I took Kovacs in the fall, and honestly, he improved drastically over the course of his first quarter teaching- got much better at holding attention and maintaining flow from point to point. I believe in him. He's also just a really sweet guy.
An absolute chiller. Relaxing guy, 10 quizzes all online and they were all directly related to the lectures and lecture slides that he posts for you online.
A good professor gives clear instructions on how to learn the material. An easy class that allows for a simple understanding of the main ideas.
His class was easy even though the information learned was dense and sometimes confusing. Lectures were recorded. No midterm or final. The course was graded based on ten quizzes, all open-book. No quiz drop, but I think there were retakes, even though if you really pay attention to the slides, the quizzes should be pretty straightforward.
The class itself was extremely easy because the quizzes were literally based off the slides. However, he is a very monotone, boring lecturer and it is hard to pay attention in class. The material was extremely dense and deep and overall difficult to understand especially because he made the lectures boring. He seemed like a caring, nice guy though.
10 quizzes, no midterm or final. All of the answers to the quizzes are in the lectures slides that he posts online. Super dense material and he's very unorganized. Will skip 10 lecture slides and then go back to them later. Very hard to follow and stay awake during lectures. Overall the material is interesting but he's kind of a bland lecturer.
Dr Kovacs is my first major course professor after I transferred to UCSB. He is full of respect for students, and he will do his best to answer the questions raised by students in class and he cares about his students. I will highly recommend his class and you will never regret if you take it.
Professor was really great at making the class engaging. The material was pretty heavy but very digestible as long as you study.
Personally, I really enjoyed the class. The material can be pretty dry & it seems like Dr.Kovacs (who is a newer lecturer) is still having a hard time making it interesting. However, he's more than willing to help students learn and I'd highly recommend using his office hours. The class was graded solely via 10 online quizzes (no midterm or final).