MATH 3310

Prof. Lu's lectures were sup-par but he made up for it through his reasonable and flexible expectations with respect to homework and exams. The biggest issue with lectures was that they were a little disorganized. He covered all the content we needed but theorems were rarely named and it was sometimes difficult to tell what was important or to line up his definitions and theorems from those in the textbook. Additionally, he struggled to answer questions to a satisfying extent. However, he listened to input from the class on several occasions and adjusted homework deadlines accordingly in order to avoid overloading us. Obviously, it was still a lot since it's an infamously hard class, but he did his best to keep it reasonable. It was the same story with the final exam; everyone struggled with the last midterm more than expected, so he made an obvious effort to keep the final exam reasonable.

Overall I feel like this class wouldn't be doable if it wasn't taught by Professor Lu. It's still a very difficult class, but if you know how to best utilize the resources given to you, then you should be okay.

Let me break down the grading:
Homework (20%): These were pretty much weekly check-ins on material covered. Some of the problems are easier/harder than others, but our absolute godsend of a TA would provide extremely helpful hints in case we were ever lost. Also, find a friend to work with, and these definitely won't be a problem. Two of these were dropped.
Quizzes (5%): These were weekly, and during our discussion section. There were always two problems: one was one or more definitions, another was more definition applications (prove this, disprove that, etc.). These weren't difficult if you knew each definition like the back of your hand (easier said than done, but again, it's very doable). One of these were dropped.
Midterms (15% each): 3 in total. There are 5 problems, done in class, but he only counts the 4 best (so you could leave one blank, or guess, or whatever). Again, these weren't terrible, but they're certainly more difficult than the homeworks (maybe since it's closed-book), and the third midterm in particular was a time-crunch, but it's still very feasible. There usually were 1-2 true/false problems (with maybe 4 questions per problem), and were the easiest part. If you want to prepare for these problems, the textbook has some very similar to what you'll receive. The remaining problems were proof-based; either you were walked through a new proof, or you had to straight-up prove something.
Final (30%): Done during the exam period, it should only really take 90-120 minutes, but you're given all 3 hours. Basically a longer midterm, but solely with the proofs. The professor gave us a review beforehand that contained some of the problems word for word, so do them all!

The professor is very nice and considerate, and he's still new to UVA, so this class will only get better. Use the textbook! Overall, I'd recommend this class with him.

I'll start with the positives: his final wasn't terrible because he just pulled questions from the review problems he gave us. His midterms were also alright; some of the questions were from the textbook. Other questions were tough, but I guess that's too be expected.

Apart from that, I'd recommend avoiding any class with him. He regularly came to class not knowing the proofs he was going to teach us. It was super frustrating, and made it really difficult to learn. I basically taught myself using the textbook because his lectures were so useless. Honestly - he's one of the worst professors I've had at UVA. I hope he gets better, since I had him his first semester here, but I cannot recommend him.