This class isn't as bad as some people claim. Lecture is lowkey useless. Prof. Schmidt's lecture is an awkward stream of consciousness, that MOST people can't follow in the first go-around.

The best way to study is the drill the old exams, study sets, and pick out concepts from the slides as they come. He doesn't do that many example problems in class, so the practice materials are the best way to figure stuff out.

A lot of people are scared of the EE part of this class, but it's not that bad compared to EE100 usually. (EE professors are scarier than BioE professors in general.) Fourier transforms and series aren't that bad, review integration stuff from AP calculus

"Any questions?"

The incessant vibrations from Schmidt's crusty vocal cords reverberated around the room as everyone stares back into his soulless gaze with a deadpan expression full of confusion and dread.

"I know you have questions."

That interaction about sums up his class. He knows he teaches poorly, yet he fails to acknowledge any of his shortcomings or attempt to improve his lectures. His slides are poorly organized, resulting in lectures teaching seemingly unrelated concepts that takes hours to get to the actual point of it all. He also always has an air of ignorance and arrogance with how he teaches and interacts with students, as if he expects that he is perfect and never makes mistakes, whereas reality is very much the opposite.

However, despite that, Schmidt does give all the resources you need to pass the class, namely past midterms and finals. His exams tend to be fairly repetitive so studying for the exams is definitely doable as long as you put in the time.

As someone not too good at or interested in EE, I actually found this class to be super interesting. The beginning of the class starts off with some circuits (thermistors, strain gauges, amplifiers, etc) but is definitely easier and more applied than EE100. Next you learn the physics behind EKG's and how they work. Then the class gets more math heavy and you learn about fourier transforms, signals/noise, xrays, and a big final unit on NMR/MRI. Overall, there honestly wasn't much material in the class. Some of the material is hard to digest the first go around, so being able to rewatch recorded lectures at my pace was very helpful. Overall, interesting class that wasn't as bad as I anticipated it was going to be.

Note: Starting after W24, this class is going to become essentially a circuits class for Bioengineers, and so there might be a lot of changes, however, I feel like this review still applies to Schmidt and how he teaches.

Logistics for grade: 2 Midterm and a final make up your whole grade, however the averages for our midterms were pretty high (multiple people got 100% on the first one, and relatively high grades on the second one)

I have no idea why people hate on him so much, I really enjoyed his class and thought that his lectures were engaging and he was pretty funny. He also gave many in-class demonstrations about the medical instruments we were learning (such as simple EKG) which really helped build an intuitive foundation. HWs are optional but you should definitely do it right after each lecture and not leave it for the week of the exam. His exams were extremely fair and similar to practice exams. He is also really really really good at answering any questions you might have (he might look like he is mad if you ask questions but trust me he is very kind). Office hours are also very useful if you are confused as he is willing to go very much in-depth even if he has covered it extensively in class.

This class requires a pretty good math foundation as it is relatively calc-heavy but you should be fine as long as you can do basic integrals. Discussions were really useless and I never went to them but they can be useful if you are struggling with some concepts as its mainly review.

This class should be relatively easy to get an A as long as you go to all lectures, actively participate and ask questions, do HW after every lecture, and do all the practice exams (start doing them a week before). If you do all of that, you are basically guaranteed an A.

I think this class is a lot better than previous reviews say. The homework being optional is a huge load off your back while still giving you a lot of practice. Professor Schmidt is a great lecturer, too.

I think people are a little harsh on good old schmidt. pretty decent lectures and exams were quite fair. I'd say the practice problems could have been a bit more reflective of the exams though. It is more based on class problems not homework problems.

Banger class: The topics are lit and Schmidt is really engaging and funny in-person (Highlight of my quarter is Schmidt saying "dub" and "L").
Zoom lectures were bad like others mentioned (This quarter was 1/2 online and 1/2 in-person).
Tests were kind of hard (averages ~70%), but I think thats because there was no HW, which lead to people cramming weekend before the tests.
Class is slightly memorize-y, but Schmidt is good at building up an intuitive understanding of why the equations are the way they are.
I never went to discussion since its mostly just recap of lecture and then do some practice problems, but it can be useful if study habits are not good.

Overall, the class wasn't that bad. The beginning of the class I felt was the hardest since I didn't know EE 100 very well. But later on (after midterm 1) it gets into topics that are much better and don't require knowledge of circuits. I wish Prof. Schmidt just did more examples interactively in class though.

The class is a balance between the math and conceptual understanding. There is some degree of memorization involved. Make sure to review all the slides and work on all of the practice problems+past exams that he provides. Know these practice problems combined with the slides and you should do alright in the class.

The first half of the class is a review of circuits, Kirchhoff's Laws, complex impedance analysis, and some new and useful circuits. The second half of the class is biomedical devices, such as ECG, MRI, and ultrasound.

Dr. Schmidt is a clear and concise lecturer who can explain abstract concepts well. He had to reiterate things several times for the class, but his dry sense of humor and the interesting topic kept me awake the whole quarter. He seems intimidating to some people at first (if you ask stupid questions you get a not-so-amused look), but he always always found an hour outside of his regular office hours to meet me when I had questions. The TA was not as helpful as other outstanding TAs, but she did have to grade 70 student's worth of work every week.

The course is not difficult at all, and the homework assignments are actually interesting. If anything, I wish we went more in-depth with the material and covered more - the class was interrupted by two holidays and an NIH meeting Dr. Schmidt had to attend.

Overall, look forward to BE120 when you take it. Dr. Schmidt is a good professor.

I actually really enjoyed this professor, and think he has gotten a bad wrap due to these ratings. He was always very available and happy to answer questions. All math is basic algebra, so there is no reason to complain about the difficulty level of the material.