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.

hard exams

HW is a moderate amount from the textbook (and not too bad). Lectures are some of the worst I've ever taken (slides are terrible, sometimes he just skips over them, skips steps when describing examples). Not much can prepare u for the tests he gives, which questions are all one abstraction lvl above the txtbook problems n not enuf time to think.

Super passionate about what he knows but often lets that get in the way of what we are supposed to be learning. As of right now, the midterm was worth 45% of the grade and no formula sheets are allowed. Super nice professor but it's a little hard to learn the required material for such an important and difficult course.

Prof Dirk is a really nice person, explained everything clearly in his office hour and took us on a tour of condense matter lab. Expected difficulty for one of the hardest undergrad course in physics.

Only had one midterm and one final, which made up all of the grades. Lectures were completely useless, mostly self-studied by doing textbook problems. Midterm was generously curved. Grading scale was also not the standard grading scale to help students.

Bad at lecturing/teaching often goes on tangents in class. Had to learn content through external sources. Tests were long and difficult most couldn't finish on time. Scores were so low he had to curve like 30% on tests to not fail the class. At least the physics experiments shown in class were cool.

Professor is by far the worst professor I've had at UCSB. When confronted with evidence of cheating by others in the class, he didn't even respond. Class was curved and consequently I failed, would have not failed if the teacher cared about catching cheaters. Retook the class with a different teacher and did much better than average on the tests.

Bad at giving tests. Mostly have nothing to do with lectures and requires outside knowledge. Homework heavy

if you take his class be prepared to read the textbook. His lectures are supposedly to "expand" on that knowledge you got from reading, and it will not really teach you the material. The sections are helpful for practicing the material but that's about it. No review problems or study guides given by prof. Tests are way WAY harder than the homework.

2 test make up of 75% of your grade, but there is NO PRACTICE EXAM or REVIEW QUESTION at all. The test's problem are way more difficult than homework or problems discussed in section. Lectures are confusing. If you can, do not take his class. It will RUIN your GPA!!!

This dude sucks. Usually a teacher can pick between hard tests or just be shit at teaching but he likes to combine both. And on top of that the final is 45% of your grade. 30% of the final were topics we had learned the week before. Studied 5 days for no reason. For your own good stay away from this shit professor.

Nice person, but lectures are often somewhat confusing and unclear, or too off topic for a class that should really only be concerned with how to apply concepts and formulas to problems. 1-2 online hw a week and based on textbook questions. Exams are difficult, though he gave D/F students a opportunity to raise the grade to C- via an oral exam.