Fairly intimidating demeanor during lecture, but if you actually try speaking to him during open lab or after class, he's extremely approachable and helpful. Found myself looking to him for help more than TA's. Exams are reasonable.

I like how we write out the notes because then I learn something and stay awake, and I am able to follow along with the lecture. However, his midterms are quite difficult.

tests are reasonable. Even though hard, it tells you what university is, not some baby test. Very helpful, so basically if you try and go to OPL, you'll like him, and get good marks, cause i do

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HIs notes were straight forward and they followed the text well. I did well because I did all his suggested text assignments and asked him lots of questions in the open lab. HIs exams were hard, but they were fair.

great physics teacher, knows how to teach u so you understand: By giving you lots of hard assignment questions. Unfortunately also the exam questions are hard...

this guy has the easyest tests ever. the questions he gives on homework are way harder than on the midterm, he's kind of agitated in class tough, doesn't stop speaking

midterm 2 is hard but the course is easy one.

I've always hated physics, but found this course managable. Have to admit that the homework was tough, but if you go through his notes and read the text it's not that bad. Exams were alright, except for the long 2nd midterm...just written badly.

While I was dreading PHYS, Dr. Watkins is an excellent professor if you're willing to put in some work. This isn't high school children. CAPA assignments were very intense, but prepared you well for the midterms. Dr. Wakins provides material in a straightforward manner and is very approachable.

He's not a bad guy, but he goes through the notes very fast and is a little hard to keep up with. The CAPA is challenging, and the notes are mostly derivations of equations but exams are mostly conceptual so watch out!

midterm one is easy but midterm 2 and final is hard. however ,this course is not a tough one,do ur job u will get a- easily.

took the course for fun, he makes the class interesting with some demonstrations, gets pissed off when ppl are late and when ppl talk. easy first midterm, second and final are killer. but if u do all ur capa, shd get an A at least

Lecture notes are very helpful~ Midterms are easy but the final is really a challenge~! Nice teacher though~!

Generally a nice guy, good lectures. Material in lectures was material on exams. Assignments were very challenging. Assignment marking was hard and near to unfair. A lot of students came to final exam, wrote there name on the paper and left, but I didn't find the course too challenging.

Has a clear voice. Lecture notes were alright. Homework was tricky!

great guy, knows what hes teaching

clear and concise, enthusiastic about physics, and helpful

Listening to him talk makes me angry. I'm never going to class again!

He is a very good prof. He give clear notes, and explain the stuff very well. His experiments are very interesting, and he is a very nice guy. He know his stuff very well. Lecture is very interesting, not boring at all. His exam might be a little tricky.

His notes are easy to read. So even if you have no idea what's going on in class, if you read the notes, at least you'll be able to comprehend them. Quite nice if you get to know him. Demos are way cool

Very good at explaining concepts, and well-organized notes. You can tell he loves what he does, and he's very helpful as well.

One of the best physics profs at SFU. He explains things clearly and his notes are easy to read. Midterms are fair/easy if you study and do all the CAPA assignments. Plus...he shuts up the people who are noisy in class. He is "THE ENFORCER" of SFU!!

This is an amazing professor! I'm taking three classes and even though I'm not one of those engineering students who are passionate about physics, his is my fav. lecture. Best notes, patient, trying to help students as much as possible, plus you can screw up on one midterm since he only counts 2 out of 3 if that works best for you. love this prof

He is very helpful and really nice, loncapa is very hard, exams=very hard, but if need his help just ask for it and he'll be there for you!

He warned us continually about the horrible textbook, "The Motion Chronicles". I didn't like it that he said, don't call, don't e-mail me, talk to your TA (who had 2 min between classes), and everyone swarmed him after classes (because they didn't understand). No one asked questions. No one got the answers. He was there, but I was in another class

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He's a very nice teacher who made me love physics. His notes were very clear and I hardly have any questions to ask him at all. His midterms are decent and understandable as long as you do the majority of the textbook questions.

For the midterms make sure to focus on the iclicker and mastering physics questions! Final is more similar to the textbook questions. Overall, it was an easy course, just pay attention to his notes and do the homework and you'll be fine!

His lectures are clear. His notes are clear. The text we are using is free (online). He does not muddle his class with the complicated stuff. He teaches you the basics and expects you to take the necessary steps to complete the homework. He is a good teacher. The 'active learning labs' are useless.

His multiple choice questions are super unreasonably tricky. He goes over tons of useful material and his tests are not hard and are based on the material covered in lectures, except multiple choice questions, these are just horrible.

I thought that he explained the concepts well, and provided interesting examples/demos. I don't think he's as bad as some others say, although the active learning lab wasn't very coordinated. At the end of the semester, we ran out of time, and spent very little time on the last couple topics (optics and magnetic forces).

Actual cares about whether we understand concepts or not, goes over things that we request him to, awesome professor overall. Definitely would take a course specifically if he was teaching it.

Honestly, in the beginning of the term I hated him so much because the lack of organization. But now that it is the end of the term, he's actually a really good professor... He's very different in the way he teaches the class, his examples are easy to relate or try to understand. Would love to have him again.

B/c this is phys, you have to understand! don't expect to just go to lec and then be able to do the hw and exams! practice!! good teacher and a nice guy. Lecs allowed you to learn the basis of everything. go to workshops if u need Sometimes he's disorganized and forgets to turn the screen to his paper but that's good comic relief from physics lool

Lectures are always involving the solving of problems. Pretty good at explaining, except sometimes he could be better at highlighting important formulas students will be heavily using throughout the chapter. Overall, good choice of a teacher.

I was scared for all the comments I saw in this website. However, he is a very good proof. Hilarious and very sarcastic. If you do bad in the midterm but well in the final, he'll automatically replace the midterm grade for the final grade. He's a messy writer, makes few mistakes, lots of clicker Q's and pretty cool experiments in lecture.

Dr. Watkins is a great prof! He is extremely helpful. Tests are fair and based on his lectures. He is friendly and approachable during his office hours and gives clear explanations to student's questions. At first, I thought he was going to bland but he cracks pretty good jokes at times. Definitely a solid choice of a prof!

I don't find him to be disorganized - his lecture slides are partially hand-written so can sometimes be messy, but he is always happy to clarify and takes lots of time to answer questions. I'm not a fan of physics, but Watkins makes it fairly straightforward and gives lots of examples, and exams have been reasonable so far.

One of the best profs I've had. He is very clear in lecture and goes over a lot of practice problems. His office hours are great to go to as well, he goes as in depth as you need and makes you feel like theirs no dumb questions.

These reviews from 1st yrs make Prof Watkins sounds WAYY worse than he is. Tbh, for someone who's not the best at physics, I would that putting in the work and actually asking him questions helped. Yes, the tests were hard but what do you expect? its Uni. And he was more than generous when scaling. Overall 9/10 recommend - very nice guy overall!!

Simon is a solid professor, very fair and easy to understand.

The professor is very fair in his grading, but excellent in his teaching. He is caring and understands some students need concepts explained at different speeds. He wants the best for all his students. Also, take advantage of his office hours!

Simon is the best prof I've had so far, he gave me a reason to respect physics lol

I really liked his lectures and typos/spelling errors didn't bother me as much, but beware there are a lot. He gave us lots of demos in class. Lots of homework and iclickers for bonus marks. Tutorials are mandatory and significant part of the grade, it's a double-edged sword cause it's an easy mark, but not everyone likes attending tutorials.

he is a good prof and easy to understand. the exams are hard.