BE100 is a rite of passage for bioengineering majors at this school, and that makes sense. The first 2? weeks of this class is like a mildly uncomfortable trainride. "Hmm, this is very bumpy, I'm a little nauseous." Problem set 1 is a fat amalgam of trivia. Can't remember much about pset 2.

If I recall, problem set 3 is when all hell breaks loose. The class is like a carcrash from there. Lots of blurry vision and text. So much text.

Kamei covers a lot of stuff in lecture. Don't be like me and take notes on the printed slides on a blank piece of paper. That's dumb. Print the slides out, and then fill in the blank spots with Prof. Kamei's examples. (Or better yet, if you have the money, buy a tablet, edit the slide pdf's on there..)

Don't do the problem sets the night before. If I could tell my naive, dumb*ss sophomore self something, it would be "READ AND THINK ABOUT THE PROBLEM SETS WHEN THEY ARE RELEASED" That isn't necessarily doing them, but get your subconscious pondering the problems before you dig into them. Start writing your solutions to these psets 3 days before they're due (or even earlier).

The problem sets are the best way to learn, so don't just go through the master folder and copy down the solutions. Think about the insight of the problem, what it means in the context of the class and lectures, and wtf the answer means. Do every single problem. Attempt them all.

Best of luck. I remember, after midterm 1, a mysterious amount of people had disappeared from lecture and I found out they became CS majors.

man writes his own positive reviews. just notice how all the dates are close together in march at times. he's been caught trying to bolster his own image. he even sends his own lab minions to defend him in public settings. it's wild. he can't handle any criticism. if this review gets downvoted, you know exactly the reason why now.
you gotta take him to survive in BE at UCLA. My advice to you is: prepare yourself mentally for the assf*cking of your life. but be tough, and don't let him be the reason you leave BE. take as few classes simultaneously as possible to get through 100 and 110, spend several hours a week on the problem sets (but not too many as to hurt your sanity), survive both classes, and then say goodbye to him forever. you'll get through this. i'm not gonna lie: it will suck. but you will get through this. the other upperdivs in BE can be very fun and engaging and incredible. it's just a shame he's gotta be the gatekeeper.

I took this class for the Engineering Science tech breadth having only satisfied the minimum prerequisites: Math 33B and Physics 1B, as a sophomore. Despite my minimal background in Bioengineering, I found the class to be very manageable and highly interesting, and I ended up getting an A. This class was easier and less time-consuming than many lower divs (but definitely not easy). If you’re a ChemE, think of it as a Ch Engr 101A/109 Combo course with some electrochemistry on the side.
Dr. Kamei has a distinguished teaching award, and it shows; he's a phenomenal lecturer. He definitely cares about whether his students learn, and he explains very well. He teaches math better than most math professors do :)
About the logistics about the class: You must show up to lecture, and you must print out the slides or bring a tablet. You should also read the lecture slides beforehand, to not be lost during class. The slides are NOT a way to skip lecture. Dr. Kamei talks about stuff that are not on the slides, and he sets up the vast majority of his proofs by writing on the whiteboard. Besides missing out on critical information and examples, Kamei's lecturing skills would be wasted if you don't go to lecture. So go to lecture.
Next, as a heads-up, this is a math-heavy class, which can be split into three parts. The first part is electrostatic modeling of nanoparticles. The second part is numerical methods of solving differential equations, and the third part is fluid dynamics. While the class (and the syllabus) can seem intimidating at first, don't be scared. It's a ton of math, but Kamei is very good at teaching, and both him and the TAs are very helpful during office hours. You will be fine if you don't have a background in Bioengineering. Besides the prerequisites, all you really need are basic coding skills and a basic knowledge of biology.
The exams were definitely difficult; you need to be able to do homework-level questions quickly alongside knowing concepts. That said, the homework was definitely on the level of the exams, and you get a plethora of old exam questions to practice with. Even better, the homework only took a few hours per week. There was also a numerical methods project in the middle of the quarter which was decently time-consuming, but definitely a grade booster provided you followed the directions. Again, Kamei is willing to help out in case of difficulties in terms of the projects.
Tl;dr: Don't be scared to take this class if you hear about Kamei's reputation as a hard professor and/or if you lack a background in Bioengineering. Also, even though this class appears to be offered only once every few years, it's worth taking. He's that good at teaching.

This class is definintely challenging but people only mention the difficulty in the review, so here are some notes & tips to give you a better idea of the class:

-he posts his slides so if you have an iPad it's super easy to annotate them
-this year he changed the class so there is less of a thermodynamics focus and more of a computer and MATLAB coding focus (Numerical Methods to find pI, Jacobi vs. Gaussian Iteration Methods, Protein Data Bank stuff, etc) which makes the tests less derivation heavy & gives you more freebies on exams.
-Kamei posts a practice midterm ("Additional Problems before the Exam"). There are like 40 questions and if you do all of them & understand the solutions, you'll be able to do well enough on the test. Some of the exam questions are almost exactly the same as these questions.
-Kamei will be explicit with what you need to know vs. what you don't need to know, so take note of the things he makes note of and ignore the stuff he says to ignore. In this way, he gives you hints of what to expect on the test.
-Dr. Kamei will post videos called "Office Hours Problems to help with Problem Set ___" where he goes step by step through challenging problems similar to the ones on your problem set so that you have a guide to solve your problem set problems. The discussion problems are also great resources to help guide you through your PS as these are also very similar to your Problem Sets.

Kamei gives you a lot of resources to succeed in his class and has been changing the format of the class to help his students. So if you take advantage of the resources he is giving you, it becomes a lot easier to succeed.

I enjoyed 110 more than 100. It was much less theoretical.

I will say that the S2020 distribution reported to Bruinwalk seems a little skewed, because many people opted to P/NP (thus people who took LG were very confident in their ability to get an A, typical BioE pre meds).

Same advice for BE100 applies. Prof. Kamei is very clear in office hours.

Dr. Kamei is my favorite professor in the BE department. He always makes himself available to help students. Yes, this class is hard. However, I felt that it was much less theoretical when compared to 100. Do all of the practice problems in every PSet. Do all of the extra problems that he gives you. Put in the time and effort (If you are able to do so) and you will do well in the class.

Dr. Kamei truly cares about making the degree we get a worthwhile one. I will always trust him to write a fair test and act in the best interest of the BE department.

In terms of the shift to online learning, I felt that Dr. Kamei handled it fairly well. Lectures are mandatory, PSets were still due regularly, and both midterms and the final were still held. In response to the protests occurring during finals week, Dr. Kamei did agree to make the final "no harm" after being asked to do so by students. Dr. Kamei is receptive to students and overall a pretty genuine dude.

I've never seen a prof with a bigger stick up his ass. When I asked for an extension on one assignment (during first spring covid quarter no less), he told me that bioengineering "wasn't for me" and I shouldn't drop out. He's been the single biggest obstacle to me getting a degree at this school.

...don't trust his bruinwalk reviews--he makes his lab minions write positive ones and attempts to get the bad ones taken down.

This review is written from the perspective of a first-quarter transfer student (from a community college).

Logistics: The class had audio recording, 2 midterms, and a final, he uses Powerpoints, HW with the answer key uploaded, and some discussions had mini projects. This quarter our exam averages were extremely low (I assume some of the lowest ever) and for that reason, he mentioned from now on HW will most likely not be graded anymore.

Professor Kamei is an AMAZING professor (probably one of the best I have ever had and I have had lots of amazing professors), he is super caring and helpful during office hours and doesn't make you feel stupid. When he speaks you can FEEL just how experienced and knowledgeable he is. He gives you everything that you need to succeed in his class (tons and tons of practice problems). However, it is very important that you don't just memorize how to do these problems but rather actually understand them. Even though the answer key for everything is given you should try the problems first yourself and really spend time on them. I also recommend to them gradually (do a couple of problems every day and don't leave it all for the last minute). Lastly, I recommend summarizing your notes the same night right after the lecture. Even though the class had audio recordings I recommend to always go in person. Lastly, although he is very useful in office hours, if you don't have any specific questions I recommend not wasting your time on office hours and instead getting a head start on reviewing and doing the HW.

This class was easily the hardest class I had ever taken and I definitely recommend to only take it with 2 other easy classes however, I really enjoyed the challenge. Although the exams were tough they were really fair. It always felt very hard during the exam but after looking at the answer key you realized it was very simple. My biggest mistakes on exams were stupid mistakes (making a mistake while taking the derivative, forgetting negative signs, etc). Therefore it is really important to read the questions carefully and not to forget to answer any questions (because he has long texts with multiple back-to-back questions so make sure to answer them all). It's also important to keep track of time as you probably won't have too much extra time.

Overall this was definitely a hard class but it was never unfair. At the end of the day, I learned ALOT and I feel like I am a better and more effective student because of it. Scared but looking forward to taking BE 110 with Professor Kamie.

This class was one of the most challenging classes I've ever taken. I think what made it the most challenging for me was the other classes I was taking alongside it. My workload this quarter was this class alongside Chem 30A and Math 32B, both very extensive courses.

I can give advice and mistakes I made that I recommend you all don't make, and I think if that advice is followed, you'll definitely have a better time in this course than I did. However, what professors and other reviews fail to account for is that you're human. This course is designed to be one in which you dedicate all your time and attention, which just isn't feasible for most students. Looking back, I beat myself up for " not doing more" than I should have done for this class, but I would have stretched myself far thinner than I was already stretched.

With that said, I'll describe my experience with the class.

The lectures are very long, and I found it hard to be attentive for the whole two hours. The professor also moves through the slides very fast; however, he does leave a lot of room for students to ask questions which is nice. The questions are VERY content-heavy, we cover 10-15 concepts a week. He does cover examples during the lectures as well, but the examples in class are a lot easier than the problem sets. I wished he would spend more time going over harder examples in class.

The tests were difficult, very difficult. They follow the exact format of prior tests (which he provided), in terms of content and wording of questions.

It is very important that you don't fall behind in this course. Review the lectures you covered right after class and begin the problem sets the next day in order to keep the material fresh. I recommend going to office hours starting week 0 (he starts lecturing material then). I had a hard time processing information in class, so I would review the slides alongside the audio recording at 2x speed and make further annotations to help me understand. I just wish I did this RIGHT after the lectures rather than a couple of weeks later.

Our year was also different though because we were provided problem set solutions. The problem sets are very long, WAY too long, in my opinion, so it was nice having the solutions to fall back on. However, that was my downfall. The problem sets were so much more difficult than in class, that I didn't have time to sit there and struggle with the material because I had other classes to deal with. He said he would not be providing solutions for further classes, which I think will help because it will encourage you to go to office hours to complete them. Just be smart with your time.

In terms of grading, he added a bigger curve because of the fact that test scores were lower and he thinks it was because of the solutions going up with the problem sets.

This class is a rite of passage and you can definitely do it, you just got to pass!

Dr Kamei is widely regarded as the best BE professor for a good reason. Genuinely, anyone who says he is mean or unhelpful or anything like that probably didn't go to class and didn't work hard. This class is very much you get what you put in.