PHYSICS 5A
Physics for Life Sciences Majors: Mechanics and Energy
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; laboratory, two hours. Requisites: Life Sciences 30A, 30B, or Mathematics 3A, 3B, 3C (3C may be taken concurrently). Statics and dynamics of forces, motion, energy, including thermal energy, with applications to biological and biochemical systems. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Professor Sakai graded our class on a straight scale, where an 85% is an A-, 80% is B+, and so on. Grades were made up of labs (15%), midterm 1/participation grade (25%), midterm 2/participation grade (25%), final exam (50%). One midterm grade can be replaced with your participation grade which is made up of pre-lecture assignments, homework, clickers, and discussion sections. It's not too hard to get full points on the participation grade, but if you are confident in physics you could just gamble on doing well on the midterms and avoid doing a lot of busy work. The two midterms are free response, 50 mins long, and in class. I found them to be very straight forward, and Prof Sakai's practice problems and the LA's review worksheets were helpful for the exams. The final was harder in my opinion. It was about twice as long as the midterms, with a multiple choice section and free response questions. The multiple choice questions wasn't too bad, but I found the free response to be a lot more challenging and had questions I had no idea how to solve. Prof Sakai is a pretty bad lecturer since she gets confused in class and would often ask the students if she was doing a problem correctly. She's a nice person and easygoing, but sooo disorganized. I didn't take physics in high school and I got really frustrated bc of how confusing she is. However, I did well in the class by doing a lot of practice problems and going over lecture slides. If you are confident in your ability to learn material without much guidance from a professor, I would recommend taking Sakai since her tests and grading scheme are reasonable.
Fall 2019 - Professor Sakai graded our class on a straight scale, where an 85% is an A-, 80% is B+, and so on. Grades were made up of labs (15%), midterm 1/participation grade (25%), midterm 2/participation grade (25%), final exam (50%). One midterm grade can be replaced with your participation grade which is made up of pre-lecture assignments, homework, clickers, and discussion sections. It's not too hard to get full points on the participation grade, but if you are confident in physics you could just gamble on doing well on the midterms and avoid doing a lot of busy work. The two midterms are free response, 50 mins long, and in class. I found them to be very straight forward, and Prof Sakai's practice problems and the LA's review worksheets were helpful for the exams. The final was harder in my opinion. It was about twice as long as the midterms, with a multiple choice section and free response questions. The multiple choice questions wasn't too bad, but I found the free response to be a lot more challenging and had questions I had no idea how to solve. Prof Sakai is a pretty bad lecturer since she gets confused in class and would often ask the students if she was doing a problem correctly. She's a nice person and easygoing, but sooo disorganized. I didn't take physics in high school and I got really frustrated bc of how confusing she is. However, I did well in the class by doing a lot of practice problems and going over lecture slides. If you are confident in your ability to learn material without much guidance from a professor, I would recommend taking Sakai since her tests and grading scheme are reasonable.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Everyone will tell you that Samani is a great professor, and this is true. He is an enthusiastic and engaging lecturer, but his exams are SO difficult. They are not straightforward at all, very conceptual based (kind of reminds me of AP exams). If you're looking for an easy time and simple exams where you can plug in numbers into formulas -- this is not it. Also, he requires you to use a lot of "common sense" during exams and estimate values such as mass, height, velocity etc. of objects. As someone who had never taken physics before, this was a challenging class. Unless you are very confident about your physics understanding, this class will be tough.
Fall 2019 - Everyone will tell you that Samani is a great professor, and this is true. He is an enthusiastic and engaging lecturer, but his exams are SO difficult. They are not straightforward at all, very conceptual based (kind of reminds me of AP exams). If you're looking for an easy time and simple exams where you can plug in numbers into formulas -- this is not it. Also, he requires you to use a lot of "common sense" during exams and estimate values such as mass, height, velocity etc. of objects. As someone who had never taken physics before, this was a challenging class. Unless you are very confident about your physics understanding, this class will be tough.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - I absolutely LOVED this class under Professor Schriver. I’m a soft stem major (environmental science) and I was terrified for this class because I don’t have a math-oriented brain. David makes it so simple and straightforward that I was able to end with an A+, despite the fact that I’m not really an A student at UCLA. I’m a huge procrastinator and usually this ends badly for me but I was able to learn all the material I needed the day before each of the exams. I just used the provided practice problems and learned how to do them as I solved them, and in doing that I learned everything necessary. Another huge plus of taking Schriver: he provides all necessary formulas on tests, no memorization needed! He says it’s not about proving who can memorize the most stuff, it’s about showing that you know how to use formulas effectively. I wish every class was like that. He genuinely cares about student learning despite the sheer volume of students he teaches each quarter; a testament to his character. If you have to take this series or really any physics class in your time at UCLA, take it with Schriver. You won’t regret it.
Fall 2022 - I absolutely LOVED this class under Professor Schriver. I’m a soft stem major (environmental science) and I was terrified for this class because I don’t have a math-oriented brain. David makes it so simple and straightforward that I was able to end with an A+, despite the fact that I’m not really an A student at UCLA. I’m a huge procrastinator and usually this ends badly for me but I was able to learn all the material I needed the day before each of the exams. I just used the provided practice problems and learned how to do them as I solved them, and in doing that I learned everything necessary. Another huge plus of taking Schriver: he provides all necessary formulas on tests, no memorization needed! He says it’s not about proving who can memorize the most stuff, it’s about showing that you know how to use formulas effectively. I wish every class was like that. He genuinely cares about student learning despite the sheer volume of students he teaches each quarter; a testament to his character. If you have to take this series or really any physics class in your time at UCLA, take it with Schriver. You won’t regret it.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Dr. Tung was one of the best professors I've had at UCLA! I had a very poor experience with physics in high school and was very nervous coming into 5A, but Tung broke down the material in a way that was really easy to understand. He mostly goes over concepts in lecture with little emphasis on "plugging and chugging." He really cares about his students and was very accommodating for the current situation. He did his lectures via YouTube for spring quarter (COVID). You need to be able to solve problems on exams without numbers, which can be slightly confusing, but after the first midterm it becomes a little easier. The best advice I can give you is to GO TO HIS REVIEW SESSIONS! They really make the exams a lot easier and help you with the reasoning behind a lot of the questions. Make sure you understand how things are derived instead of just memorizing them. I'd say the biggest pain in this class was Mastering Physics, but he only required us to do 65% of the problems and the rest was extra credit. Extra credit was also provided through TopHat, typically with 1 point for attempting the question and 1 point for getting it right. Don't be worried by reviews from his other classes, overall I'd say this was a great class and Tung is a very clear instructor.
Spring 2020 - Dr. Tung was one of the best professors I've had at UCLA! I had a very poor experience with physics in high school and was very nervous coming into 5A, but Tung broke down the material in a way that was really easy to understand. He mostly goes over concepts in lecture with little emphasis on "plugging and chugging." He really cares about his students and was very accommodating for the current situation. He did his lectures via YouTube for spring quarter (COVID). You need to be able to solve problems on exams without numbers, which can be slightly confusing, but after the first midterm it becomes a little easier. The best advice I can give you is to GO TO HIS REVIEW SESSIONS! They really make the exams a lot easier and help you with the reasoning behind a lot of the questions. Make sure you understand how things are derived instead of just memorizing them. I'd say the biggest pain in this class was Mastering Physics, but he only required us to do 65% of the problems and the rest was extra credit. Extra credit was also provided through TopHat, typically with 1 point for attempting the question and 1 point for getting it right. Don't be worried by reviews from his other classes, overall I'd say this was a great class and Tung is a very clear instructor.