Prof Dirk is a really nice person, explained everything clearly in his office hour and took us on a tour of condense matter lab. Expected difficulty for one of the hardest undergrad course in physics.

Dirk Bouwmeester is one of my favorite professors at UCSB. Easy going and very understanding. His lectures follow the book and this reflects on his tests. Regardless the tests are still very challenging. The class was curved well and I was satisfied with my grade. Required a lot of work but it was worth it.

Self-study class. He puts a lot of effort into the lecture demonstrations, but they dont actually help with learning. I recommend making a study group. Homework is difficult, but you have multiple tries, and section helps a lot. The midterm was normal, the final was absolutely ridiculous. There are also some in quizzes which are very easy.

lol what an experience tbh. super passionate but lol twas a wild ride. if you do all the book problems youll be completely fine.

Bouwmeester's lectures are very theoretical-leaning and, according to him, are intended to complement the textbook instead of teaching you the material. In other words, Phys 2 is a self-taught class with Bouwmeester helping you. The tests always have the hardest problem you can think of on them. This class killed my 4.0.

Bouwmeester is honestly not as bad as most of the reviews. He does tend to go on tangents, so honestly the textbook is what you should be thorough with. But talking to him about concepts is really nice because he does a really good job of explaining things. This course is really challenging, the concepts themselves are tough.