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.

I think Dirk gets a bad rep, but his classes are quite engaging. The content sometimes goes off topic, but the demonstrations are fun and aid in actually understanding concepts. I think the one problem with this class is that it is just SO hard. I think people are generally blaming their struggle with EXTREMELY difficult content on Dirk's teaching

If you end up taking his class. I advise you to either learn this class on your own or be ready to study HARD. I was the latter. As for his tests, the midterm was completely normal, aside from the lack of MCQs, and the final was HELL, 6 questions, one was easy, one had subparts for to A->M, and the others required out-of-the-box thinking

His lectures were always super conceptual and did not help with the material. His exams were extremely difficult, often nothing we've ever seen. The practice problems he gave to help study did not correlate with the midterm or final. He was often disorganized and did not tell us what anyone got on the final or the grading scale for the class.

It's was truly one the worst physics classes I've ever taken. I got lucky but if you're the type of student cares a lot their GPA, don't take this class. It's a high risk low reward type of class.

A lot of these other reviews say this class was incredibly unforgiving since it was based on mostly two tests, I'll be echoing those thoughts here. HOWEVER, I do think Bouwmeester is a necessity for many to learn how to do and understand physics by analyzing their derivations and formulas (midterm was only variables, no numbers). Read the textbook!

Midterm and final are a higher caliber than textbook problems or HW. Do not use the textbook to study for his exams - it won't make a difference. Cool demos though.

He's incredibly smart, but it doesn't translate to teaching capabilities. Careful using the textbook to study for exams, they're too simple for what he tests on. Lectures are almost always tangential and grading is rough. Warning: You do not want to take his classes

He has cool physics demonstrations in class. He cares about the students and had a no credit quiz before both the midterm and final to help students know what to prepare for. His lectures are often filled with irrelevant material which is interesting but not useful for the course. I would recommend reading the book before lecture to follow along.