He is such a nice teacher. You can tell that he loves his subject and cares for his students. He gives quizes just about every week. Most of the time they are problems at the end of the chapter, but you need to buy the solution manual to know if you are doing them right. Half the time he tells you what is going to be on the test. Hes kind of hard to understand and sometimes doesn't explain too well. His tests were easy in the beginning but they kept getting harder (maybe that was because the subject got harder). If you have had physics before, this class will be a breaze. If not, it will be pretty difficult. in our class, homework wasn't graded, you just got the point for trying to do the problems.

I love this professor; I looked forward to going to lecture only because he has that cute but confusing accent and the fact that he always wears a greyish suit. I liked doodling him in class when I was supposed to be paying attention. Anyways, it definitely is to your advantage to have a physics background. I may be wrong, but it seemed as though a lot of my fellow classmates didn't. That might be the reason a lot of people had trouble with this class. Physics itself is inherently a hard subject to get a good grasp of, so hearing it all for the first time, especially when so many chapters are crammed into one week's lesson, is probably difficult. The TA was not particularly helpful, from what I experienced. He was always late to the discussions so I stopped going. Then again, I never went to a single office hour. The professor assigns weekly homework; they start off easy in the first few weeks but gradually get harder. I see a lot of people copying each other's homework right before lecture, and this is stupid for a multitude of reasons. 1) It's called cheating. Period. 2) You don't need to get 100% on the homework to get an A in the class. Just do your best, and read the chapter that the homework comes from because some questions have answers within the chapter itself. He also gives weekly quizzes which get pretty tough, but all you really have to do is a) do the homework because he takes at least one problem from it and b) go back through the notes because he also takes questions from there. You don't need to get 100% on the quizzes to get an A in the class either. You DO have to do well on the midterms and final though, so study hard if you don't have a good physics background. There is no cheat sheet or anything. I got an A on both midterms, and I'm not sure on the final. I got an A+ in the class, despite the fact that I hardly went to discussion, did the homework the night before, and got somewhere between B-B+ on the weekly quizzes. *Shrugs* I think his curve is pretty generous.

Nefkens is the worst professor I have had all year. This is supposed to be elemantary physics, and although the concepts explained in the text are simple, the professor complicates it beyond necessary, frustrating his students which consist almost entirely of non-science majors. Most of us are taking this class for a GE or pre-psych pre-reqs. His quizzes are difficult (after the first 2 or 3 of the quarter). Nefkens always went off on a tangent, which only added to the misery that was his accent that no one could understand. From what I observed, most people did poorly on his quizzes but the curve at the end of the course was pretty generous. The midterms and final were reasonable, however; really study from those quizzes.

This is an awful class. He is the nicest, sweetest old man ever. But unfortnately he is OLD. And I mean OLD, in the sense that he has no idea what he is talking about. I want to say that he gets distracted, but I feel that he has no direction, and maybe what I feel are the useless distractions are acutally his lecture? I stopped going, and when I did go, I apparently ended up drooling on myself. The midterms were nothing more than a complilation of homework and quiz questions, word for word. So memorize those and you will probably get an A.

It is so true that if you do all of the end of the chapter questions the quizzes are better but i did every question in the book practically and i never got 100% on a quiz. The midterms were review but the final was not. I am not complaining because i got an A+ in the class, but it is a lot of work, ie 6 chapters in one week is ridiculous. I dont know the other professors, but this is a lot of work and not a cake walk as people say.

I took Physics 10 in Spring 2002. I could never understand what Nefkens said with his accent but he was nice and tried to be fair. I honestly rarly read the book because we covered so many chapters in one week, but I went to lecture. I also went to his TA with help with the homework (DO NOT GO TO AAP BECAUSE THE TUTOR IS HORRIBLE). There is a lot of homework and only a couple of the questions are graded so you must do all of them because you never know which ones will be graded. The weekly quizzes were hard and I did horribly on them but they all came from the end of the chapter questions but it is impossible to go over all of them in a week. I did well on both midterms and I thought they were fair because they were mostly questions from old quizzes and homework. However, the final which is 45% was difficult and only partially repetitive. Yet, I still got an A in the class. Out of all the Physics 10 profs. Nefkens is not perfect but he is the easiest and nicest.

He's a pretty cool professor. I couldn't really understand what he was saying half the time but honestly, its a pretty decent course. You have a homework packet due once a week. DO THE HW!!!! it's really important because a some of the quiz material comes from there. There one quiz almost every week. The quizzes aren't hard. Just go over the exercises and the problems in the back of the chapters. A lot of the questions come from there even if they weren't assigned as homework. The midterms were kinda bad but not really. The final was weird. There were really easy questions from previous quizzes BUT there were some random, really hard questions.I pulled a C the whole quarter because I never really studied, but I ended up getting a B...so i dunno, its up to u. He'z an awesome professor.

His class was rediculously easy. It is one of the few classes at ucla where it is possible to end the quarter with a 110%. I am not exaggerating and no it isn't a typo, it is really possible to get well over a hundred percent. If you read the text and suffer through the lectures you are on your way to a major g.p.a booster.

I found professor Nefkens to be a very effective teacher. I had him for physics 10. He can be long winded at times and you will think that he is talking about many things that are both irrelevant and unimportant, however, if you have patience he will tell you everything that you need to know. Attend lectures and go to his office hours if you can. Reading the book helps too, but he will tell you everything you need. On the final, every single question was a question that we had seen before and reviewed the answer for. HE is also big on extra credit, so take advantage of it and you will get an A+. Yes, he gives those too, and that is just an added boost. Also, he rewards effort so if you show him you care, then your grade will reflect that. I really recommend Nefkens.

I think Nefkens' class was pretty cool. He puts up the answers to the tests, homeworks and quizzes after the day they are due which helps you study for the midterms and final and helps you understand the material better. His final was straight from the homeworks quizzes and midterms all of which you can have the answers to from the class webpage. He was also funny especially when showing us many demonstrations. The other professor required her class to know the history of physics but Nefkens is concerned with concepts. Im glad I had Nefkens and I would recommend him.