Xiaodong Cao

No sense of humor and acts like he's in the army. If you're not prepared to go to class, I wouldn't take him. Class is unnecessary, but he knew that I didn't go to class and when I needed to talk to him about a homework that he lost, he was unfriendly and not helpful. I hear he is helpful in office hours, but I was too scared to go. He'll know if you don't go to class. If you're the kind of student who goes to all the classes, this is a good class for you. Many problems from class on exams.

Cao's accent is REALLY hard to understand at first but you get used to it after a while. He teaches a lot using theorems which I found not helpful and does not do many examples in class. He has minimal and inconvenient office hours. I would not take this class without a pretty strong calculus background because he assumes that you know all of calc I really well. His midterms are really hard but the final isn't nearly as bad. He grades on a huge weird curving system at the end and it is pretty generous.

Cao is a decent professor. His teaching style is nice, he explains decently and he gives many hints about the exams along the way. His english is not very good though it is entertaining to listen to and understandable. He curves amazingly well and very strangely. His exams are challenging yet very doable if you study and do the homework. Explore your other options first, but Cao is a very good option.

Excellent professor; explain concepts fairly well. Quizes and Psets are the excellent preps for the midterms. Final was a little bit tough though. Recommended!!!!!!!!!!

A little funny to listen to, but very very very good. I have had some Calculus in high school, but this guy takes it the next level. You will learn many things from Cao's class.

There were a lot of proofs in this class, in the lectures, homeworks, and exams. Overall he's decent, but the textbook is just as good as the lecture. Class being at 9 am, many people chose the textbook (including myself). Midterms were fair, final was a little on the challenging side, but I heard he curves generously.

He's got a thick accent...and he teaches DIRECTLY from the textbook. He actually manages to make it quite confusing. He is well intentioned though; he encourages his students to ask questions and come to his office hours. Sadly, he just can't teach which resulted in me not going to class for the last month. If you are ok at teaching yourself most of the material (and you have somewhat of a background in this stuff...mainly, you took BC Calc in high school) you should be alright. He curves well. It's frustrating going through the semester though. There are definitely better options than Cao.

If you enjoy sitting through a class laughing the entire time, take this class! You won't laugh because he makes jokes (he doesn't have a good sense of humor), but you laugh because his accent is so funny! "Ze lance of vecto B" means "The length of vector B"...and "larmda" he says often, that translates to "lamda"...now for the best one: "za weeoh and emmanually paht" means "the real and imaginary part"..it gets ridiculous sometimes! He gives very good notes and you learn a lot in this class. His midterms are decent, and if you study a lot, you will do very well. The final is very very difficult, but no worries, his curve more than makes up for it. I ended up with a 72% in the class and received an A! I also have friends who got 94% and received an A. He curves to a B+.

I had mixed feelings about this class but overall I'd say it was a good class. Prof Cao is a very nice man, but I did not rely so much on his teachings than I did on my own high school calc experience to get me through the course. I think his style of teaching makes it very difficult for people with no background in calc, but if you try hard and get decent grades he will give you the A. If you want a guaranteed A for working hard then take his class. Just makes sure you copy every problem he goes over in class because a lot of times he asks the same questions he went over in class. Other questions will be exactly from webwork and homework. Occasionally though he will ask a question out of nowhere.

Cao was decent. I'd agree with the previous reviewer that going to class is a question of personal preference. He mostly used examples that were explained in the textbook. The only things to be careful of are his personal notation preferences - they're not quite the same as the book's all the time. Also, the beginning of the class was incredibly easy so I didn't take it very seriously. I got a 90-something on the first midterm without studying, but, while continuing to consider the class a joke, I bombed the second midterm. Oops. So it's important to be conscious of the fact that the later material is a good bit harder than the initial stuff. Don't blow off the work and you should be fine.