Her lectures were derivation heavy, so I ended up not watching them and just using the equations that she spent the lecture deriving on the homework/tests. The clicker questions aren't reason enough to watch the lecture if you're not paying attention to them, they are a very minor grade boost (less than half a percent). You are required to attend the first 20 minutes of discussion to take a weekly quiz, and those end up being a large part of your final grade, but they are pretty simple. You can leave the discussion after that, but discussion is probably a bit more useful since the TA will just be doing example problems. There is weekly homework that has pretty complex problems (much harder compared to tests/quizzes), and if you are able to figure those out (which is doable if you give it a few hours of thought, just start them early and try to work out the path to the answer, if you get stuck then wait a day and look again, don't look up the answers), then the quizzes and tests will be insanely easy compared to those. The midterm and final were just like a normal midterm and final, all in a Zoom call with the professor. They had the same level of difficulty as the quizzes (aka much easier than the homework).

Santos is an amazing professor, super organized and straightforward. Quizzes are easy points and the exams are fairly easy as well. The class is super easy for the first five weeks, basically just standard kinematics. After that it gets a bit confusing with 3D motion, but it all boils down to a couple of equations. I would 100% recommend taking this class with Santos.

Santos is one of those incredible professors who not only care about student learning, but also are able to clearly explain difficult concepts. Santos came to every class ridiculously prepared, from her stash of multicolored whiteboard markers to her incredibly detailed slides. She explained concepts clearly and concisely in such a way that I didn't need to refer to the textbook to understand concepts (like I've had to do with other classes). She's also extremely nice and really cares about her students. Lectures were well prepared and clear, despite the somewhat dry nature of the subject material. All the tests (weekly quizzes, midterms, final) were straightforward and fair. The homework however is graded quite thoroughly, so be prepared for that grading scheme. The class is not curved since the examinations are so straightforward.

Santos was by far one of the best professors I've had thus far at UCLA. Unlike 99% of the other profs, she actually cares about student learning. Almost everyone got an A the quarter I took the class because she didn't believe in curving the class down just for the sake of curving the class. I felt like I actually learned a lot throughout the quarter; the lectures were all very organized and clear. She was very accommodating to students needs and even posted a lecture online when she had to travel to a conference so that we wouldn't fall behind. Overall, I was definitely glad I took this class with her and would love to take another course taugh by Santos.

Professor Santos is my favorite professor I've had at UCLA. She is an amazing professor and really takes the time to make sure that the students understand the concepts that she's going over. The way she explains things is extremely clear, and even though she does go through a lot of derivations, I felt that I didn't get lost and actually understood them. She's also extremely helpful in office hours and would allow students to just attend office hours and work on homework problems and then just ask questions whenever we had them. She made this class extremely enjoyable and engaging and would 100% take another class with her.

god bless her

Just as a preface, I took this class completely online due to COVID-19.

Professor Santos was one of the few professors I have had while at UCLA that has equipped me with a sound understanding of the material covered in class and contributed to my approach to engineering in general. Lectures were well-paced and full of examples that dealt with what we were learning directly. Sometimes lectures could be proof-heavy, but Professor Santos did a fantastic job breaking down new material. Additionally, my discussion section was fantastic due to an outstanding TA. The transition to online was definitely noticeable, but not detrimental in any way. Professor Santos did as much as she possibly could to get students involved and interested. Overall, this class was easily a top-three engineering course I have taken here at UCLA and I would absolutely recommend taking it.