Chih-Kong Ken Yang
Department of Electrical Engineering
AD
2.7
Overall Rating
Based on 10 Users
Easiness 2.3 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Clarity 2.4 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Workload 2.2 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Helpfulness 2.7 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

TOP TAGS

  • Uses Slides
  • Tolerates Tardiness
  • Tough Tests
  • Issues PTEs
GRADE DISTRIBUTIONS
20.8%
17.3%
13.8%
10.4%
6.9%
3.5%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

ENROLLMENT DISTRIBUTIONS
Clear marks

Sorry, no enrollment data is available.

AD

Reviews (8)

1 of 1
1 of 1
Add your review...
Quarter: Spring 2018
Grade: A
June 23, 2018

CK is the funniest professor I have ever taken in EE department. CK stands for clock cycle. You will also get a TA whose name is CL YANG, where CL stands for combinational logic. There is another TA called Ryan Stark, who is actually very helpful. Believe it or not, with YANG as the professor and Ryan Stark as the TA, there is a student named Ryan Yang. okay enough gibberish, let's get to the main point.

The class is held at Royce 362, the most depressing and religious classroom you can get at UCLA. The lighting is so dim and to make things worse, the long curtains that hang all the way from the ceiling blocks most of the natural light. Sitting in the classroom was like attending a medieval cult.

CK would usually walk into the classroom with his charming smile. His voice is very gentle, and at a very low key. So if you sit in the back of the classroom, his voice will sound like a humming bee, monotonous and almost inaudible. Sitting in the front does not make things better, it only makes you fully exposed to his hypnotism. For many times in this place of salvation, I left my flesh in the seat while my soul wanders in the realm of Hypnos.

The only time when CK raises his voice and brings me back to reality, is when someone asks about universe and future technology. He would suddenly look up from his ipad and very sincerely, like the sloth in Zootopia, say word by word: "that------is------a-------very------good------question-----!"Then he would go off the tangent and bore everyone to death, putting me back to sleep.

As people before me has mentioned, CK is very proud of his scribbles and drawings, on his cute little ipad with his cutie little pen. He once forgot his cuties and did not know where to write. He became so worried that I stayed awake while he paced anxiously on the podium. I went back to sleep after he finally decided to write on the board. CK loves to call his scribbles on ipad "in class specials", which is not posted in order "to reward people who come to lectures". His hieroglyphics, however, were incomprehensible. I once took a photo of his drawings and ended up spending several hours decrypting it. In the end I still did not know what he wanted to express: the anger of Zeus, or the misery of mummies?

CK, as a physicist, releases homework and design assignments that obey Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. You can never know what he asks for and how he wants you to approach it at the same time. To make matter worse, like Schrödinger's cat, the assignment changes its meaning with every visit you pay to his office hour. Your attempt of trying to understand the spec will change the meaning of the spec. My friend and I once came up with five possible interpretations of a question and posted a clarification post on Piazza. I thus included all possible cases and turned in my homework feeling assured. When the grade of that homework came out, however, I lost all points: CK has always meant the sixth interpretation.

Given the elusiveness, trying to find CK in finals week is like pilgrimage: you are not guaranteed to see him at that specific time slot. Even though the office door might be open, the lights turned on, desk neat and tidy, the professor himself might not be there. All you can do is wait patiently until the god reveals himself from outer space. Finding CK, however, is not the biggest challenge. When CK think you are retarded and not understanding what he is trying to say, he will issue a reset signal, clear all the conversations so far and start from the very beginning. And again, you have to let the god finish first.

CK himself is a very successful businessman and vice president or whatsoever of the EE department. One of my friend said he once heard CK talking over the phone like, "I need these shipped to ...by...", in the tone of a big boss: fast, articulate and coherent. Given CK is so successful, education might just be what he does for entertainment.

Even though I slept through most of his lectures, I did not miss a single one. I still remember in the very first lecture he gave for this class, he said, "I know many of you would like to take a refreshing nap on the lovely grassland or back in the dorm, instead of coming to my lecture. But I wouldn't mind if you choose to sleep on the seats in front of me." I have always chosen to sleep on these seats. These seats are soft, and mean as much to me as the couch means to the Simpsons.

I would still encourage you to take this class, with this once in a life time professor.

Helpful?

5 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: N/A
June 11, 2019

CK Yang is an okay professor, the materials for this class are quite difficult, but you will feel like you have learned a lot by the end of quarter at quite a significant cost though. Take this class if you feel like learning and spending a lot of time on this course. Tests and finals are very difficult but it is around the same level as the homework. Verilog assignments are difficult as he barely goes over it in lecture. Overall, CK Yang is alright. The class is difficult, but if you put in enough effort you will probably do fine.

Helpful?

2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2018
Grade: NR
June 4, 2018

Everyone knows that EEM16 is already a pretty hard class. But, it certainly doesn't help when your professor is C.K. Yang. First of all, he is disorganized with his lectures: Yang scribbles all over the lecture slides (which aren't even his) and somehow assumes that students can look at them later to decipher what he wrote. In addition, Yang isn't the best at explaining concepts, especially since he always drags out concepts to the point of making something that should be easy, extremely hard and complex. Lastly, he is simply not concerned with the students in his class. Once I was waiting in line to ask him a question after class, and he pulled out a small, scrunched sticky note that contained his "lecture plans" for the day. Seriously? You cannot expect to be a good instructor if you simply take other people's slides, and write all over them WITHOUT a solid lecture plan. It's no wonder that students stopped coming to class/dropped out early on in the quarter. Also, Yang is not very friendly in office hours, as he will not explain things to you if it hasn't been covered in class. This is terrible, especially since I literally always end up confused after lecture anyway, so I would want to chat/discuss what I saw in videos beforehand to prepare myself for the full-fledged examples in class. He would just refuse to help me with material that hadn't been covered yet. In conclusion, 0/10 I would not recommend this professor to anyone.

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2018
Grade: N/A
May 2, 2018

Professor's Lecture's are absolutely boring. He essentially gets through 50+ Slides per Lecture and his annotations for his slides are just scribbles and drawings.

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A
Nov. 10, 2019

I took this class in the afternoon spring quarter, and I was constantly dozing off. He's a straightforward lecturer, but in my opinion the lectures are often dry, and a lot of times I'd come out of lecture not exactly sure what he was supposed to be saying. I will say the examples he does during lecture were SUPER helpful, as was going to TA office hours. Homework is also straightforward and graded pretty generously. The tests are pretty challenging. I will say, though, I was afraid coming into this class about coding Verilog, since I'd heard some horror stories about it, but the Verilog projects weren't actually that bad. Yes, some of them were a bit tedious, but they weren't too work-intensive and some of the later ones were actually pretty cool.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: N/A
June 25, 2019

His voice is quiet so I find myself not listening most of the time. The class being in the early afternoon didn't help with my sleepiness.
He has videos posted online that you're supposed to watch before the lecture. If you watch them, the lecture is basically review. If you don't watch them, the lecture makes absolutely no sense. You'll probably want to speed up the videos and turn up the volume a LOT (and don't forget to turn it down afterwards or you will destroy your eardrums).
Homework isn't too bad, but don't wait to the last minute because it takes time to figure some problems out. Even if you don't know how to get an answer you should still attempt the problem for partial credit. Doing the homework is basically just review for the quizzes and tests, so if you understand the concepts for the homework you'll probably be fine in the class.
The design assignments in Verilog are a bit more annoying. You write your code, pray that it works, and you have no clue why it does what it does. If you use edaplayground and show the wave form after running, you can at least get some idea of what is happening. You can also output some flags if you know how.
The professor was quite helpful, to me at least, during office hours, once I managed to find his office. He is a pretty chill guy.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2017
Grade: B+
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Dec. 29, 2018

This class is excruciating. Homework’s take forever and the instructions for the homework change every day. So many revisions needed even if you think you’re done with HW. He goes through 100 slides in 2 hours so hard to follow. Guessed on all the exams. Verilog projects (4) were so hard. Overall don’t remember anything from this class as you’ll never need to use it again.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2017
Grade: A
June 17, 2018

Looks like an unpopular opinion but I really enjoyed taking this class with Prof. Yang. I found that his lectures were very thorough and he was always willing to backtrack to address students questions. The homework was very time consuming but it prepared me for the final very well (the tests were much easier than the hw assignments). The most difficult part of the class was the unhelpfulness of the TA' s who wouldn't answer question that had any similarities to the assigned HW.

Helpful?

0 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2018
Grade: A
June 23, 2018

CK is the funniest professor I have ever taken in EE department. CK stands for clock cycle. You will also get a TA whose name is CL YANG, where CL stands for combinational logic. There is another TA called Ryan Stark, who is actually very helpful. Believe it or not, with YANG as the professor and Ryan Stark as the TA, there is a student named Ryan Yang. okay enough gibberish, let's get to the main point.

The class is held at Royce 362, the most depressing and religious classroom you can get at UCLA. The lighting is so dim and to make things worse, the long curtains that hang all the way from the ceiling blocks most of the natural light. Sitting in the classroom was like attending a medieval cult.

CK would usually walk into the classroom with his charming smile. His voice is very gentle, and at a very low key. So if you sit in the back of the classroom, his voice will sound like a humming bee, monotonous and almost inaudible. Sitting in the front does not make things better, it only makes you fully exposed to his hypnotism. For many times in this place of salvation, I left my flesh in the seat while my soul wanders in the realm of Hypnos.

The only time when CK raises his voice and brings me back to reality, is when someone asks about universe and future technology. He would suddenly look up from his ipad and very sincerely, like the sloth in Zootopia, say word by word: "that------is------a-------very------good------question-----!"Then he would go off the tangent and bore everyone to death, putting me back to sleep.

As people before me has mentioned, CK is very proud of his scribbles and drawings, on his cute little ipad with his cutie little pen. He once forgot his cuties and did not know where to write. He became so worried that I stayed awake while he paced anxiously on the podium. I went back to sleep after he finally decided to write on the board. CK loves to call his scribbles on ipad "in class specials", which is not posted in order "to reward people who come to lectures". His hieroglyphics, however, were incomprehensible. I once took a photo of his drawings and ended up spending several hours decrypting it. In the end I still did not know what he wanted to express: the anger of Zeus, or the misery of mummies?

CK, as a physicist, releases homework and design assignments that obey Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. You can never know what he asks for and how he wants you to approach it at the same time. To make matter worse, like Schrödinger's cat, the assignment changes its meaning with every visit you pay to his office hour. Your attempt of trying to understand the spec will change the meaning of the spec. My friend and I once came up with five possible interpretations of a question and posted a clarification post on Piazza. I thus included all possible cases and turned in my homework feeling assured. When the grade of that homework came out, however, I lost all points: CK has always meant the sixth interpretation.

Given the elusiveness, trying to find CK in finals week is like pilgrimage: you are not guaranteed to see him at that specific time slot. Even though the office door might be open, the lights turned on, desk neat and tidy, the professor himself might not be there. All you can do is wait patiently until the god reveals himself from outer space. Finding CK, however, is not the biggest challenge. When CK think you are retarded and not understanding what he is trying to say, he will issue a reset signal, clear all the conversations so far and start from the very beginning. And again, you have to let the god finish first.

CK himself is a very successful businessman and vice president or whatsoever of the EE department. One of my friend said he once heard CK talking over the phone like, "I need these shipped to ...by...", in the tone of a big boss: fast, articulate and coherent. Given CK is so successful, education might just be what he does for entertainment.

Even though I slept through most of his lectures, I did not miss a single one. I still remember in the very first lecture he gave for this class, he said, "I know many of you would like to take a refreshing nap on the lovely grassland or back in the dorm, instead of coming to my lecture. But I wouldn't mind if you choose to sleep on the seats in front of me." I have always chosen to sleep on these seats. These seats are soft, and mean as much to me as the couch means to the Simpsons.

I would still encourage you to take this class, with this once in a life time professor.

Helpful?

5 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: N/A
June 11, 2019

CK Yang is an okay professor, the materials for this class are quite difficult, but you will feel like you have learned a lot by the end of quarter at quite a significant cost though. Take this class if you feel like learning and spending a lot of time on this course. Tests and finals are very difficult but it is around the same level as the homework. Verilog assignments are difficult as he barely goes over it in lecture. Overall, CK Yang is alright. The class is difficult, but if you put in enough effort you will probably do fine.

Helpful?

2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2018
Grade: NR
June 4, 2018

Everyone knows that EEM16 is already a pretty hard class. But, it certainly doesn't help when your professor is C.K. Yang. First of all, he is disorganized with his lectures: Yang scribbles all over the lecture slides (which aren't even his) and somehow assumes that students can look at them later to decipher what he wrote. In addition, Yang isn't the best at explaining concepts, especially since he always drags out concepts to the point of making something that should be easy, extremely hard and complex. Lastly, he is simply not concerned with the students in his class. Once I was waiting in line to ask him a question after class, and he pulled out a small, scrunched sticky note that contained his "lecture plans" for the day. Seriously? You cannot expect to be a good instructor if you simply take other people's slides, and write all over them WITHOUT a solid lecture plan. It's no wonder that students stopped coming to class/dropped out early on in the quarter. Also, Yang is not very friendly in office hours, as he will not explain things to you if it hasn't been covered in class. This is terrible, especially since I literally always end up confused after lecture anyway, so I would want to chat/discuss what I saw in videos beforehand to prepare myself for the full-fledged examples in class. He would just refuse to help me with material that hadn't been covered yet. In conclusion, 0/10 I would not recommend this professor to anyone.

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2018
Grade: N/A
May 2, 2018

Professor's Lecture's are absolutely boring. He essentially gets through 50+ Slides per Lecture and his annotations for his slides are just scribbles and drawings.

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A
Nov. 10, 2019

I took this class in the afternoon spring quarter, and I was constantly dozing off. He's a straightforward lecturer, but in my opinion the lectures are often dry, and a lot of times I'd come out of lecture not exactly sure what he was supposed to be saying. I will say the examples he does during lecture were SUPER helpful, as was going to TA office hours. Homework is also straightforward and graded pretty generously. The tests are pretty challenging. I will say, though, I was afraid coming into this class about coding Verilog, since I'd heard some horror stories about it, but the Verilog projects weren't actually that bad. Yes, some of them were a bit tedious, but they weren't too work-intensive and some of the later ones were actually pretty cool.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: N/A
June 25, 2019

His voice is quiet so I find myself not listening most of the time. The class being in the early afternoon didn't help with my sleepiness.
He has videos posted online that you're supposed to watch before the lecture. If you watch them, the lecture is basically review. If you don't watch them, the lecture makes absolutely no sense. You'll probably want to speed up the videos and turn up the volume a LOT (and don't forget to turn it down afterwards or you will destroy your eardrums).
Homework isn't too bad, but don't wait to the last minute because it takes time to figure some problems out. Even if you don't know how to get an answer you should still attempt the problem for partial credit. Doing the homework is basically just review for the quizzes and tests, so if you understand the concepts for the homework you'll probably be fine in the class.
The design assignments in Verilog are a bit more annoying. You write your code, pray that it works, and you have no clue why it does what it does. If you use edaplayground and show the wave form after running, you can at least get some idea of what is happening. You can also output some flags if you know how.
The professor was quite helpful, to me at least, during office hours, once I managed to find his office. He is a pretty chill guy.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Spring 2017
Grade: B+
Dec. 29, 2018

This class is excruciating. Homework’s take forever and the instructions for the homework change every day. So many revisions needed even if you think you’re done with HW. He goes through 100 slides in 2 hours so hard to follow. Guessed on all the exams. Verilog projects (4) were so hard. Overall don’t remember anything from this class as you’ll never need to use it again.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Spring 2017
Grade: A
June 17, 2018

Looks like an unpopular opinion but I really enjoyed taking this class with Prof. Yang. I found that his lectures were very thorough and he was always willing to backtrack to address students questions. The homework was very time consuming but it prepared me for the final very well (the tests were much easier than the hw assignments). The most difficult part of the class was the unhelpfulness of the TA' s who wouldn't answer question that had any similarities to the assigned HW.

Helpful?

0 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
1 of 1
2.7
Overall Rating
Based on 10 Users
Easiness 2.3 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Clarity 2.4 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Workload 2.2 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Helpfulness 2.7 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

TOP TAGS

  • Uses Slides
    (10)
  • Tolerates Tardiness
    (7)
  • Tough Tests
    (6)
  • Issues PTEs
    (4)
ADS

Adblock Detected

Bruinwalk is an entirely Daily Bruin-run service brought to you for free. We hate annoying ads just as much as you do, but they help keep our lights on. We promise to keep our ads as relevant for you as possible, so please consider disabling your ad-blocking software while using this site.

Thank you for supporting us!