By far the worst professor I've had at UCSB. Could barely understand her lectures as she was rambling off the slides and just mumbling the whole time. Attendance required at lecture. Dense study prep for midterms. Obscure and difficult papers(must include every reading somehow), took 15 or 20 minutes away from us during midterm for printing error.

Really just a poor lecturer with terrible policies. Mumbles and is hard to hear, incredibly vague paper prompts that make no sense, took the lecture notes down the day before the midterm, took 20 away from our 75 minute midterm because she printed the papers incorrectly (sat there waiting for her to come back as TAs just watched us), and more.

I'm sure Pei-Te is very nice, however, her class...not so much. Lectures are uni-directional, never asks for questions. Slides have paragraphs of info that she skims through quickly (handwritten notes= impossible) Papers have little to no prompt and include 10 readings worth of info in 5 pages. Multiple-choice questions on tests are trivia-like.

Gets more flack than she deserves. She's a highly knowledgable and respected professor, and I think that is lost on so many students just because she is an immigrant. Her class isn't hard--she provides study guides! She does require using all the readings in the 2 short papers, but they're opinion-based so its easy if you put in an ounce of effort.

Literally gave me a 0 on a midterm online because my gauchospace glitched. Was very bitter no one went to class and would upload her lecture slides for only 1-3 hours a day. Exam is just like the lecture slides. Two essays consisted of ALL readings for topics.

She takes attendance daily. Her lectures are not very engaging; she simply reads off the PowerPoint. She can be difficult to understand at times. She only leaves lecture notes up on GauchoSpace for less than 12 hours after class and then deletes them. Gives very thorough study guides; make sure to complete them.

I was really looking forward to ps161 however, I will avoid taking a class with this professor ever again. She reads off her lectures and there is no room for class discussion on important subjects. I do not recommend. She posts her slides for the day she's lectured and removes them at midnight. She is not looking to truly teach her students.

Although Professor Liens classes are straightforward and easy as long as you attend lecture and read, I wouldnt take a class with her ever again because shes rude. Ive never had any other prof at UCSB that was as ununderstanding as her so its a hard pass for me!

I'm not sure about in-person classes, but her online course was just fine! 50-100 pages of reading a week is pretty light compared to most classes & the assignments were all reasonable. With the online class there were no lectures. She posted slides, we had discussions during section, and there were quizzes, essays, and exams (all very reasonable)

While Lien is very knowledgable, she truly doesn't want people to succeed. Her rubric for exams requires you to memorize very specific information in order to get full credit. In lecture, each slide is packed with information that she monotonously reads and then skips too quickly for anybody to transcribe everything. She doesn't provide the slides

This class is bad. There is no organization to the material so each lecture feels random. It is very hard to understand her in class and she speaks really quickly. Slide are not posted and the slides are packed with information. Provides up to 3% of extra credit. Randomly takes attendance and grades a few papers from each TA's section.

Very hard to understand in lecture, and does not show a want to help her students. Speaks very fast and basically reads off of long lecture slides. Tests are confusing and does not reflect the material learned in class. DO NOT recommend taking this class. Tests ask abstract questions that are confusing and made to trick students rather than test.

Class is hard, listen when he says to practice problems throughout the week and not all at once. Didn't have any past coding experience, but reworking and understanding the homework helped a lot, as well as office hours. He allows a page of notes for midterm and final, helpful since he gives hints as to what type of questions are on tests

Lecture sucks, homework is challenging but by no means excessive, online quizzes every week are a free 10% of the grade in the class, you get an entire front and back page of notes on the midterm and final. The entire page of notes is the only reason I passed - course feels disorganized and moves at a sporadic rate. Good luck if you've never coded

Goes through material very quickly, and without prior programming experience the class is very very difficult. He is a nice guy and is very friendly, but just needs to slow everything down a bit. Allows a notesheet for the midterm/final too

He is not good at teaching the material that is required to do the homework to succeed at his exams. Unless you have previous experience with coding you will surely fail the class because even the basics are not taught properly. He skips around and goes on about things that really are not relevant. He is completely disorganized.

Tie doesn't know what it means to be friendly -- he cringes when someone talks to him outside class and goes on rants against people who miss class or don't understand the homework. He goes on tangents about random computing ideas which don't apply to the homework or tests. You'll need to be a good critical thinker to pass this class.

Currently enrolled in my third course with professor Lien. I've gone regularly to her office hours and she is amazing!! She can relate through her many identities and will do whatever she can to help you pass her class as long as you're willing to put the work in.

Prof. knows the topic, but doesn't know how to teach it. Learned everything from the book and TAs. Attendance not mandatory thankfully because lectures were long and uninformative. Study guides provided for midterm & final give you all info you need to know. Know everything on the study guides and you'll get 100%. TAs were helpful

She's a really sweet lady and she put a lot of effort into the class, but ultimately, she really sucked at teaching it. She's not quite suited for a big lecture hall (she's probably better for like, a smaller class) and sometimes she gets flustered.

Friendly professor but doesn't do the topic of minority politics justice. Assigns 2 papers requiring no creativecritical thinking. Tests are multiple choice, truefalse, and ID's. They don't test your real knowledge on the subject of minority politics, but rather test your knowledge of definitions. Lectures are boring and hard to follow. Iclickers

Easy class, just do the reading. Lien is a sweet and ernest lecturer but she can go a little slow and struggles a lot with the iclicker. Her accent can be a little difficult to hear through sometimes.

She focuses heavily on memorization on the midterms and final and the list of terms to memorize is very large. Not an easy class and not really interesting.