Professor
D Kim
1 of 1
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - 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.
Fall 2025 - 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.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - This is a decent class that is taught well by Kim, but the material is just so challenging. Its a LOT of material that feels really rushed through at times, and requires a lot of outside study in order to fully understand it. Kim writes VERY quickly and it is a challenge to keep up and get all the information. The homework assignments are challenging but are the most important way to study and understand the material. The midterm was pretty rough because it relied on a lot of principles that weren't stressed in class (like principles from EE 100 or conceptual proofs we hadn't discussed). The lab sessions were kind of a joke because it would be a pre-written Matlab script where we had to change 3-4 lines and then upload a report with screenshots of the resulting plots. The TA you have for this can make or break your experience with the labs. Overall, a rough class but there is good support available.
Winter 2021 - This is a decent class that is taught well by Kim, but the material is just so challenging. Its a LOT of material that feels really rushed through at times, and requires a lot of outside study in order to fully understand it. Kim writes VERY quickly and it is a challenge to keep up and get all the information. The homework assignments are challenging but are the most important way to study and understand the material. The midterm was pretty rough because it relied on a lot of principles that weren't stressed in class (like principles from EE 100 or conceptual proofs we hadn't discussed). The lab sessions were kind of a joke because it would be a pre-written Matlab script where we had to change 3-4 lines and then upload a report with screenshots of the resulting plots. The TA you have for this can make or break your experience with the labs. Overall, a rough class but there is good support available.
AD
1 of 1
