Going into the quarter, I was thoroughly put off by the reviews of professor Abidi that I had read on bruinwalk, and was trying to find any way possible of getting out of the class. However, I soon found out that many of the reviews were inaccurate. Here are the three main points I think are important for people to keep in mind if they are planning on taking a course with him:

1) He is a no-nonsense professor who expects you to have mastered the basic concepts of all of your previous EE and math courses. He will sometimes berate you for not being able to answer questions in class that he thinks are basic. Now, this may seem a little unreasonable to some people so I recommend looking back on all of your EE notes. Trust me when I say that if you're not 100% comfortable with everything you've learned so far about EE, you will not do well in his class. That being said, his lectures, the homework, and the discussion sections should be more than enough to get you caught up.

2) His lectures are by far the best that I've ever attended at UCLA. So it goes without saying, never miss a lecture! There is no other singular resource out there that will help you make up a missed lecture, both content-wise and clarity-wise. He is very methodical in his lectures and will explain each concept and proof in detail when he first introduces it. The flip side is that once he has gone through a concept in detail, he will never do so again. He will expect you to go through your notes and fill in any gaps in understanding you may have. I highly recommend going to his office hours or the TA office hours immediately after the lecture where you were confused. If you wait until later in the quarter, he won't be quite as patient with you, which brings me to my third point.

3) In my personal opinion, he is very difficult to communicate with and can come off as intimidating. He won't answer any homework questions or questions from exams because he thinks that is the TA's job. He only answers high level questions about the topics in lecture. Also, he doesn't post any solutions to homeworks or exams. My recommendation is that you get close to your TA because they will be your best friend for the quarter when it comes to helping you with homework and preparing for exams.

One final side-note: the homeworks. In previous classes, you may have dismissed problem sets and homeworks as pointless or busy work-DO NOT DO THAT WITH THIS CLASS. The homeworks are a very good sample of the exam questions and they are very time consuming: the first assignment took me an entire day to complete. As you go through the quarter, your skill will increase and the time it takes to do the homework decreases. However, even if you don't finish the entire assignment, go to your TA and make sure you understand how to do every problem! If you do this, you'll walk out of the class with a much better grasp of circuits and circuit analysis than your peers not in the class. I can honestly say that taking a class with Abidi was one of the best decisions I've made at UCLA.

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This guy gave 1 person B+ 5 C's and the rest D's and F's his lectures arent even that good and you have timed homework that has to be done non stop for 8 hours straight. His lectures also go not only the full 2 hours but 10-15 minutes over. Do yourself a favor and avoid him like the absolute plague

Professor Abidi is a great lecturer, as we all know. He has his good days, when the lectures are just perfect with a great flow. Sometimes, however, he shows up to lectures tired, and those days are just boring as hell. Which is understandable, as we all have busy lives. Nevertheless, he enjoys picking on people with accents, so be prepared when you ask or answer in class. Just don't take in personally, as I think he has some sort of mental issue. He will never look you in the eye when he talks to you or when he passes your midterm. I guess he is just afraid that someone might get pissed off at him and kick his ass one day for being such a jerk to everyone. lol. It seems like he has changed his exams to "more doable" and this is more of a normal class with realistic problems that you can actually solve during your exams, unlike mentioned in previous posts. I guess the department has forced him to change his exams as well as the grading policy. However, be ready to get homework assignments assigned on Friday nights that are due Sunday nights. He won't care if you want to enjoy your weekend. He thinks that his class is the only class on your schedule. Nevertheless, you learn a lot in his class, even though he tries to pick on other professors... MY RECOMMENDATION: READ RAZAVI'S BOOK - IT'S A GREAT BOOK THAT MAKES A LOT MORE SENSE THAT ABIDI!!!