I took this class during Covid times. Professor Kraus is an okay professor. The amount of homework assigned was often reasonable, but some of the questions were often horrible three pointers from the book. Only a couple of the questions are graded at random, but still do all of them to maximize learning and since you don't know which one will be graded. Always check the grading after it is done and make sure that it seems accurate as accidents do happen. Professor Kraus goes very strictly by the textbook, so I always found it helpful to read before attending class. It is often hard to stay engaged in lecture, especially at home because Professor Kraus' voice has a tendency to fade in and out and it is kind of monotone. During office hours he has a tendency to not pick up a pen, but if you are genuinely confused he will. Definitely read the textbook and do example problems as much as possible. The exams were rough. They aren't really like the homework. For the midterm, there were a total of 3 questions, but only 2 would be graded. Even though I only did two, it still took me the full exam time. Some of the questions on the final were very rough. I would say to succeed in this class, definitely read the textbook and try not to fall behind. Hopefully you will have a good TA.

Disclaimer: Took this class during the online quarter, so final was "no harm" grading.

Professor Kraus is decent. He follows the textbook pretty closely and does what he is supposed to do. However, his lectures are hard to pay attention to, because he is so monotone. His voice fades away as he talks to the point where he is just mumbling before he picks it up and we go on the ride again. He assigns a decent amount of homework every week, but the problem is, his homework does not look like his exams. His exams are much harder than his homework. For example, almost every problem from the Chapter 7 homework had given coordinates to set up the Lagrangian, but he never gives you the coordinates on his exam, as you are to figure them out. Not giving coordinates is completely understandable, but his homework shouldn't give coordinates either. Also, his lecture examples are not similar to the exams either. His exam questions are completely new and are very much on the harder side. Also, he makes questions that should be straightforward into questions where you are bound to lose points. For example, he gave a straightforward final question but gave an ugly integral, which caused me to lose points. His grading is also hit or miss. Most of the time, he is a easy grader, as he gives plenty of partial credit, but sometimes, he takes off a lot of points for the most ridiculous math problems (e.g. setting up the entire problem correctly but not being able to do the integral). Overall, Kraus is a very textbook professor.