Took PHYS 2 online Spring 2021. Freedman was better. Bouw is nice but very unorganized, struggles with zoom i.e. forgetting to let kids into office hours. Lectures are mostly useless, I relied mostly on the textbook. He is super passionate about physics and science, but not good at teaching. Exams are rough but are curved and he wants u to pass

Taking physics 2 with him during spring quarter was the most stressful and unpleasant experience. 4 midterms and a final which is insane. Very minimal homework so you don't get a lot of practice. TA sections and office hours were nonexistent. We didn't even learn the material from him, he just made us watch Freedman's lectures from like 3 years ago

Uploaded lectures that were way over time only on days we didn't have lectures. Had FOUR midterms + final in 10 weeks. UNREASONABLE homework that is graded on accuracy. Little curve. LECTURES WERE IRRELEVANT and non-engaging. He screwed the grade distribution and told everyone the goal was just for a C (assumed everyone did pass/no pass grading).

He tells us to watch Freedman's lectures and read the text book. The lectures that he rarely posts are basically useless and didn't post it until the day of the exam which he had to delay because of that. His instructions are very unclear too. He makes us self grade our homework and test using answer keys that always have errors.

This was during COVID-19. Lectures applied/expanded on the concepts but were only barely helpful to learn and prep for tests. The class felt like self-studying and the professor was accomodating in making most of the class pass but his grading criteria were unclear. There was a strange curve too. I think the professor suffered from disorganization.

As mentioned by some other reviewers, we were assigned 10 homework assignments, 4 midterms, and a final this quarter. Bouwmeester is so irresponsible about his job and procrastinates HARD. He always relies on Freedman's lectures for instruction while giving worse ones. As noted: AMAZINGLY BAD LECTURES. Don't take unless u want to learn nothing.

Really passionate about physics and cares about students for which I respect. There is a test every 2 weeks which is very stressful. Exams are eccentric, and they do not follow your typical expectation for physics test problems. Allows redos for a passing grade, which is very accommodating. Not a great lecturer, but I did learn enough to pass.

Great lecturer, nice guy. Nothing was too hard and everything was well explained. Whenever he was behind he didn't expect anything from us and was extremely lenient with extensions.

No extra credit, 10 HW, 4 midterms, and one final.

Poor communication during remote learning situation. Always uploaded lectures late. Difficult homework with poor feedback, even more difficult exams. Midterm exams every two weeks. Definitely a brilliant man with a lot of knowledge about physics, but it translates poorly to the online format.

Worst exams ever. I don't think anyone actually proofreads the exam questions he writes, which means you get incredibly vague questions on strictly timed exams that he somehow expects you to know how to interpret. Thank God this man isn't writing any textbooks. Avoid.

Dirk is a real great guy. Very heavy on the theory of Quantum Mechanics, but also gives some great examples of how the theory can be applied. He definitely cares about his students gaining an actual understanding of the field and his exams are focused on testing as such. Overall a pretty transparant class for those who can do proofs and derivations

Dirk was an awesome professor, that while expecting as lot from his students, presented plenty of opportunities to do well in his course. The exams were derivation heavy, but these types of derivations test physical intuition and are imperative to showing an understanding of the material. Overall I found it rather trivial.

Crazy smart guy, good lectures and overall homie professor. Homework started off unreasonable but he realized and cut down. Best way is to read the chapter he recommends and learn the derivations by heart. He will tell you whats on the test exactly and its 99% derivations. Only bad thing was that tests were too much for too little time.

The overlap between homework and tests is minimal. Homework is mainly practical applications while tests are mainly derivations. This means that to do well on the tests you literally just memorize derivations, but Bouwmeester manages to make it difficult by heavily dipping into side topics (quantum computing) that are often much more advanced.

Worst physics professor I've had at UCSB so far. Doesn't rely on the textbook and gives very few resources to learn the topics, yet expects you to know everything rigorously. His tests do not represent the type of work he assigns for homework at all. Doesn't teach fundamentals, but instead strays into weirdly specific topics. Very bad professor.

Bouwmeester wrote an incredibly fair midterm mostly based on derivations as other comments have referenced. Studying the derivations for the concepts we covered in class yielded a more fundamental understanding of the material and its origins. Also covered super cool addtl. topics (Dirac eqn, Q. computing)!

Tends to bounce from topic to topic without explaining what he is doing, making it almost impossible to follow during lectures. Leaves out lots of material from class but still expects you to read the book and perfectly understand. Exams are mostly memorization of convoluted derivations with no physical intuition behind most of it.

Entertaining and engaging, but -Proofs are unclear to the point of not being understandable -Homework feedback is nonexistent, didnt receive grades for 1st homework until after midterm in week 6 -Midterm entirely built on proofs, and had no notecard or formula sheet, requiring an unreasonable level of memorization Not a pleasant class.

Worst professor ever. Class materials never cover required textbook. Never understand what he talks about. Heavy test on derivation. Never take his class again.

Bouwmeester is a funny guy, but his exams are not. He loves making lengthy questions that relies on memorizing tedious derivations. He also loves rambling about topics that he is interested. Even worse, his explanations are pretty bad and he expects you to read about the relevant topics by yourself. Overall, a messy and confusing professor.

He is a very nice professor. He really talks about physics rather than tell you the equation. Tests are fair. He tells really specific about exam materials.

A little late for this, but I found Bouwmeester's teaching style to be one of the worst by far. I did well in the class but did not understand anything at a really deep level. He is all over the place with different topics but never delves into anything. It fooled kids into thinking they were learning something because they memorized fancy words.

Prof. Bouwmeester is a good guy, very gentle and approachable in and outside of class. However, the lecture is hard and the test is memory heavy. I'm very bad at memory stuff, thus I did not enjoy the class a lot. (but learning new stuff is fun!) I would recommend this class to anyone who does not afraid of memory things, but not again for me.