I thought this was a pretty fair class! Niemann very clearly cares about his students and how much you're learning, which I really appreciated and don't always see in my lower division courses.

I thought he was pretty clear in his lectures, the hard part for me is staying engaged as the quarter goes on. Bruincast is helpful for that. He goes through a lot of examples in class, especially some that are nearly the same as what you see on the homework and exams, so definitely try to take them!

He used an interesting grading scheme where the two midterms were worth one "unit" each and the final was worth two "units." Your score on the best 3 out of 4 made up of 75% of your total grade. So he's pretty forgiving if you have to miss a midterm or bomb it. You have a chance at making it up later.

I thought the midterms were pretty doable, but other folks have told me they're on the more challenging side. The first midterm was a little bit too long (I scribbled out an answer on the last question in the last two minutes of class), and he shortened the second midterm after hearing feedback from students. He's super understanding!

Homework and lab are the rest of your grade. They're pretty par for the course if you've taken other physics 5 classes. He uses Kudu instead of Mastering Physics, which I liked a lot better. He's able to write his own questions or something? It's a lot less infuriating than Mastering Physics homework.

Overall, a pretty fair class! The class feels disjointed because there are so many disparate topics in one course, but that's more a problem with the curriculum than this individual class itself. Not my favorite but also not my least favorite. I had a really heavy fall quarter and left this class on the backburner only to do weekly homework and study right before tests and did perfectly well!

Dr. Niemann is the best physics professor that I have had at UCLA, and he truly made me enjoy Physics 5B with him. Every lecture was engaging, with various demos and visual representations of the physics concepts that we were learning. Dr. Niemann was extremely knowledgable, understanding, and clear with his explanations. Office hours were informative as he was willing to answer questions about the material and re-explained tricky concepts.
The class had a light workload, consisting of weekly homework, labs, and exams. The homework was on Kudu, an assortment of MCQ and free response, typically taken from his old exams, so they were great practice for the tests. There were three exams: two in-class midterms and one final exam. The homework was worth 10%, and the labs were worth 15% of the grade. The remaining 75% was the exams; each exam was either weighted 25% equally, or you could drop lower midterm, making the other midterm 25% of the grade and the final exam 50%. Because of the fact that Dr. Niemann offered these two grading schemes, there was no extra credit offered.
A week before each exam, Dr. Niemann provided a past exam from a previous quarter for practice. These were extremely helpful as it provided a representative difficulty and length of what to expect on our exam. The MCQ sections (conceptual questions) were often quite similar on the real exam, but the free response prompts did differ. Additionally, the night before each exam, Dr. Niemann would host a Zoom office hours for around two hours to answer any and all questions about the material, homework, and practice exam. He was genuinely interested in student learning and incredibly patient and helpful, answering student needs and often willing to repeat the same concepts/questions as multiple students inquired about it.
In terms of the material covered in this class, it feels quite different from 5A and 5C in the sense that Physics 5B is a compilation of so many unrelated topics. Week to week, we moved onto a completely new area of physics, where it seemed like the previous content was irrelevant. This class covers, in order - thermodynamics, fluids and fluid dynamics, oscillations and waves, sound, light, diffraction/ refraction, and lenses/imaging. (Almost) each week was a new topic unrelated to the last!
Overall, I absolutely loved Physics 5B with Dr. Niemann. I learned a lot and will likely retain much of this information due to his inclusion of countless real-life examples, biological applications, and live in-lecture demonstrations. Dr. Niemann was so genuinely invested in our success through his helpful support in office hours and clear and thorough explanations in lecture. I would highly recommend Dr. Niemann for any class, especially Physics 5B!

If you have to take physics 5B take Professor Neimann. If you're like me and can't do physics and are hoping you just don't fail, he's the guy. His tests aren't super hard and really depend on the lecture he teaches. Also he has this policy where he will drop one of your midterms if you do good on the final and vice versa. It's a complicated system but its helpful. He says he doesn't curve because he's giving you this massive drop. He's good natured and his lectures aren't boring. Most are filled with demonstrations that help you understand the concept better. Overall, before taking this course I was praying to atleast get a C but I passed with an A!

Dr. Niemann is one of the best professors I have ever had at UCLA. He genuinely cares about students and will go the extra mile to make sure you actually understand the material. That being said, his tests are challenging as they require you to understand the conceptual parts of the material.

The class is composed of two midterms and a final, there’s also homework but that’s worth a pretty small percentage. He allows you to drop one midterm or have the final be weighed the same as a midterm, depending on which scheme gives you a better grade. The midterms are pretty long considering you only get 50 minutes to complete, but they were pretty fair overall. He like multiple choice questions that test your conceptual knowledge so be careful as that section can easily trip you up. For studying I recommend redoing the problems he went over in class, make sure you understand the practice midterms he posts, and attend the review session he does before every test. The discussion worksheets aren’t very helpful and they are pretty disjointed from the problems he gives, don’t waste your time.

In general, Professor Niemann is a solid choice for physics :) absolutely take it with him if you can.

PS- I HIGHLY recommend that you go to his office hours! They are extremely helpful and he gives lots of examples/hints as to what you can expect on the exam.

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Dr Niemann is one of the best science profs I've had here at ucla! He comes off as very stoic but he really cares about his student & tries his best to help us learn. He makes himself available for soooo many office hours & I recommend going to them because he's really helpful with working out problems. When I took it, the first midterm was difficult & I didn't finish it, but a lot of people didn't finish that midterm & he took that into account & made the second midterm much easier.

For each midterm you're allowed a flashcard for equations & for the final you're allowed a page of paper. The Kudu homework is like mastering physics but better for learning imo. His exam questions are very similar to the practice exams he puts out & the discussion worksheets, & I recommend getting tests from the test bank. And often he'll say what types of questions end up on the exam, either in class or in office hours. For the final he told us explicitly how many problems & which type were each.