Professor
Per Kraus
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Most Helpful Review
His lectures are pretty good and I loved that he put the notes online for us. He's a lot more clear, organized, and comprehensible than other physics professors at UCLA. The homework was MasteringPhysics. It was difficult and sometimes kind of long, but the real problem was that the homework looked nothing like the tests. In order to do well on the tests, make sure you study the lecture notes and go to the review sessions, because studying the book and the homework problems does not prepare you well. Going to class every day and trying to understand the concepts he lectures on is a lot more helpful than trying to get good grades on the homework, so don't worry about it too much. The midterms and final were pretty difficult, but he's not a hard grader.
His lectures are pretty good and I loved that he put the notes online for us. He's a lot more clear, organized, and comprehensible than other physics professors at UCLA. The homework was MasteringPhysics. It was difficult and sometimes kind of long, but the real problem was that the homework looked nothing like the tests. In order to do well on the tests, make sure you study the lecture notes and go to the review sessions, because studying the book and the homework problems does not prepare you well. Going to class every day and trying to understand the concepts he lectures on is a lot more helpful than trying to get good grades on the homework, so don't worry about it too much. The midterms and final were pretty difficult, but he's not a hard grader.
Most Helpful Review
Ok, I'm the type of student who pays attention and does pretty well, but I absolutely could not stand this professor. The first couple lectures were fine, but then he started lecturing in circles. He would put the same equation on the board day after day, then give you another that's supposed to be derived from the original equation, but fail to explain it. And when he did explain it, it was in a circle. He also never made eye-contact and mumbles just when he's getting to his point. His tests were supposed to be pretty fair. Most of the problems were, but the issue is that they were vague as all hell. You didn't know he wanted for the question, and if you have a horrible TA, you get it wrong, even though it's right. In a nutshell, avoid him if you can, OR just teach yourself out of the book.
Ok, I'm the type of student who pays attention and does pretty well, but I absolutely could not stand this professor. The first couple lectures were fine, but then he started lecturing in circles. He would put the same equation on the board day after day, then give you another that's supposed to be derived from the original equation, but fail to explain it. And when he did explain it, it was in a circle. He also never made eye-contact and mumbles just when he's getting to his point. His tests were supposed to be pretty fair. Most of the problems were, but the issue is that they were vague as all hell. You didn't know he wanted for the question, and if you have a horrible TA, you get it wrong, even though it's right. In a nutshell, avoid him if you can, OR just teach yourself out of the book.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Disclaimer: Took this class during the online quarter, so final was "no harm" grading. Professor Kraus is decent. He follows the textbook pretty closely and does what he is supposed to do. However, his lectures are hard to pay attention to, because he is so monotone. His voice fades away as he talks to the point where he is just mumbling before he picks it up and we go on the ride again. He assigns a decent amount of homework every week, but the problem is, his homework does not look like his exams. His exams are much harder than his homework. For example, almost every problem from the Chapter 7 homework had given coordinates to set up the Lagrangian, but he never gives you the coordinates on his exam, as you are to figure them out. Not giving coordinates is completely understandable, but his homework shouldn't give coordinates either. Also, his lecture examples are not similar to the exams either. His exam questions are completely new and are very much on the harder side. Also, he makes questions that should be straightforward into questions where you are bound to lose points. For example, he gave a straightforward final question but gave an ugly integral, which caused me to lose points. His grading is also hit or miss. Most of the time, he is a easy grader, as he gives plenty of partial credit, but sometimes, he takes off a lot of points for the most ridiculous math problems (e.g. setting up the entire problem correctly but not being able to do the integral). Overall, Kraus is a very textbook professor.
Spring 2020 - Disclaimer: Took this class during the online quarter, so final was "no harm" grading. Professor Kraus is decent. He follows the textbook pretty closely and does what he is supposed to do. However, his lectures are hard to pay attention to, because he is so monotone. His voice fades away as he talks to the point where he is just mumbling before he picks it up and we go on the ride again. He assigns a decent amount of homework every week, but the problem is, his homework does not look like his exams. His exams are much harder than his homework. For example, almost every problem from the Chapter 7 homework had given coordinates to set up the Lagrangian, but he never gives you the coordinates on his exam, as you are to figure them out. Not giving coordinates is completely understandable, but his homework shouldn't give coordinates either. Also, his lecture examples are not similar to the exams either. His exam questions are completely new and are very much on the harder side. Also, he makes questions that should be straightforward into questions where you are bound to lose points. For example, he gave a straightforward final question but gave an ugly integral, which caused me to lose points. His grading is also hit or miss. Most of the time, he is a easy grader, as he gives plenty of partial credit, but sometimes, he takes off a lot of points for the most ridiculous math problems (e.g. setting up the entire problem correctly but not being able to do the integral). Overall, Kraus is a very textbook professor.
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