Professor

Nathan Tung

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3.5
Overall Ratings
Based on 202 Users
Easiness 2.8 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 3.4 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 3.5 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 3.3 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (202)

5 of 16
5 of 16
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Dec. 9, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: NR

Don't listen to these reviews. It's just a bunch of whiny stem kids. The class and professor are fair, and I am sure everyone will eat their words when final grades come out. He's trying his best and it's clearly evident, and to put yourself in his shoes would give you a lot of perspective on how good of a teacher he is trying to be. Emphasis on teacher, as he cares about education and is going against the grain on just giving A's to everyone who think they deserve it, which is why he's experienced such a backlash from these entitled students who think that grades should be handed to them on a silver platter. Don't get me wrong, I still failed the first midterm like everyone else; I am not someone who's excelling and is on a high horse. To give him such bad ratings shows the disconnect between the value of education and the demand by stem students to be handed a good grade so they can move on and go to med school. These people seems to be missing the point about why they are in college... Every classmate I have spoken to has not blamed the professor as they can see him really trying and adjusting, and they all trust that he will be very fair in grades at the end. The students on bruin walk are NOT representative on how students feel in this class, don't let the whiners dissuade you from taking this professor, he is a good man and a great teacher with a lot of potential in the future.

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11 14 Please log in to provide feedback.
Dec. 24, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: NP

Nathan Tung didn't prepare well enough for this class. Although this is his first time teaching his test were poorly worded and he continued having poorly worded tests all throughout the quarter. I would highly advise against taking this class with him if you want to learn. Not only did he want us to practice the questions on mastering physics, but they had no correlation with his tests. The only way to describe this class is chaotic. Every lecture he had a new experiment which was visually appealing however we're here to learn and to prove that we understand the material. It's impossible to do so when the tests don't reflect what we studied which was unguided. How were we supposed to study what we didn't know was going to be on the test.

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5 6 Please log in to provide feedback.
Nov. 30, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: B

Professor Tung did not prepare us enough for the tests in this class and the materials covered in class were much too easy compared to the material tested. The first midterm was a complete shock to me as I had reviewed over the class material religiously and still could not do HALF of the test. The second midterm was a bit better due to the review session but it was still quite difficult to me, and a lot of the wording was just confusing for no reason. Lectures were generally not very engaging besides several experiments, and all the notes were done on the chalkboard. It was EXTREMELY difficult to see any of the notes past the fifth row from the front of the lecture hall and the material we did in class was usually pretty easy, like explanations of simple conceptual ideas or formulas. Professor Tung also did not give out any extra credit, even after the entire class was very upset over the first midterm. The only helpful thing from this class was the final exam review. I would strongly advise against taking this professor unless you already have a solid foundation in Physics knowledge.

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2 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
Dec. 27, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: C-

As a 3rd year taking this class, I've never failed any course in my life until taking this class. To the people who said the class was easy, yes the class itself (concepts, ideas) are pretty easy, but the exams are the problem. Tung did not do a good job of emphasizing what was important takeaways for the course. The midterms and final were obviously physics related, but going to lecture, doing mastering physics, or reading the book will not help you. For Tungs exams, you either get it or you don't. I had several friends take the same course, and they all say the same thing-- they had no idea how to study for mt2 or the final because of how open ended Tungs approach to asking questions are. He stated himself multiple times that mastering physics will not help us answer his exam questions. I think as a person Tung is passionate, and wants us to learn which I appreciate, but his approach is all wrong. I originally failed this class, but he likely realized too many people failed his class and gave me a passing grade. Would not recommend taking this professor.

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2 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
Dec. 24, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: A

I feel like many of the negative reviews are unwarranted. After the low scores on the first midterm, Tung did change things. Like others said, he hosted his own review sessions which were extremely helpful and told everything we needed to know for the exams.

I do agree that the Mastering Physics homework was useless. But, he provided “Nathan’s Notes” which supplemented the textbook and covered almost everything he talked about in lecture. These notes were super useful to me and prepared me well for the final.

The class is heavily concept based, so the examples provided in class weren’t exactly “examples” as we’d expected. However, he pulled most exam material directly from lecture. The second midterm and final were fair, in my opinion, given that he covered everything in class and review sessions.

Helpful?

3 4 Please log in to provide feedback.
Dec. 25, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2018
Grade: NP

This was professor Tung’s first quarter at UCLA and he was by far the worst professor I have ever had. He would spend all of lecture reviewing formulas and expect students to answer elaborate problems on exams. Not to mention, he provided no preparation for the exams and was absolutely a mess.

Helpful?

4 7 Please log in to provide feedback.
Dec. 11, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: DR

Honestly, dont listen to those bad reviews, those are the people that just rely on the lectures and dont take the time out of their day to commit and use other resources. While it is the professor's first quarter teaching the class, i believe he is doing well in it because i was able to score decently in both the first and second midterm. A huge part was due to his lectures and whatever i did not understand, i went home read the book, did practice problems, or i went onto khan academy. This guy teaches you on concepts, not pure numbers and formulas you have to memorize. Honestly, he is a good professor, those people complaining want everything given to them including an easy A.

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4 9 Please log in to provide feedback.
April 4, 2023
Quarter: Winter 2023
Grade: B

Avoid Tung at all costs. He graded half of my midterms incorrectly and had to do multiple regrade requests to get back over 20 points. I loves to take random leave of absences for a week at a time and posts old recording from Covid times to make up for it. Which by the way does not align with our current lectures and is often missing a lot of information. He absolutely does not go over any calculation type questions or problems during lecture and does random demonstration like cooking a hot dog. The problems we get on kudu are so random they sometimes use formulas out of our classroom and do not even fit the scope of the lesson it’s assigned with. He does not go over any problems so essentially you’re on your own to self teach that. The only thing he does is talk about the theoretical aspect of physics for hours and hours so that’s it. Worst Professor ever not worth it

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1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
April 20, 2024
Quarter: Fall 2023
Grade: B+

Tung's class was an interesting experience for me, as it broke my 4.0, however, I can't say that it was a bad class by any stretch of my imagination. He's a solid lecturer who kept me engaged, and he provides a littany of resources for you to study. That being said, his exams are brutal. The first one was no sweat and realistically its all basic algebra, but from the second exam on, it gets crazy. His questions are super in depth, and we were given nothing like it to practice for the class. He's also the only professor that doesn't use Mastering Physics in the 5 series, and instead uses Kudu, which has no problems that will accurately prep you come exam time. He still was a caring professor though, so I can't say too much bad about him

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
April 8, 2024
Quarter: Summer 2023
Grade: A

this class was so hard. For summer it was an online 6 week class, with homework assignments and weekly kudu quizzes and an online final at the end (because of the hurricane quizzes 2 and 3, and 4 and 5 ended up being combined). Lectures were streamed on YouTube live and Tung is more focused on derivations than showing how to solve problems (although to be fair this has been my experience with all the UCLA physics profs I've had). The kudu quizzes were so hard not necessarily because the questions themselves were super hard but because they were a time crunch (I suspect to prevent people from cheating), so if you made a mistake in one of the questions you would not have a lot of time to go back and redo it. The final was also difficult and nothing like the kudu homework assignments or quiz questions. Class got up curved pretty heavily at the end, and Tung still had his policy of 65% required homework and anything extra is extra credit though so I can't complain too much. if you like physics you should be fine

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: NR
Dec. 9, 2019

Don't listen to these reviews. It's just a bunch of whiny stem kids. The class and professor are fair, and I am sure everyone will eat their words when final grades come out. He's trying his best and it's clearly evident, and to put yourself in his shoes would give you a lot of perspective on how good of a teacher he is trying to be. Emphasis on teacher, as he cares about education and is going against the grain on just giving A's to everyone who think they deserve it, which is why he's experienced such a backlash from these entitled students who think that grades should be handed to them on a silver platter. Don't get me wrong, I still failed the first midterm like everyone else; I am not someone who's excelling and is on a high horse. To give him such bad ratings shows the disconnect between the value of education and the demand by stem students to be handed a good grade so they can move on and go to med school. These people seems to be missing the point about why they are in college... Every classmate I have spoken to has not blamed the professor as they can see him really trying and adjusting, and they all trust that he will be very fair in grades at the end. The students on bruin walk are NOT representative on how students feel in this class, don't let the whiners dissuade you from taking this professor, he is a good man and a great teacher with a lot of potential in the future.

Helpful?

11 14 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: NP
Dec. 24, 2019

Nathan Tung didn't prepare well enough for this class. Although this is his first time teaching his test were poorly worded and he continued having poorly worded tests all throughout the quarter. I would highly advise against taking this class with him if you want to learn. Not only did he want us to practice the questions on mastering physics, but they had no correlation with his tests. The only way to describe this class is chaotic. Every lecture he had a new experiment which was visually appealing however we're here to learn and to prove that we understand the material. It's impossible to do so when the tests don't reflect what we studied which was unguided. How were we supposed to study what we didn't know was going to be on the test.

Helpful?

5 6 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: B
Nov. 30, 2019

Professor Tung did not prepare us enough for the tests in this class and the materials covered in class were much too easy compared to the material tested. The first midterm was a complete shock to me as I had reviewed over the class material religiously and still could not do HALF of the test. The second midterm was a bit better due to the review session but it was still quite difficult to me, and a lot of the wording was just confusing for no reason. Lectures were generally not very engaging besides several experiments, and all the notes were done on the chalkboard. It was EXTREMELY difficult to see any of the notes past the fifth row from the front of the lecture hall and the material we did in class was usually pretty easy, like explanations of simple conceptual ideas or formulas. Professor Tung also did not give out any extra credit, even after the entire class was very upset over the first midterm. The only helpful thing from this class was the final exam review. I would strongly advise against taking this professor unless you already have a solid foundation in Physics knowledge.

Helpful?

2 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: C-
Dec. 27, 2019

As a 3rd year taking this class, I've never failed any course in my life until taking this class. To the people who said the class was easy, yes the class itself (concepts, ideas) are pretty easy, but the exams are the problem. Tung did not do a good job of emphasizing what was important takeaways for the course. The midterms and final were obviously physics related, but going to lecture, doing mastering physics, or reading the book will not help you. For Tungs exams, you either get it or you don't. I had several friends take the same course, and they all say the same thing-- they had no idea how to study for mt2 or the final because of how open ended Tungs approach to asking questions are. He stated himself multiple times that mastering physics will not help us answer his exam questions. I think as a person Tung is passionate, and wants us to learn which I appreciate, but his approach is all wrong. I originally failed this class, but he likely realized too many people failed his class and gave me a passing grade. Would not recommend taking this professor.

Helpful?

2 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: A
Dec. 24, 2019

I feel like many of the negative reviews are unwarranted. After the low scores on the first midterm, Tung did change things. Like others said, he hosted his own review sessions which were extremely helpful and told everything we needed to know for the exams.

I do agree that the Mastering Physics homework was useless. But, he provided “Nathan’s Notes” which supplemented the textbook and covered almost everything he talked about in lecture. These notes were super useful to me and prepared me well for the final.

The class is heavily concept based, so the examples provided in class weren’t exactly “examples” as we’d expected. However, he pulled most exam material directly from lecture. The second midterm and final were fair, in my opinion, given that he covered everything in class and review sessions.

Helpful?

3 4 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2018
Grade: NP
Dec. 25, 2019

This was professor Tung’s first quarter at UCLA and he was by far the worst professor I have ever had. He would spend all of lecture reviewing formulas and expect students to answer elaborate problems on exams. Not to mention, he provided no preparation for the exams and was absolutely a mess.

Helpful?

4 7 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: DR
Dec. 11, 2019

Honestly, dont listen to those bad reviews, those are the people that just rely on the lectures and dont take the time out of their day to commit and use other resources. While it is the professor's first quarter teaching the class, i believe he is doing well in it because i was able to score decently in both the first and second midterm. A huge part was due to his lectures and whatever i did not understand, i went home read the book, did practice problems, or i went onto khan academy. This guy teaches you on concepts, not pure numbers and formulas you have to memorize. Honestly, he is a good professor, those people complaining want everything given to them including an easy A.

Helpful?

4 9 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Winter 2023
Grade: B
April 4, 2023

Avoid Tung at all costs. He graded half of my midterms incorrectly and had to do multiple regrade requests to get back over 20 points. I loves to take random leave of absences for a week at a time and posts old recording from Covid times to make up for it. Which by the way does not align with our current lectures and is often missing a lot of information. He absolutely does not go over any calculation type questions or problems during lecture and does random demonstration like cooking a hot dog. The problems we get on kudu are so random they sometimes use formulas out of our classroom and do not even fit the scope of the lesson it’s assigned with. He does not go over any problems so essentially you’re on your own to self teach that. The only thing he does is talk about the theoretical aspect of physics for hours and hours so that’s it. Worst Professor ever not worth it

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
Quarter: Fall 2023
Grade: B+
April 20, 2024

Tung's class was an interesting experience for me, as it broke my 4.0, however, I can't say that it was a bad class by any stretch of my imagination. He's a solid lecturer who kept me engaged, and he provides a littany of resources for you to study. That being said, his exams are brutal. The first one was no sweat and realistically its all basic algebra, but from the second exam on, it gets crazy. His questions are super in depth, and we were given nothing like it to practice for the class. He's also the only professor that doesn't use Mastering Physics in the 5 series, and instead uses Kudu, which has no problems that will accurately prep you come exam time. He still was a caring professor though, so I can't say too much bad about him

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1C
Quarter: Summer 2023
Grade: A
April 8, 2024

this class was so hard. For summer it was an online 6 week class, with homework assignments and weekly kudu quizzes and an online final at the end (because of the hurricane quizzes 2 and 3, and 4 and 5 ended up being combined). Lectures were streamed on YouTube live and Tung is more focused on derivations than showing how to solve problems (although to be fair this has been my experience with all the UCLA physics profs I've had). The kudu quizzes were so hard not necessarily because the questions themselves were super hard but because they were a time crunch (I suspect to prevent people from cheating), so if you made a mistake in one of the questions you would not have a lot of time to go back and redo it. The final was also difficult and nothing like the kudu homework assignments or quiz questions. Class got up curved pretty heavily at the end, and Tung still had his policy of 65% required homework and anything extra is extra credit though so I can't complain too much. if you like physics you should be fine

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0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
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