As others have said, his lectures are usually rambling going through about one problem per hour requiring frequent corrections from the students, but often mistakes he made still slipped through. The tests were a few problems multiple choice, so you could get really lucky or unlucky based on small errors or guesses, especially since you lose points for incorrect answers. The best way to study is just to try to get used to the general process of dynamics problems by doing the homework problems on your own without solutions. It's very difficult to learn from his lectures. Take this class with another professor if you can.

Gibson is the worst that can happen to you as a Mechanical Engineer. If you have to take this class with him, then just drop out cause it's probably the same thing at this point. He's lazy, boring and never teaches in class. Walks in late and starts solving problems on the board assuming everyone knows the concepts. His explanations are useless because he assumes we already know what he's talking about. His tests are multiple choice so no partial credit whatsoever and you get negative marking for guessing the wrong answers. So getting a final score of -1/50 is totally possible. He's the worst professor I've ever encountered and would not recommend him to anyone ever. I dreaded every test he every posted and could not sit through any of his classes because of how boring it got. Please do yourself a huge favor and never ever take his class.

BEWARE of DIFFICULT, MULTIPLE CHOICE exams with NO partial credit. NO CHEAT SHEET on exams (other dynamics classes allow cheat sheets/notes). It's all or nothing, folks. I second everything that the previous review stated. I'm very frustrated that my formerly-above-average GPA is likely going to fall due to this class.

RUN AS FAR AND FAST FROM GIBSON'S CLASS AS YOUR LEGS WILL TAKE YOU. FIRSTLY,
these other reviews say he is a bad lecturer which honestly should be the least of your worries because it's not that bad once you get used to it. My GREATEST GREATEsT GREATEST recommendation is to record his lectures from day 1. I say this because if you simply copy down what he writes on the board, your 2 hours worth of notes will be half a page and you will be so lost and can quite literally get a negative score on your first midterm (I'll explain a little later on). If you truly pay attention and write down the things he's SAYING in addition to writing on the board things make sense because he's not too shabby in explaining (albeit he has the slip up now and then but always catches it and points it out). HOWEVER, this man is truly insane when it comes to grading. He gives multiple choice tests which award NO partial credit, (yes that's insane for such a math heavy course in which displaying your logic often shows that you understand the material even if you make some mistakes here and there) but LITERALLY SUBTRACTS POINTS FOR WRONG ANSWERS (yes, this means he's literally inputted negative scores on the ucla gradebook for students). I'm sorry but as adorable, mildly funny and a semi-good lecturer as this grandpa-like professor is, he is what's wrong with UCLA professors. He literally said he doesn't care about a student's thought process, only the final answer which to me literally makes no sense IN AN ENGINEERING UPPER DIVISION COURSE. So do yourself a favor and don't take this course with him unless you want to tank your gpa. All this said though, I am going into retaking this class feeling low key good about the subject material itself because it's not even that bad. His shitty grading and no partial just ruins your grade in this even if you have an average understanding of everything.

He is nice and has a sense of humor, so that's a positive.

It's really not worth it to attend his lectures. He goes on and on and it takes an hour for him to explain a single problem. 102 is a really difficult course because of the subject matter and it doesn't help when the professor can't explain the problems effectively.

If you can, take 102 with another professor.

Honestly, he wasn't that bad. My experience with Professor Gibson has been very positive and the workload for this class was quite fair. Although his lectures are mostly comprised of textbook problems, he does an adequate job of explaining the process of how to solve them. Some of the problems he assigned were challenging, but overall fair. It's extremely tempting, but my recommendation is that you do NOT use the solutions manual otherwise you will not understand the problems sufficiently. His midterms and final exam were difficult, but the problems are do-able.

Honestly, he's not as bad as these other people say. He tends to pause a lot during lecture trying to gather his thoughts, but overall he knows the subject very well. He tries to keep the class from being too dull with sporadic (often cold) jokes, which is nice sometimes.

2-D dynamics only has like 6 or so equations that can be mixed and matched to figure everything out. It's just learning how to use them on problems that's the challenge. Good thing is that he goes over example problems step by step so that it clicks in your head.

Nice enough guy. Far from the best professor I've had at UCLA thus far, but also no where near the worst. He has two midterms, each worth 30% of your grade. Average on the first was about a 50, average on the second was about a 60. They were pretty difficult so you really should study a lot for them. The homework is only worth 5% of your grade and he assigns a ton of problems. You basically do them or you won't do well on the tests. The final was the remaining 35% and wasn't too bad. Overall I'd say this professor isn't too bad at all, take him if you haven't completed the 102 requirement. Also, discussion is not mandatory and usually only goes for an hour. I only went twice.

FIRE HIM. Guy can't teach. Smart man but he just can't teach. Doesn't prepare for his lectures and just seem to make up things as he goes. Makes a lot of errors with the equations he uses. UCLA needs to hire better engineering professors.