Professor Dunn is really nice and tries his best to be a good lecturer, and I think he succeeds for the most part. The class topic is really just not interesting unless you're particularly interested in this sort of thing. I will say that a lot of this stuff pops up in MSE 122 so if you take those at the same time, it's a little helpful there. But otherwise it's really just crystal lattices and diffusion PDEs and other stuff that you either really enjoy or absolutely hate.

Exams were pretty much conceptual so it really helps to read the textbook, and there's a good amount of information about this topic online

The only real upside to this class if you hate the content is that you'll probably be taking this with the rest of your MSE cohort, so it's really easy to get work done together. It's far from the worst class on campus, but far from the best too.

The bigger mess is the lab attached to this class but that's really a separate issue altogether

Great professor. Goes through quickly but hey it's college so there's tons of teachers and tons of different teaching styles. I recommend Dunn, answers questions very thoroughly, even considers many interesting exceptions, very insightful. I like his short answer questions on his tests: very thought provoking and really makes you think/process the material and ensures that you understand the fundamental concepts. Advice: review review review!! Book is a bit dry but it's got lots of great points that help on the test