like a middle school class. The syllabus was insane and unclear, over25 pages! The grading policies were awful. If i can give her negative infinite, i will, definitely.

I was not in Sarah's lecture specifically, but she is the organizer of this course, which is the main issue. This course is so unorganized, with hundreds of contradictions and ambiguities making it impossible to navigate and succeed. The content is straightforward, but the way she sets up the course makes you bound to struggle HARD the entire time.

Got to be the worst professor and course coordinator for MAT135. The whole course layout is confusing itself and the content for actual calculus is easy but instead the tests and assignments consist of written paragraphs explaining math instead of solving. Avoid this professor (AT ALL COSTS) or just take it in the summer.

awful professor with confusing syllabus. You need to complete tons of tasks every week to get an average grade...

no just no I will never take this course again if she is the coordinator. Her syllabus makes no sense and her marking scheme just doesn't make any sense.

Hard syllabus

ACT criteria are horribly confusing with zero beneficial learning. I had to regrade all marked assignments + Midterm due to bad grading. 7 mistakes (1 of which was discovered mid exam) in the Midterm. She cannot even explain how we can calculate our grades. Course is structured so that lecturers assume you taught yourself the material.

Author of probably the most convoluted, pointless, and unfair syllabus's in the history of education. This feat alone should commit her name to immortal infamy in the annals of pedagogy.

She doesnot do math most of her class. It is such a bad class cuz you feel stupid and left behind, whereas in other lectures when they actually teach, you know okay! it is not that bad.Dont do this to yourself! If you can change it change your prof ( I also thought it is not that important but trust me it is)

Not my professor, rather my coordinator. Approaching the final week of classes, I am YET to figure out properly on how the course is graded. The syllabus is confusing, instructions on course assignments were unclear or at times even COMPLETELY contradicting eachother from one section to another. Two different homework websites, hard to reach...

She is the course coordinator, not my prof. Overall the most confusing assignments and syllabus that I've ever had in a course. Everything was full of errors and conflicting instructions. In addition the grading scheme of the course is based off the worst of 3 sections of the course, for a reason that I find hard to understand.

The course was EXTREMELY unorganized. She posted the rubrics so late, so you would have to work blindly on the assignments until you finally DO receive the rubrics and realize that you spent too much time on the wrong things. Changes things up at the last minute. assignments are changing days before due. Tests were NOTHING like what we learned.

Please avoid, their syllabus tries to be innovative by splitting your grades into three categories but they take the lowest of those categories meaning its designed for you to have the worst grade you could earn. Their communication is AWFUL the grades have been messed up to the point the department has hired an outside firm to fix them. 0/10

Attending the tutorial helps more than attending class. Learn mostly by ourselves in a highly exercise-based textbook with going over 1 or 2 examples in lecture, again by ourselves as group activity. Definitions were rarely given, though tested often. Bad lecturing, teaches only 10% of the class time. Blames the students not working hard enough

I used to love calculus, and this teacher made me hate it. Never despised a class more. The first class she said she was going to make us more confused on our way out of class than we were when we came in.

Never take her course, horrible teaching barely teaches in class

You will learn less in class than you would from your cat. You will get some meaningless and time-wasting homework every week, and you will get zeros. She uses a "low score system", which means that even if you get 100 points on the test but lose a lot of points on her "kindergarten homework", you will most likely get a D.

She design this course like a game. The unique grading criteria are confusing. She may find it interesting, but she will be the only one who "enjoys" this process in the whole course, while students have to spend a lot of time to deal with it. Has she ever thought that if every course in this semester is designed like this, then when can graduate

Overall the structure of the course is terrible and super confusing. I did not know what was going on. The final exam was so confusing that I felt like I needed to re-learn English and start Uni again. In general the TA's and Professors are good, but the structure and exams are terribly organized.

She has the skill of making a one hour lecture into two hours. And treats us like kindergarteners.

1.Lecture: meaningless slides, has nothing to do with assignments. Useless activities. Never give the official definitions, even her textbook is confusing 2.Assignment: basically self-taught. Questions are supposed to be doable, but she didn't teach 3.Teaching Style: "creative". lack of focusing. only 2-3 new concepts are mentioned every lecture

Amazing prof if you want to learn about marriage and launching things to developing countries. If you want to learn math...try another prof.

Her syllabus is impossible to follow and her instructions are always unclear. We were bombarded with endless, pointless tasks—group work, random assignments, discussions, quizzes, tests—none of which seemed to have a clear goal. It was exhausting , not because of the subject itself, but because of her disorganized teaching style. Avoid if you can.

The syllabus was so confusing that sometimes even she couldn't figure it out.

Extremely big workload, even in the midterm week.

1. Assignment: she does give a "second chance" for resubmission, BUT she usually give 50% on explore question(which is not what we suppose to learn in math course), and "allow" for resubmission 2. Lecture: During the exam week, she invited a guest speaker who is a photo-based artist (tf...), and spend plenty of time on social responsibility.

She doesn't know how to teach. Wastes so much time by giving useless assignments. For example an assignment worth 1 point where we need to take 20 pictures of wallpapers in real life and write a full report. The book does not have any proofs, just pictures and informal definitions yet she expects us to know how to prove

The syllabus is confusing and the workload is huge. You can learn nothing in the lecture. For the midterm, the questions are not related with the practice test at all. Most questions in midterm are even not related with group theory. It is useless to prepare for the midterm.

Until this midterm, I thought she was such a hard-working woman. We had a lot to do over the weeks, so I assumed I would learn a lot from the course. But the midterm itself was really vague; nothing related to the things that we learned. What does she want us to learn? I just dont get this

The midterm is so confused, hard, and not related to the group theory and practice problems she provided to us at all. She said we should ask for mental health professionals if we feel anxiety, but never introspect why all students feel anxiety. She always believes it is other person's fault, but when all students in class feel uncomfortable......

Disorganized syllabus, making us do more readings and writings than doing math. In class Quiz and homework every week. Never taught us how to do proofs besides giving out readings that has to do nothing with the course. Midterm super difficult, unrelated to practice problems. Avoid her at all costs!

Remember that Tang's math courses contain about 75% non-math content, and the other 25%, unfortunately, you'll learn it by yourself rather than in her lectures!

Her lectures rarely covered any actual math content. She allows midterm students to retake the multiple-choice section on the makeup test without informing everyone before the midterm. We had to spend a lot of time self-studying and putting a huge effort into the homework, which was only worth 1 point.

Truly inspiring how Professor Tang manages to turn even the most straightforward topics into an enigmatic labyrinth of confusion. The syllabus alone was a literary masterpiece like a puzzle wrapped in a riddle, soaked in mystery. Every lecture is an intellectual adventure where comprehension is optional and frustration is guaranteed.

She forcused on non-math content rather than acturally teaching group theory. She spends time with the fancy weekly newspaper & Quercus homepage rather than putting effort in imporving her lectures. The weekly workload is high but she will gives you 0 for tiny mistakes like syntax error. Huge disappointment

Heavy workloads and weird syllabus

She insisted on having students enter the room in strict alphabetical order to distribute personalized booklets for final, despite previously admitting it might not be feasible. We spent nearly an hour waiting for invigilators to hand out the exams. The organization felt chaotic and disrespectful of students' time and well-being.

Talk about everything but math in lectures. Attendance at such lectures somehow affects the final grade in some incomprehensible way(since the syllabus is long af and the grading scheme is complicated). Preprint the name on the exam, so the distribution of test took an hour. Not responding to the question on the discussion board during exam period.

Unbelievable Mate. Some of these reviews are not even real lowkey.

i think shes typing out all the good reviews herself LMAO. run!!!!!!

Lectures have nothing to do with math, and neither do the tests. Grading criteria makes no sense and is basically designed for the downfall of students. Most stressful course I have taken thus far. She uses an extremely condescending tone and is so passive-aggressive. Overall, awful course and prof. Avoid at all costs.

She is a professor that enjoys very tricky questions. I attended all of her lectures and she spends majority of the time away from course content, delving into history behind math instead of the syllabus content. Her ability to convey the material was very poor and I learned everything from watching other lecturers.

lots of ta's and even other instructors will tell you that they don't like her approach or how she treats others

awful awful awful...did get a 30% curve at the end, but i think it was bc she uploaded the wrong grade originally. avoid at all costs

Ask other instructors teaching the course what they think of her teaching. You will not be disappointed.

she taught me 223, she never referred to the notes that the course coordinator provided, and spent valuable time on non math related topics