The best professor and mentor!!! You'll find out he's beyond amazing once you get to know him. Very knowledgeable and passionate about his field, shows in lectures. Extremely supportive and loves to talk to students about anything: career stuff, studying abroad, or even his cats, he's so chill. Soft-spoken with a fun Scottish accent and mustache.

In my experience, Balkind is the most supportive professor in this department by a mile. I took 154 last year and, even though the workload was more than I could manage at the time and I really struggled as a result, I have only good things to say about him as a professor and a mentor.

Professor Balkind is super knowledgeable, never leaving any a question unsolved at the end of class. He shared very inspiring cutting-edge research conducted by himself & in the field, and really willing to hear about any stuff you're doing in the field. He's also very accessible outside class, and he designs really fun projects for us to work on.

Pretty interesting lectures, but a lot of topics were really complex and hard to follow. The good thing is that all the grading (quizzes, midterm, final) are all online, so you can reference your notes for the hard stuff. A lot of the labs were hard, and they're worth 40% of your grade, so make sure to go to OH and get help early in the week.

His lectures are very thorough and he explains everything you need to know well. You can tell he's really enthusiastic about what he does. Some labs are really difficult, and some are really easy. Get started early. Weekly quizzes are hard at times too. The final was cumulative, and he expects you to really understand all the concepts he teaches.

A lot of lectures with little support outside of office hours. Concepts, while clearly explained, are sometimes lost in the assignments. Lab and quiz heavy. The final is cumulative and touches on every aspect of the course. Be ready to truly understand the material as he expects you to have the same level of understanding as he does by the end.

Gives really good lectures, he's genuinely knowledgeable in this field and enthusiastic about it. Weekly quizzes are open-note and easy; labs are fun and heavily related to course contents but will take you some time. Accessible through Piazza and office hours. Cares about student feedbacks and he's constantly trying to make the course better.

Excellent professor, cares about his students. Helps you succeed.

Great lectures, but labs were very difficult, and sometimes a little bit disorganized. The final exam was very fair, but take-home quizzes were pretty difficult and tricky, despite being open-note. They were also only 4-5 questions each week, leaving little-no room for error. TAs and ULAs were very helpful and supportive.

he really works you hard in 154, constantly working on weekly labs without very much room to breathe. you will probably need office hours because the labs are pretty difficult too. good lecturer, not the friendliest personality. he writes very fair quiz/test questions and the quizzes/final were take home and open note.

Love, love, love Prof. Balkind. His lectures are very engaging; he doesn't assign busy-work; and truly know his stuff around computer architecture. If you care at all about systems, or wanna know more about how computers work, taking any class with Prof. Balkind is a must.

One of my favorite classes at UCSB, and I am so glad that I decided to take it. Lectures are informative and interesting. Moreover, if you are already doing research, Balkind is open to discuss and find a project for the course that overlaps with your research so you can have a "two birds one stone" approach.

Prof. Balkind is extremely caring and passionate about helping his students understand the course material. He makes sure that there are no unanswered questions and really tries to address every question asked. If he does not have an answer, be sure that he will come with one next lecture ! Accessible outside class, AMAZING lecturer and person!

He is really an amazing professor and brings so much enthusiasm to the classes! He comes really accurate with the choice of papers that are fundamental and practical. I am enjoying all the readings, lectures and group projects too! He gives timely feedback on projects, so you will definitely learn a good comp arch mindset and RTL coding skills!

Balkind is an amazing professor. Lectures are interesting and really help you connect with the material. Don't listen to the negative reviews on here. He's a newer prof but really cares about teaching and puts in a lot of work towards improving his classes. He's also a really interesting person to talk to. 15/10 would recommend taking his classes

Prof. Balkind is a very nice guy, and he seems to be very passionate about the subject. However, it was his first time teaching this course, and his lectures were pretty lackluster. He basically just read through Matni's old slides, so the lectures weren't very engaging. The quizzes and labs were all very reasonable, but the final was difficult.

First time teaching the class. His lectures are good but rough around the corners. Mostly it was just Matni's slides but he's very helpful and relatable! Fair grader, though the quizzes could be tricky. Towards the end, the work got really hard especially with weekly quizzes, but he's very kind to answer questions on Piazza!

He gives word puzzles in the quiz and I could barely learn anything from his lecture. Definitely avoid him.