Professor
Sergio Carbajo
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - While I very much enjoyed this class it felt a bit weird with 5/7 of the students working towards a PhD in photonics. I absolutely loved my PhD partner (nothing but nice things to say about them), but it felt nearly impossible to contribute in a meaningful way. Obviously, they will want to do every assignment to the best of their ability, but my personal ability was much less than theirs in this specific field. This isn't for a lack of trying on my part, I went out of my way to be helpful, but it simply isn't that easy when I am partnered with someone who is working in a photonics lab on a near daily basis. Either way, they were incredibly understanding of this and made sure I understood everything. My recommendation for the professor is to ensure that roles are well-defined in mismatched groups beforehand. I can't imagine how painful this class would have been if I was partnered with a less understanding PhD partner. Also, I felt the expectations for the review paper could have been explained better. Writing a review paper wouldn't have been bad, but we were told that we need to relate it to the MATLAB mode-locked laser simulation code in some way. In my opinion, the paper and code didn't have a direct relationship, so this was easier said than done (for me at least, probably was a cakewalk for the grad students). I recommend requiring a rough draft for this paper and possibly spending one day in class on it as the other student review said. Final Thoughts: While I do have some minor critiques, I would still recommend this class to anyone who enjoyed the format of 170A. It's entirely possible to get a good grade, but you will have to work for it!
Spring 2025 - While I very much enjoyed this class it felt a bit weird with 5/7 of the students working towards a PhD in photonics. I absolutely loved my PhD partner (nothing but nice things to say about them), but it felt nearly impossible to contribute in a meaningful way. Obviously, they will want to do every assignment to the best of their ability, but my personal ability was much less than theirs in this specific field. This isn't for a lack of trying on my part, I went out of my way to be helpful, but it simply isn't that easy when I am partnered with someone who is working in a photonics lab on a near daily basis. Either way, they were incredibly understanding of this and made sure I understood everything. My recommendation for the professor is to ensure that roles are well-defined in mismatched groups beforehand. I can't imagine how painful this class would have been if I was partnered with a less understanding PhD partner. Also, I felt the expectations for the review paper could have been explained better. Writing a review paper wouldn't have been bad, but we were told that we need to relate it to the MATLAB mode-locked laser simulation code in some way. In my opinion, the paper and code didn't have a direct relationship, so this was easier said than done (for me at least, probably was a cakewalk for the grad students). I recommend requiring a rough draft for this paper and possibly spending one day in class on it as the other student review said. Final Thoughts: While I do have some minor critiques, I would still recommend this class to anyone who enjoyed the format of 170A. It's entirely possible to get a good grade, but you will have to work for it!
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