Vibes were strange with this class, and I feel like I put way more work into a technical elective than necessary, but the grading criteria is straightforward and you do get to do independent research on a topic of your choosing.

AVOID THIS PROFESSOR!!! I'm a 4th year ME student at UCSB and Matthys is easily the worst professor I've had at UCSB. The hw and projects are vague and impractical. He is incredibly unhelpful to students' questions. His expectations are unrealistic and he enjoys belittling his students.

Matthys is by far the worst professor I've had in 7 years of higher education. His homework assignments are 4 pages long to say nothing, unclear and his expectations are way too high.

Ok i got A- in ME 152B and got F in this class. Enough said.

This guy is the worst of the worst. Claims his quizzes are conceptual but makes you derive random equations. Refuses to address questions during quizzes and tests. Grading is nonsensical. I thought the HW and the book were actually pretty useful, but unfortunately the exams are completely different. Also makes you do weird feedback assignments. Ugh

one of the worst professors I've had at UCSB. requires 2+ hrs of online lectures as well as being at lecture to make sure you don't miss a surprise test. exams based on derivations not practical use, so make sure you memorize those.

Good luck.

I loved his class! It was very challenging, but incredibly interesting. I loved how he gave a series of quizzes instead of one or two midterms. This allowed you to gauge your progress and push towards a better grade. Also, his homeworks are worth very little, so if you do poorly on those it doesn't hurt you.

Don't be deceived by his initial attempts at being nice. The previous statements are true. He is always trying to catch cheaters. He is just a very unhappy individual who finds pleasure in making his students feel uncomfortable and uneasy. I don't want him to teach ME 151C. He is just not a nice person to be around.

$100 say he is the worst professor ever set foot on campus

Worst ever. He may be a decent person underneath but terrible at teaching. His notes resemble chicken scratch. Every drawing he crosses out and never writes a full word down. The book is great and interesting. Grading is inconsistent. Tried to convince his TA's to not give partial credit. He needs to be removed from professing, permanently.

I'm honestly confused why Matthys has such a bad rap. He's not the best professor I've had, but he's not bad either. The class was a more qualitative than quantitative than I expected from a upper-division engineering course and the tests involve more understanding and less number-crunching, which I suspect threw some people off. HW is confusing.