First major gripe: Monday's pre-recorded lectures, which are scheduled for 50 minutes on MyUCLA, would sometimes last TWO AND A HALF HOURS; the first week he put in the effort to edit it and condense it down, but then he just gave up and uploaded them at ridiculously long length.

Quizzes: instead of midterms and such, we had weekly timed quizzes on gradescope. Having one every week got overwhelming at times, and they were quite challenging themselves. Difficulty was similar to 5A tests I had with Prof Tung.

Overall not a bad class. These were my only real struggles. A is definitely doable. Samani is a good lecturer and nice person.

I thought this class was great! Prof Samani was very accomodating throughout the quarter, and he made his policies very clear from the start. Although I disagree with them (ex. no equation sheet), he was clear from the first day, so people shouldn't be upset about it on the very the last day of class. To be honest, us LS majors couldn't give a rat's ass about physics and learning these equations, but they aren't even that bad to memorize. At most, it was just a minor inconvenience for the final exam if you did not study. As a professor, Samani was great at explaining tricky concepts. He took constant feedback about what the class wanted to do for the quizzes, and he was pretty considerate about student's needs. I switched out of Lancaster's 5B into Samani's 5B and my god was it the best decision I ever made. You can't go wrong with this prof.

You definitely need to work hard in this class to understand the concepts. Instead of a Monday lecture, we have 24-hr timed weekly quizzes over the content we learned. No midterms at all! No homework! I really appreciated this approach as I thought it was way less stressful. The quizzes themselves were pretty straightforward. If you pay attention to his lectures, he pretty much goes over examples that are very similar to the ones of the quizzes. He gives an optional practice packet of questions every week, but I didn't find them helpful while studying. The best thing to do to prepare for the quizzes and finals is to look over the discussion worksheets and the examples he goes over in class.

One thing I wish Samani did differently though was the way he structured his content videos. Instead of Monday lecture, we would have the weekly quizzes. Samani would post a pretty lengthy content video that goes over all of the content for the week, and he spends class time on Wed and Fri talking about specific example questions relating to that week's content. I really liked this format because we got to see what kind of questions he would ask us. However, the content videos would often be 2hrs long, which sucked. Again, the lack of an equation sheet sucked, but it was at most just a minor inconvenience.

Most of the people complaining in these reviews either didn't show up to class, didn't watch his content videos, or just didn't know how to study for his quizzes. Newsflash: Physics is tough! A prof can only do so much for your grade, and there is a very small minority that will use the lack of an equation sheet to justify why they couldn't do well throughout the entire course. His lectuers are more than sufficient to be prepared for the quizzes, which I felt were pretty straightforward. Great class, and if I had to take it again, I would take it with Samani.

Samani overall was a great Professor, in that I learned alot from what he taught, and the way he lectured made me interested in physics. However, do not take this class if you want an essay A. He invests alot of time in this class including posting well-made demos simulations and weekly content videos. The videos were a little long but weren't horrible if you watched at double speed. The weekly quizzes were pretty manageable assuming you went to class and watched the content video. However, they were closed notes so that definitely made them more difficult. While the class isn't easy if you put in the time and work you can defiantly succeed. If you actually want to learn physics would definitely take this class.

Samani is a great professor. He is passionate about the subject and has thorough explanations. Many of the people writing poor reviews here likely never showed up to class and/or refused to study for the final.
Surprise! Physics is hard... but as somebody who has had actually bad physics professors in the past I can assure you this is the guy to take. If you show up to class and study for just 15 minutes a week outside of class, you will do great on every quiz and the final. Plus, there are no midterms, which means less stress on you when all your other professors are breathing down your neck weeks 4-7. Look at the grade distribution.

I think professor Samani is the greatest physics professor I've ever met. Other than teaching physics concepts, he really cares about students' needs. He changed the quiz duration to be much longer than usual in order to reduce students' anxiety on unsuccessful gradescope submission. The difficulty of quizzes and the final is reasonable as long as you follow the lectures carefully and do most of the practice pracket problems. Also, go to his office hour which is really useful! To be honest, as a math major, I spend 60-70% of my time on this physics course, but I think it's worth it. I really enjoy this course because I can feel Samani's passion when teaching it. I'll definitely enroll in other courses of Samani in the future if I had a chance. Take his class if you really want to learn sth!

BEST PROFESSOR EVER!!! Samani will make you LOVE physics even if you've never loved physics before. He is so engaging and funny and makes every single lecture relatable and applicable to your life. Like I would leave lecture wanting to learn more and I never really liked 5A so Samani completely turned the experience around for me. TAKE PHYSICS WITH SAMANI HE WILL MAKE YOU LOVE SCHOOL!!!

Samani's teaching isn't just good for passing a major requirement or getting a good grade in physics - it's good for improving your common sense in life. If you attend the lectures and office hours every week, you shouldn't have a problem with understanding how to do the problems and what the strategies are for understanding not only the formulas but the basic logic of the problems he tends to ask. I don't think he gives extra credit, but I remember the way his class was structured: he put out problem sets, and several practice exams for each test, and he would go over them more in detail during office hours, while the lectures were there for you to understand how he wants you to see the formulas. He has a great charisma in his lectures I have never seen before, you can tell he's very passionate and knowledgeable about teaching. The problem sets will take most of your time, as do the practice tests, but if you do everything, you will get an A. If not, you will fail. I would recommend this teacher, but remember to do every single question in his online textbook so you don't have to worry about it later - his textbook kind of sucks, but the questions are worth completion points and it's a little pointless to use them for studying anything in this class, so just get it out of the way first.

I think (if you couldn't already tell from other reviews) that Samani is very polarizing! if he's not for you hes NOT for you and if he is for you then he REALLY is!

things that made him not for me:
1. idgaf about physics, and I'm not an MCAT warrior. This class is a requirement for my major, and that's literally it. I was hoping to thug it out and not have my GPA become abysmal (goal failed) + I hate math, always been bad at it
2. Three pages of equations and conversions (such as temperature and diopters to meters) that we were expected to have memorized for the final! sorry what!??? to be fair: he was VERY clear about this right from the get go but I had no choice but to pick him since I work 24hrs a week and was in need of a specific schedule
3. (Pretty much) Mandatory attendance, unless you want to lose 2% of your grade
4. In order to create memory reinforcement, lots of practice materials, such as his textbook with questions and all sorts of stuff, and they were worth like 2% of your grade but at times felt like weird busy work, it was not my favorite
5. final worth 35% :0 after having everything worth 15% or less, the final is so daunting

Things that make him cool:
1. really engaging lecturer! super chill personality, friendly and approachable!!
2. actually made ts applicaple, again idgaf about physics but every now and again i was like okay this is kinda cool!
3. is not as unflexible as people say he is- he gave my class some additional extra credit randomly which is apprecaited
4. 4 tests instead of midterms, they were each worth like 7% which made it less stressful to fumble a topic and you were getting more frequent feedback!
5. good music taste

This class is tough, and Samani makes sure that you get every bit you can out of this class. He teaches real world applications, which is great, at the cost of your grade. He makes topics really conceptual-based but doesn't focus as much on how to apply this to calculations. He's essentially forcing you to master a concept that doesn't need mastering to do well in physics 5B. Theres 6 exams total counting the final and team test at the end of the quarter, but each one is only worth 7% of your grade. However, having to constantly study for a new test and stress consistently for a test every week or two weeks is ROUGH, so try not to take any other heavy class with this one. Lots of homework and studying is needed to do well in this class. This is not an easy A, but if you have to take the MCAT you'll retain a lot from taking it with samani. I would have gotten a higher grade if I had gotten just a few more questions right here and there, so be really careful about remembering ALL the concepts he emphasizes in class.

He gives lots of partial cred for even remotely showing you understand the concept. You can literally get half cred for just writing the right formula for FRQs. Go to office hours and discussion (which is required) because a lot of the worksheets he gives in disc ends up somewhere on the tests. He made it much harder our quarter compared to previous ones based on the sample exams he gives to study (which are old exams), so not sure if its going to get any harder.

Professor Samani is probably the best professor I've had during my time at UCLA. If you're reading this review, consider me to be BEGGING you to take the class if possible. He is by far the most fun and engaging STEM professor with the most fine attention to detail, and a level of consistency that never fails. When I say that everything in this class relates to real life, I mean EVERYTHING. This man always finds a reason to make you want to pay attention to what is being taught. In terms of the class, there is a final but there are no midterms, yet 5 tests (4 individual, 1 group) instead around every other week that break down the material into easily digestible portions and are way easier to study for. All 5 are combined for 25%, and the final is 35% of the final grade (I think, I'm writing this review a bit later). You don't get a formula sheet, but the amazing thing is that his practice problem sets and tests all pull material from the last week or two in addition to material since the beginning of the quarter. This way allows you (and actually forces you) to perform spaced repetition of material, making it way less necessary to study a bunch, and way easier to memorize things. Plus, you need to memorize these things for the MCAT anyways if that is your plan. There is also extra credit and there are mandatory readings that are due before almost every lecture that are worth 3% total of the grade, but don't worry they allow you to actually understand the fun stuff happening in lecture.

Overall, Samani has research experience in the field of education, and you can really tell by the way this class is structured. He has his students' best interests at heart, and choosing another teacher over him is definitely the wrong choice, mark my words. PLEASE TAKE THIS CLASS 11/10 RECOMMEND!!!!!!!!!!!!