I could not understand the professor at all.

now i know how drake felt the way my grade kept dropping and dropping without remorse

He writes his lecture out chalkboard style and he writes really fast, so be prepared. He's caring enough to slow down and explain concepts. Combining his fast-paced lectures with one of the hardest classes in the department doesn't bode well with a lot of people, so just take it for what it is. His homework is on the more theoretical side, and he writes his own exams. MAE107 is really tough so pray you have good TAs and use them often. I can't attest to his usefulness during his office hours but he responds to emails in a reasonable time. He most definitely curves the whole class.

I cannot describe how viscious this class is. For anyone who has spoken to anyone or done any reddit searching, they know that 107 is notoriously one of the most difficult classes across the MAE curriculum. I am not here to talk about the class. Yes it is undoubtedly annoying and difficult and a unique way of thinking unlike many other upper division classes. We are here to talk about Dennis Kim.

To get it out of the way, take it with someone else. Quite frankly that is the best advice I can give.

If you have to, let me start with the good. He responds pretty fast to the emails. Very willing to answer most questions if not all. The TAs, assuming you have Will and Jimmy, are super nice, and super helpful. And he definitely cares about the subject. If anything, I think he cares about the subject more than he cares about you, the student. Good transition to the negatives.

Some may think it is a good thing, but he literally memorized everyone's names? Sometimes he would cold call you in class even if you never spoke to him. He would call people out when they sat in different seats. Terrifying.

He has lecture almost ALWAYS at 6-8pm, to which he takes the entire time or more, including the lecture before Thanksgiving break. He does not record, but does provide notes of the course (ish, if you attend all the lectures you start to realize the notes over time don't really include everything, but you can figure it out from the notes)

He writes very fast on the chalkboard and it's a lot of stuff, and he isn't the best at clearing up misconceptions because he is so deep in the content.

For homework, they are pretty long, and for whatever reason they're always due at 5pm and not 12pm. NO LATE POLICY, like he is so incredibly strict about it like literally if you are one second late sorry he will not give you any grace under most circumstances. Sucks. I used to praise how fast homework was graded (which is done by a reader, not by him), but it is because they give NO PARTIAL CREDIT on homework. If you get it wrong, sucks man.

Tests are insane. The midterm was 3 questions (with parts obviously), and most people didn't finish. He then made the final 4 questions. Awesome. Our average on the midterm was I think a 14/30, to which he said "pretty good" and "when combined with hw and lab scores, brings the average to about a 70 overall for the class, so I think I won't curve." To me, I felt like that was harsh.

Labs are usually not too bad in my personal opinion? You work with one other person. Some of them the MATLAB could get pretty tedious, and it requires you learn quick or remember a bunch of random stuff in order to pull it off, but the in lab stuff itself is always quick. I found it didn't end up integrating TOO well into the course itself, but by far it is the easiest part of the class, and it is led by the very helpful TAs.

Only one midterm, so that's good unless you bomb which I did. This class consumed by soul, and Dennis Kim is terrifying. Good luck to all.

Material is very challenging and I thought the professor did a very average job presenting it. There were not a ton of great resources if you had trouble understanding the lecture, as the textbook wasn't great and the way the topics were covered didn't seem to line up with the textbook or any online help. I felt like I just had to struggle through the lectures to try to understand, meaning that homework would take several hours. Then the midterm was pretty different from what we had been studying, so that was pretty frustrating. The final was easier and more straightforward, but overall this class was pretty draining and a ton of work. I thought Kim was a very average professor, and he did offer extra credit to help after everyone failed the midterm, so that was a nice plus. Don't think I would take it with him again, but I do think the material would be challenging under any prof so I don't think he was especially terrible.

I loved his material. It is better to participate more in class, he enjoys it a lot so ask intuitive questions and he can help further your understanding.

This is a very difficult course and with an additional lab section that can be confusing and frustrating if you are not quick to learn new things on matlab. That being said, this professor and his TAs did a fantastic job in office hours. The professor in class teaches and writes extraordinarily quickly, so be prepared. I had to work very hard to receive an A, mostly due to the inherent difficulty of the subject material (at least for me). I would definitely take this course with this professor again.