Extremely unclear lectures, slides are so vague it's useless. Teaches difficult topics as if you already know them. No continuity between lectures (very random). No grading syllabus, no clue which assignments got graded, no place to check your grade until it showed on GOLD, and no response to emails. Even TA's felt lost. Terrible experience!

Without a question one of the worst professors I've ever had in my 4 years at UCSB. She straight up does not answer emails and you'll be lucky if she responds to anything on Nectir within a week of posting a question. Her lectures were terrible and relied on slides to teach. Grading rubric was "entirely up to the professor." Super unclear/vague.

Horrible course. NO feedback during the whole quarter. You even don't know the grading criteria.

Baracaldo spends the littlest amount of time possible to tend to her students (Doesnt respond to emails or slack) and downcurved the class. If you're in her class, you're on your own with your peers

Never respond to emails and grading rubric is horrible.

Her lectures and overall the course is very unorganized. She down curved the final grade which is ridiculous.

She is the worst professor I've had at UCSB. She promised a practice final, told us never mind, and then released it after student complaints WITHOUT solutions 1.5 days before a final worth 40% of our grade. She said we would have an extra credit assignment to increase our grade by 5% but then randomly made it 2% until we complained again...

Organized lectures and excellent explanations in class and during office hours. Attending the office hours of professor and tutor is really helpful for homework and quizzes.

Flip-flopped on whether there'd be a practice exam up until the day before the final. We were promised all quarter a 5% extra credit bonus for our final grade, which was then changed to 2% after our final had already passed. Quizzes/homework were pretty easy, but then the final had a class average of 55% and over three-fourths of the class failed.

Professor Baracaldo is not available outside of class, has unresponsive TAs, and reads off of lecture slides. Does not teach that well, and takes forever to grade and reply to students. Ridiculously unorganized and has inconsistent times between assignments.

Overall the lectures are decently clear to follow and definitely make a difference in understanding the material so I wouldn't skip them, but they don't align very well with homework and quizzes, and all understanding of proofs is meant to come from these lectures as well. Attend section and work with the labs as they were the biggest hw help

Like other reviews have noted, the class is disorganized and the professor is difficult to contact. TAs aren't provided course materials, so they won't be much help in exam preparations. Lectures are theoretical, and there's a gap between what is gone over in class and what's tested on quizzes. Beware that there are proofs/derivations on the final.