It's not as hard as I would've expected from the honors class, but it still is difficult. There's a bunch of stuff that's useful to know for physics 110ab (if you're a physics major), and it's really heavy on math. Take math 32b before if you can. The regular physics 1b doesn't cover things like special relativity and Maxwell's equations. Attendance was mandatory. We had weekly homework problems, two midterms (averages were around ~80% and ~70% if I remember correctly), and a final.

If you just want to take this class because it gets curved a lot more than the regular class, probably don't do it. Even if you're an EE major, I don't think this class is more helpful than the regular one for that subject. But if you're really interested in the physics, it's very fun!

Personally! Just personally. I liked the class; it was pretty easy, but also I put in more effort than the average person (not too much work even). I did some extra practice problems from the textbook and made sure I understood everything. The tests were a breeze after doing all those work.

In terms of lecture itself, Petta is a pretty good professor. He does a bunch of demos in class, and it’s fun when you understand the material already. I guess my main advice is to kind of self-study and have fun in class!

Petta is a fantastic professor, easily one of the best I have had so far at UCLA. His lectures clearly explain the concepts, first giving a brief overview using slides, then going more in-depth with calculations he helps you work through. The best part of each lecture was the demonstrations, which while didn't help to explain the material much, provided a bit of an idea for real life applications of these concepts, and was just plain entertaining, especially after an hour of dense lecture.

His problem sets were very difficult. He would assign around six textbook problems per week, each of which took on the order of 30 minutes to complete. Discussion sections helped immensely with the homework, as at least one problem would be solved basically in its entirety.

Exams were fair, with the midterms being significantly easier than the final. Both often pulled problems from the textbook, and were essentially designed to be curved up, with an average of around 60-70%.

Though this class was very rigorous, I would recommend it to anyone interested in physics or willing to challenge themselves. I would not worry about the grading too much, as there is a generous curve, like in most honors classes.