This class felt like 2-3 classes in one: the combination between the lecture, discussion, and lab, all with their own homework, was kind of overwhelming. Prof Bauer is great, but he's only like 1/3 of the class experience haha

Bauer is a really cool prof. I've heard horror stories about other physics profs, so if you're looking to avoid that, take Bauer. He doesn't use slides, which is interesting, but writes everything out on the chalkboard. Probably not the most helpful if you're someone who annotates the powerpoint on an Ipad or something, but he writes slow enough that it's very legible and not hard to keep up with him. He is extremely reasonable and accommodating--plenty of extensions on assignments when circumstances arose or he just didn't feel like we had enough time with the material. The tests were pretty comparable in difficulty with the homework and lecture problems, so no surprises there. We also got to use a cheat sheet on the exams which was great because there's lots of formulas. I would definitely take 5A with him again, and wish he taught 5B the quarter I'm taking it.

This was my first college physics course since high school and I definitely felt that this class was very time consuming (which it should be) because I had to find extra resources to really understand the material on my own. I will say that there were a lot of Khan Academy Videos and Organic Chemistry Tutor videos that were amazing! I think the professor explained concepts well in lecture; however, the practice problems were sooooo simple in comparison to the weekly quizzes. Even the old practice exams/ quizzes I thought were much easier compared to the quizzes he gave us. Don't get me wrong there were a few quizzes that were definitely easier than others, but overall the quizzes were on the difficult side. Here was the breakdown for the course:

Discussion: 5%
Final Exam: 10%
Homework (Mastering Physics): 10%
Laboratory: 15%
Quizzes: 60%
Extra Credit (Campuswire): 0.1%-0.3%

The Quizzes took place every Wednesday and you only had 50 minutes to complete the quiz and upload to Gradescope, otherwise it was late and not accepted. On the bright side you were able to drop 2 quizzes; however, that meant every quiz was worth about 9% of your grade in the class. What really helped me succeed on the quizzes was going through the book, I found that a lot of the quizzes were reflective of the sample problems in the chapters!!!! I found mastering physics to be the most helpful in terms of practice problems. In office hours the professor was very helpful answering questions. Lab was also time consuming, but my TA graded generously and I got 100 on all those. I found discussion to not be very helpful, we would work on worksheets and no one ever talked in our breakout room. In the end I finished with an 89.5% and wasn't rounded up (very frustrating). I would say just to try to work through as many problems as you can and really understand them, ask questions, and work through the sample problems in the book!

Bauer is a great professor and he made a hard subject super manageable. He's an easy grader and really generous with points.

Dr. Bauer is extremely helpful and accommodating as a professor! He always asked for input from the class and wanted students to succeed. He's very active on Campuswire by answering questions and makes lectures easy to understand. The quizzes and final were fair and similar to the homework and practice problems we were assigned. I had a stronger conceptual understanding of the topics than I did in high school because Dr. Bauer explained them very clearly. Even if you don't enjoy physics, the class is very doable. I highly recommend taking 5A with Bauer!

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I hated physics in high school but Bauer made it very manageable. He was super accommodating to everyone's requests and overall he's just a really great guy. Definitely recommend him for any physics class!