Dr. Gainer is a super nice guy who has pretty useful lectures and is available for help if you need it. This class was not easy, but I think the difficulty of all exams was very reasonable. I HIGHLY recommend the book problems for practice! Labs themselves are TA dependent, but most of the TAs want you to succeed. I really enjoyed this class.

Good luck. Exams are hard. If you have the time, talk to a TA as much as possible.

Gainer has archaic standards, requiring students to write in pen and specifically use a composition style notebook. He disallows graphing calculators on his tests forcing many students to scramble to get a scientific calculator. The final was terribly written having a significant portion of its questions on content from one lecture.

Taking this class made me realize my life's just a misery.

It was not the hardest class in ucsb but the worst. I didn't realize there was a practical test until the last experiment. Prof Gainer didn't mentioned it in syllabus. Also, the quizzes were unfair and were made by TAs. Always one harder and one easier version. Don't take it unless you are required. Good luck.

6AL and 6BL took a lot of effort and lab reports took forever, but also some of the most interesting, fulfilling, and rewarding content and classes I have EVER taken. Everything Gainer says really clicks. He's a great lecturer and amazing person to ask questions to. Absolutely adored him and ended up really loving these labs.