Hands down my favorite class I've taken at UCLA so far. A mix of neuroscience, signal processing, and ML, it really teaches a lot of useful skills that can be used in a lot of diffferent fields of EE and CS. Homeworks are hard and primarily math focused or coding in python and numpy focused, and are *very* time intensive, don't start too late! Kao's 4 late days policy saved me a couple times for sure though during the quarter. Tests are also a doozy, but shoutout to the TA Tonmoy for his goated review sessions and Kao for providing all the previous midterms/finals to help you study.

A lot of the tools that we've used in this class: numpy, signal processing/filtering, clustering, have come up for me already in EE research and throughout CS internships so this class has definitely helped a lot in terms of experience that can be used in industry. The class material itself is extremely interesting to me as well so I'd definitely recommend it!

This has been my favorite class. If you're interested in neuroscience, machine learning, signal processing, brain-machine interfaces, or if you just need an interesting EE elective, this is the class for you. Most of the class was EE majors, but the course is incredibly useful for anyone interested in neuroscience and engineering. Professor Kao is one of the best instructors I have ever had: the lectures were very engaging and clear, the homeworks were well-written, the exams were fair, and the office hours were helpful.

The first third of the class focuses on basic neuroscience, which requires no prior background. The last 2 thirds focus on modeling neuron activity and then turning brain activity into actions in real life (i.e. moving a cursor on a screen or something similar). In order to do well in the class, you just need to be decent at calculus, linear algebra, Python programming, and probability theory (it will be very difficult to succeed without these prerequisites). The homeworks can be tricky, so do go to Jonathan's or any of the TAs' office hours since they are also very helpful. Most of them included a Python (Jupyter notebook) component which made them slightly time-consuming, but still very doable (and fun!).

Almost everyone I met in the class just took it because of Professor Kao's teaching and lecture style (annotating detailed lecture slides from an iPad), and walked away with an appreciation for the field.

I really enjoyed this class with Kao. The concepts are really interesting, and he does a great job of explaining intuition and applications (including to his own research). He is very thorough and doesn't go too fast, and treats the subject with about as much mathematical rigor as you can without being in an actual math class.
He created slides in advance, then annotated them in class and posted the annotated PDFs for us to download. I never had to refer to the textbook to understand the material.

Kao is also very accommodating to students. He will move office hours, make corrections to materials, email quickly, and is always happy to look up the answer to a question if he does not know the answer already.

This class with Kao, I would rank as one of the top I've taken at UCLA. This was the first time he taught signals and systems, but he came into class very well prepared every single day. He really cared about making sure everyone understands the material best they can by giving a lot of intuition to the things he's teaching, and he mentioned how when he was an undergrad he did badly on the first midterm due to a lack of intuitive understanding. He also tends to mention how he uses the tools in 102 in his own work in neural prostheses, which is actually super cool to hear about.

There was a small pacing problem near the beginning of the class, because he would answer everyone's question in detail even though that's literally the next slide, but he later corrected that issue. Homework was challenging but doable – which to be honest is what should be the case. The grading curve was very lenient and he is committed to give everyone as high a grade as possible.

Basically, Kao is the best professor to take 102 with.

Kao is the first true 5/5 professor I've had at UCLA. While the material he taught in class was difficult, he truly does everything he can help students understand the material and do well on homework and exams. He also gives opportunities to improve your grade should you show improvement over the course of the class. He's just truly one of the most caring and understanding professors at this school, not to mention an overall nice guy and a good lecturer.

This has been my favorite ECE class taken yet and I received my best ECE grade with Kao. The TA was extremely helpful to make this class clear however I think Kao was a big part of making that possible in that he set the precedent of the class to be about genuine learning. I also liked how Kao had a grading scheme where if you did better on the final, it would count for one of the midterms and I think that is what ultimately saved my grade. Overall, great class, especially since fall 2018 was his first time teaching it!

Prof. Kao is, hands down, the best professor I have had in my life. He's extremely smart, engaging, empathic toward students, and generous with grading. His research in neuroscience and the way he demonstrates the overlap with EE and DSP is fascinating and leaves you wanting to learn more.

The class itself is tough, both conceptually and in terms of workload. The homework was manageable, but definitely DO NOT wait until the last day or two. The tests were tough, but the class average was pretty high overall. I highly recommend taking Prof. Kao for any and all classes you can.

I highly recommend taking 102 with this professor. He is very nice and provides many resources to help you out in this class. He went so far as to give our class the midterm and final from last year. (Although the final he gave out this year was a little harder than the one from last year). I particularly like his policy where if you do better on the final than on the midterm, he will replace your midterm score with your final exam score. This ultimately helped me get an A in this class, since I scored a little below average on the midterm but had the time to study really hard for and get a high score on the final.
The structure of his class is excellent overall. He gives challenging but doable homeworks that are really fair; they generally go a bit more in depth than the exams do and help you really learn the material. I recommend trying to do as much of them on your own before turning to your friends and office hours; this helped me gain insight into problem-solving techniques.
All in all, Kao is an excellent professor who is clear, helpful, and wants you to succeed. This has been one of my favorite classes I've taken at UCLA so far, as it's difficult but fair and didactic.

I chose EE as my tech breadth, and I'm so glad I got to take my last class with Professor Kao. He is extremely well prepared in every lecture, and I really liked how he provided an in-depth intuition on all the concepts. Plus, he's really nice! Personally, I found some of his homework to be very hard (took me a couple days), and I had to attend a lot of the TAs' office hours to finish it. However, the midterm and final are around the same difficulty, so if you can do the homework comfortably, the tests aren't a huge worry. I would highly recommend taking this class with Professor Kao!

Kao is an amazing professor! I really like the material of 102, and Kao built it up very naturally - very little felt out of the blue. He explained the material we were learning, stopped for questions, and the name of any student who asked questions or came to office hours. Having a teacher be this invested in a class made it so much easier for me to ask questions and engage with the class - lectures, homework, office hours. He was clear on what we would be testing us on, and his tests were very fair. Office hours were helpful whenever I got stuck on the homework - he basically walks whatever twenty or so students are in his office through some of the problems. One issue I had in another class was the professors office would fill up, but Kao was always accommodating, moving his OH to a larger room when necessary. I would highly recommend taking this class with Kao!!