Going into this class with 0 background in physics throughout high school, I was terrified by the reviews that I saw on bruinwalk for the professor. My fears only got worse on the first day of class when he gave us a talk about how we shouldn’t expect to get As in this class because he centers his grades around a B average as per the department. Given his accent, it was a little difficult to understand him at times. However by no means do I think that’s any of an excuse to put blame on him as a professor and his teaching credibility. He tries his best to work around his accent and he’s self aware of the potential difficulties that it may cause students. I stopped going to lectures after week 1 and self studied the material based off of his homework (which was incredibly helpful as it was challenging, at least for me) and his slides. His exams were usually somewhat similar to the past exams that he provides for all students, and while there’s a bit of a time crunch, many of the exam problems are not difficult in terms of the overall process in solving them. I would find myself shocked looking at his answer keys for old exams and realizing that I had overcomplicated the problem and that the real answer was way simpler. Regardless of whether or not this professor has high ratings, physics 5A is such a difficult class to get so if this professor is what you’re left with just take it. My advice is to really UNDERSTAND the logic behind the problems and not just memorize the steps on how to do it. On exams he will make slight changes to homework problems and sometimes old exam problems and you have to understand how that changes the way you solve it. Best of luck!

Huang was a good professor. Coming into the class, I was super nervous because I was told his tests were super difficult and that his grading scheme was exam-heavy.

The tests were not that bad, but the grading scheme was definitely exam-heavy! It is imperative that you do well!

The grading distribution was as follows:

10% Homework and Quiz (he winds up giving everyone that attempts these 100%, regardless of correctness)

30% Midterms 1/2

45% final exam

15% labs

The tests were somewhat like the practice finals/midterms and a cheat sheet was allowed for both the midterm and final. As long as you put in an adequate amount of effort (I suggest reading the textbook and taking notes), you will do well! You definitely get out what you put into this class. The questions on the test will not be exactly the same as what is provided on the practice exams, but will be similar enough to allow you to apply the concepts to alternatively-structured problems!

Huang, regardless of past reviews, is a great professor! He truly cares about student learning and his accent, while thick, is not the reason for student’s inability to do well! Put in a solid amount of effort and his class will go fine! He was super nice and even would crack jokes during lecture! Demonstrations were fun too! Overall, he was one of the better teachers I’ve had at UCLA!

Oh my god I hated this class with Huang. While I found the concepts really interesting, I still barely passed the class because THIS MAN CAN NOT TEACH. He would just put equations up and say here's the equation and not walk us through what they meant. He would also have practice problems on the slides and then just click to the next slide where the answer would be LIKE HELLO can you walk us through the processes please. Also, he's so hard to understand!!!! I have an Asian mom with an accent but I still struggled to understand him which is saying something. I had to sit really close to him to be able to hear him because if the back of the lecture hall there was absolutely no chance even though he has a mic.

OH MY GOD and the test!!! He would always say that he wasn't going to throw curve balls at us but then test us on crazy variations of the concepts!! His tests were sooooooo much harder than the other professors that quarter (Tung and Bauer). If you can take the class with someone else DO IT.

Use Professor Huang's lectures as a list of what to study that takes him 50 min to say, not as a way to learn. Because of this, I stopped showing up to lectures in Week 3 as I found they were actually WORSE for my learning because he tends to severely downplay how difficult the concepts are / their difficulty on exams. He gives out a list of exam topics a week before the midterm via email (if they haven't been sent out via email just watch the previous week's lectures on 2x speed they are NOT WORTH WATCHING). Again, DO NOT TRUST PROF HUANG because he says the exams will be easy. THEY ARE NOT EASY. However, his lists of exam topics are reliable. I recommend PhysicsNinja because a lot of the more difficult PhysicsNinja examples were what appeared on exams...like...exactly...I almost wonder if he gets his problems from PhysicsNinja. The previous midterms are 50/50 representative of exams, just take them with a grain of salt. Make sure your cheat sheet is decked out because the way to do well on exams is copy pasting from your cheat sheet.

Huang was not a great teacher. You can read the other reviews to see the breakdown of the class, but he's not a great teacher. He doesn't teach the material, he just REVIEWS it, so if you don't have a background in physics, you're basically fucked. He will go over problems in class that are very simple and not that in depth about the topics, but his exams combine multiple different topics into one problem that is virtually impossible. Good luck if you have him.

Rather than add to all the negative reviews, I will write what tactics I found most helpful to pass his class:

1) youtube practice problems based on class content for each test and the professor's practice problems (do these for hours and you will be prepared as possible for the tests, they're truly the only way I could prepare for the tests)
2) don't worry to much about homework or quizzes, he ends up giving everyone 100%. The homework is a little helpful but literally the quizzes aren't relevant
3) don't copy down practice problems on your cheat sheet, actually learn them through youtube because his problems are slightly different
4) attend lecture because he will emphasize specific concepts that will be on the test. However, don't expect to learn anything from them. THIS IS VERY MUCH A CLASS WHERE YOU WILL BE TEACHING YOURSELF

*also, the fact that his exams are all free response is actually very helpful. if you don't know how to solve it, writing down equations that you think might apply and your best guess will usually get you partial credit

I was initially afraid of this class based on previous reviews, but he is actually a professor I would gladly take again.

His exam review gave us a general idea of what sorts of topics and types of problems would be covered, and he made it very clear that we might see new types of problems and be expected to figure out how to solve those, and I never felt like these new problems were very different than what he taught. As long as you thoroughly understand the material and why each problem is solved in the way it is, you'll be fine.

As for lectures, I will admit it can get hard to understand his accent at times, and sometimes it feels like he just doesn't know the words to communicate what he wants to say. So, he does end up leaving problems half-solved or unsolved in lecture, but you can easily find similar problems on Youtube with explanations (I recommend Michel van Biezen).

He ended up giving everyone 100% on the homework and quizzes, but I would definitely do the homeworks, as they were good practice for the exams. Also, he curves the class such that at least 30% get an A-, but he never curves anyone down if more than 30% has an A-.

Overall, this class shouldn't be too difficult if you set aside the proper time and effort to understand the content and do as many practice problems as possible (he provides past exams that are pretty similar to the exams he gives). He genuinely cares about his students' success and understanding of the material and is very approachable with any questions you have.

Huang has a lot of negative reviews, just because his lectures are unclear and the grading scheme does make it such that the average is curved to a B- per departmental policy. HOWEVER, I would say that if you take 5A with him, it's not the end of the world at all. Come into the class ready to take advantage of TAs/LAs for support in clarifying content since his lectures/office hours are not the clearest due to his strong accent. His exams are honestly fair and are very similar to examples in lecture/discussions– the hard part is finishing on time since they're administered during the 50min lecture window. This was the real challenge of this class: I ran out of time on both midterms, scoring about a 70% on both. But, his final does not take the full 3 hours and I was able to double check everything-- I got a 95%. THIS is what saved me: his grading policies aim to really help students that put in the work. 1) Any student scoring above 90% on the final would get a guaranteed A- in the class. I actually was able to get an A after absolutely flopping both midterms. 2) His philosophy is that he'd rather you do the homework late than not at all. So, he grants extensions NQA for any homework assignment, so there's a decent amount of padding you can do for your grade (Labs/HW/Quizzes). Plus, at the end of the quarter, he ended up just giving everyone full credit if they completed it.

ignore the negative reviews, this class is the equivalence of ap physics 1. Midterms are 4 questions and finals are 10. To be fair, he outlines a list of concepts/questions that will be on the midterm and finals. That means you are either not paying attention in class or not attempting to get help, so stop blaming the professor's teaching ability... Weekly homework: he ended up giving everyone full credit regardless but I honestly suggesting doing them and asking for help. For labs, as long as you show up to class, complete projects on-time and don't mess your partners up, should also be a perfect score.

Forget the previous negative reviews, 5A is the equivalence of ap physics 1 and his workload is definitely manageable. In terms of the online weekly modules, he ended up giving everyone full credit but I honestly suggest you do them. Midterms are only 4 questions. To be fair, he outlines a list of concepts that will be tested, and the test questions on the real tests resembles the practice tests. I also had a wonderful TA that was giving office hours on sundays. Lab component of 5A should be easy. Show up to lab, don't disappoint your lab partners, submit assignment on-time.