The class is ok
It was interesting at first but then it got boring because it was mainly just focusing on very particular topics from papers. The lab portion is so annoying because you have to learn how to use Matlab. To sum it up, I got to the point where I just wanted the class to be over already.

The whole class felt disorganized and tough. There were only 3 homeworks given when we thought we’d get weekly homework’s. EVERYTHING on all slides are fair game on exams, and there’s a LOT of information.

The class was interesting at the beginning, but then it gradually got worse towards the end. The topics became boring and the class got really unorganized.

It was weird that he taught MATLAB, but we only had one homework and one midterm question about the syntax of MATLAB. We didn't actually have to write MATLAB code for homework like he stated he would assign us to have. He frequently talked about what's going to be on the next assignment and then never assigns it.

Also It really bugged me that during the week before finals (around 3-4 days before), he last minute decided to post another lecture and have another homework assignment due. He should at least post it earlier.

Overall easy A if you like an uncaring and unorganized professor that curves.

The class touches on a very interesting topic. I'm generally interested in the material. I did not like the matlab portion though as much, since my programming experience was with c++. If you are good at matlab, u should give this class a try. The assignments were graded really late, I wish they could be done earlier. TA is very helpful, and I hope he will have more office hours.

The project assigned to graduate students only was very unclear. He decided to let us know about project through a zoom call on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He said he would make accommodations but he didn't. On finals week he announced that grad students will be presenting their project on the first day of Spring Quarter despite being a Winter Quarter class. It's unfair he can constantly disregard grad students personal time and not make accommodations for the students when he stated he would. He doesn't even respond to emails and the TA responded incredibly late as well. Pretty smart of them to do all this after the instructor evaluations are already over. Professor and TA also really didn't care about the class.

Do NOT let the grade distribution fool you. Don't even let my grade fool you. This class was the most unorganized disaster I have ever been subject to at UCLA. I took this class anticipating electrophysiology (and because it was the only option that fit my schedule), and was surprised to hear on the first day that it was supposed to actually be about brain machine interfaces, AI, etc. Somehow, it was actually neither of those two things. We never actually talked about technology in this class apart from the intro lecture, and never really covered electrophysiology either. Instead, it was a poorly blended version of neuro 101C and the profs own studies, all presented in a convoluted way that was very difficult to track with. There were supposed to be weekly homework assignments, but when he assigned the first one, we were all surprised to find that it was an extremely complicated coding assignment...when this class said no coding experience required. It took us five weeks of complaining for the prof to finally do something about it, and his solution was to extend the deadline because apparently, this class was supposed to have a weekly discussion section...and the department had forgotten to schedule one. So instead of making any efforts to post recorded discussions, have a zoom option, etc., he just kept cancelling homeworks and swearing that by the time it was due, we would have learned how to do all of the coding. When it was finally due week 7, we still had not learned an ounce of code. It was never even mentioned. The only resource we ever received was a powerpoint of tips in Matlab. Which would probably have been more helpful if the assignment wasn't in Python.

So, instead of having weekly homework assignments to cushion our grades, we now have three. The midterm rolls around, and figuring out what on earth we were actually even responsible for knowing was half the battle. The recorded lectures posted were from 2020, and most no longer even correlated properly with what we were going over. The slides were also worthless, as his entire three hour lecture would go over 10-12 slides that were just graphs. No titles, no context, half the time there weren't even axis labels. The TA clearly had no idea what we were even going over in this class, as he was never in lecture and everything he went over in the "review session" had nothing to do with the tests. He swore up and down that it would be purely conceptual, and then we get to the midterm and most of the questions are ridiculous things like "how many micrometers is a dendrite." The midterm was 18 multiple choice, true false questions. The best part? If you got the question right, it was +1. If you got it wrong, it was -2, making the minimum score on the test a -14/22. The TA seemed to have no idea what the grading policy was, as the whole thing got so screwed up that the points didn't even all add up to 22. It was unfairly and unjustly graded--I missed four questions and got a 59. Several people in the class submitted regrades asking for more points simply for the reason of "I feel that this is unfair and deserve a higher score," and got a bunch of free extra points back for no reason. I submitted the SAME regrade request (they helped me word it like they did), and the TA refused to give back any points. One student missed half of the questions but got an A because the TA straight up forgot to factor the marked off questions into his final grade. There was never a right or wrong answer, as many of the questions weren't even written properly and had mistakes in them. When asked during the exams, the TA said to just mark what you thought and if you got marked wrong, it was your responsibility to find a study on the Internet that proved your point and use that to argue for your points back.

You weren't allowed to email the professor, you had to go through the TA. Who rarely answered on time. The professor did not have office hours, and the TA wouldn't show up to his. Getting help in this class was impossible, not that it would have helped in the end anyways.

The TA showed up 15 minutes late to the final holding four copies of the test. Apparently the printer had jammed? So everyone else was just told to get out their laptops and "don't cheat, just have one tab open." Which would have been easier to enforce if the TA didn't keep periodically leaving the room for extended periods of time during the final.

Overall, I never received a grade for the three homework assignments or final. I don't know if this is because they were graded and just not inputted into Canvas/Gradescope, but we were explicitly told that we could submit regrades on the final afterwards, which apparently is not the case. So I have no idea if I actually deserved the A I got in this class, considering I have basically no metric of even gauging how I did in the class the entire quarter.

If you're looking to take this class because you want an easy, free-A GPA booster elective, don't. All it was the entire quarter was a battle against the grading policies. If you're looking to take this class because you're interested in computational neuro, still don't. Take the Intro to Computational Neuroscience class instead. Avoid this mess at all costs.

TAKE THIS CLASS WITH MEHTA!

Easily one of the most accommodating professors I had during Physics 5B. Grading scheme is as follows:

Quizzes: 85% of grade, 5 quizzes + lowest quiz dropped
Lab: 15% of grade

Quizzes are easy as long as you listen to the lectures, which were recorded, and take good notes on them. I did, however, take this course during COVID so if he teaches again during the school year I don't know how different it would be.

Let me start by saying, if there has ever been a professor more deserving of a review, it’s Mehta. Much like the other comments from this quarter, this class was a complete disaster. I have never had a professor who so blatantly cared less about the well-being of his students and the organization of a class. Despite only having three instructors—Mehta and two TAs—there was effectively ZERO communication between them ever, and there was never a clear answer as to what would be on a test. Concerning the lectures themselves, he frequently ended the lectures early, as if he just wanted to leave asap; he only ever read from pre-made slides, clearly never putting extra effort into making the material even remotely interesting.

While the midterms were not too bad, the final was an actual joke. Not only incredibly difficult, but it was unproctored for portions of the test and we were given (supposedly) 4 hrs to take the exam— both of which are completely against university policy regarding a final. Additionally, and perhaps most insane, students went outside after the test proctoring was over, still with tests in hand, and collaborated on the tests together.

Despite all of this chaos and disorganization, the TAs essentially didn’t even read the finals and curves most people’s grades really highly.

TLDR

hear me now, listen to me later: do NOT take this class w Mehta. I have never had a professor so undoubtedly unfit to teach students at this university. Ripp all y’all fouls that end up taking him ha.

This class was unbelievably disorganised. The class is over, and our homework from week one has yet to be graded. The TAs did not seem to know what was happening in the class any more than the students did.

In the first week, Mehta mentioned that he "doesn't like teaching" 5B because it "crams too many topics into one course"; Mehta's disdain for this class caused problems for everyone involved, as he sped through slides and skipped over sample problems during lectures.

There was a lot of miscommunication between the TAs, Mehta, and the students regarding exams; we would receive contradictory emails from Mehta and each of the TAs telling us "no equation sheet" followed by "print out an equation sheet" followed by "here is a PDF of an equation sheet, but don't bring it to the exam." Our first two midterm exams were ridiculously easy, our final was ridiculously hard due to missing information and confusingly-worded exam questions.

Overall it just felt like nobody knew what was happening, which topics were on exams, and Mehta's disorganisation made this class deceptive. I would highly recommend other professors after taking the final for this class, what the f$#@ was that???

Worst class ever! Professor simply read from the Pearson slides, didn't even know when there was an exam, constantly changed class policies. Would strongly recommend against taking this class.