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Nathan Tung
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Based on 168 Users
Tung is a great professor! He speaks in a manner that is very straight-forward and clear. He's able to break down concepts well and gives relevant examples. He cares very much about the students, his tests are fair and similar to the homework and in-class questions. He gives us review sessions before the midterms, which are exactly like the tests. You just need to do the homework and go to his review sessions in order to do well on the class.
I'm retaking this class with a different professor right now because I was unable to finish the first time due to personal issues. I'm coming back to say that, after taking this class with a different prof (Rombes), I think that the way Tung teaches makes the course a lot harder than it needs to be. His lectures were engaging for the most part, and he was good at explaining things clearly, but I think he tried to teach concepts in a way that was too in-depth for an intro physics course. There are a lot of things in my old notes from this course that haven't even been mentioned in the one I'm taking now because they're not necessary to understand the curriculum.
If you like physics and want a deep, integrated understanding of the different concepts in 5A, then this might be the professor for you. Otherwise, I found that other profs like Rombes make their courses a little more beginner friendly.
Great dude. So worth taking
The first two midterms were totally fine, I had no issues at all with them and was on track to get an A in the course. And then the final came... I am not going to say that I was the best prepared I could have been for the final, because I was not. However, that final was horrible. While Tung did not reck my 4.0 as I did not have one before, he did wreck my chance of getting latin honors.
It was an absolute honor to take Physics 1A with Dr. Tung! I was very scared about taking this class beforehand as I had never taken a Physics course in high school before, but his clear explanations and demonstrations really made physics intuitive for me. His midterms weren't a walk in the park, but they were very doable given the 24 hours he gave. Some tips: I strongly recommend going over class examples before the midterms and exams and making sure you understand every step. Also, the homework and worksheets he assigns are often much harder than his exams, so it's more useful to focus on Tung's lectures to study.
Like many others, I thought this class would be a free A and be pretty easy, as it was for the first 8 weeks. Professor Tung's lectures were fun and engaging, and were recorded, though he takes attendance through Kudu, but if you have a friend, someone could tell you to log on remotely. However, this class was horribly paced. Too much time was spent on simpler topics such as kinematics, projectile motion, and forces and not enough content was spent on during class as Tung rambles about some random topics. By week 9, Tung was rushing to get through all the material, such as equilibrium and torque, making it super difficult to grasp these topics in time. Even though Tung had said the final would be cumulative, it wasn't and was almost completely based on torque. While he does give extra credit, it barely matters if you do well on the midterms. I had As on both the midterms and still ended with a B in the class.
Like many others, I thought this class would be a free A and be pretty easy, as it was for the first 8 weeks. Professor Tung's lectures were fun and engaging, and were recorded, though he takes attendance through Kudu, but if you have a friend, someone could tell you to log on remotely. However, this class was horribly paced. Too much time was spent on simpler topics such as kinematics, projectile motion, and forces and not enough content was spent on during class as Tung rambles about some random topics. By week 8, Tung was rushing to get through all the material, such as equilibrium and torque, making it super difficult to grasp these topics in time. Even though Tung had said the final would be cumulative, it wasn't and was almost completely based on torque. While he does give extra credit, it barely matters if you do well on the midterms. I had As on both the midterms and still ended with a B in the class.
To preface: If you have never taken an AP Physics class, or something along the lines, be ready to put in double the work that your peers are doing. Everyone is relearning concepts from their high school classes. Physics taught at UCLA is tough with any professor.
Tung is honestly overrated. Everyone praises him for being a great professor, but in all honesty, he is just like any other Physics 1 series professor. His format is deriving equations and doing practice problems at lecture, then doing practice problems at home.
Any physics class here is heavy self-studying.
I took the course over the summer, where homework and extra credit assignments were done on Kudu. The exams, also on Kudu, consisted of multiple-choice questions with some short-answer items. There was no partial credit for multiple-choice questions, and the entire course, including exams, was online without a camera requirement. None of the exam questions were available elsewhere online—I think he wrote them all himself.
Exams were held weekly, though he canceled one in week 5 and adjusted the grading scheme accordingly. Class averages never exceeded 75%, typically staying around the mid-60s, yet he didn’t curve the grades at all. While he seemed knowledgeable and, in fairness, putting in the effort could help improve your grade, it was frustrating that, despite low averages and the potential for a curve, he ultimately chose not to adjust grades.
He spends an entire lecture on one problem showing you how to derive problems using basic algebra often with no numbers at all. His lectures were not helpful besides for the MCQ portion of the exams. The TA (josh) posts discussion notes on bruinlearn every week which were REALLLLLYYY helpful. The hw system kudu does give practice problems but they often did not help on the exams.
Tung is a great professor! He speaks in a manner that is very straight-forward and clear. He's able to break down concepts well and gives relevant examples. He cares very much about the students, his tests are fair and similar to the homework and in-class questions. He gives us review sessions before the midterms, which are exactly like the tests. You just need to do the homework and go to his review sessions in order to do well on the class.
I'm retaking this class with a different professor right now because I was unable to finish the first time due to personal issues. I'm coming back to say that, after taking this class with a different prof (Rombes), I think that the way Tung teaches makes the course a lot harder than it needs to be. His lectures were engaging for the most part, and he was good at explaining things clearly, but I think he tried to teach concepts in a way that was too in-depth for an intro physics course. There are a lot of things in my old notes from this course that haven't even been mentioned in the one I'm taking now because they're not necessary to understand the curriculum.
If you like physics and want a deep, integrated understanding of the different concepts in 5A, then this might be the professor for you. Otherwise, I found that other profs like Rombes make their courses a little more beginner friendly.
The first two midterms were totally fine, I had no issues at all with them and was on track to get an A in the course. And then the final came... I am not going to say that I was the best prepared I could have been for the final, because I was not. However, that final was horrible. While Tung did not reck my 4.0 as I did not have one before, he did wreck my chance of getting latin honors.
It was an absolute honor to take Physics 1A with Dr. Tung! I was very scared about taking this class beforehand as I had never taken a Physics course in high school before, but his clear explanations and demonstrations really made physics intuitive for me. His midterms weren't a walk in the park, but they were very doable given the 24 hours he gave. Some tips: I strongly recommend going over class examples before the midterms and exams and making sure you understand every step. Also, the homework and worksheets he assigns are often much harder than his exams, so it's more useful to focus on Tung's lectures to study.
Like many others, I thought this class would be a free A and be pretty easy, as it was for the first 8 weeks. Professor Tung's lectures were fun and engaging, and were recorded, though he takes attendance through Kudu, but if you have a friend, someone could tell you to log on remotely. However, this class was horribly paced. Too much time was spent on simpler topics such as kinematics, projectile motion, and forces and not enough content was spent on during class as Tung rambles about some random topics. By week 9, Tung was rushing to get through all the material, such as equilibrium and torque, making it super difficult to grasp these topics in time. Even though Tung had said the final would be cumulative, it wasn't and was almost completely based on torque. While he does give extra credit, it barely matters if you do well on the midterms. I had As on both the midterms and still ended with a B in the class.
Like many others, I thought this class would be a free A and be pretty easy, as it was for the first 8 weeks. Professor Tung's lectures were fun and engaging, and were recorded, though he takes attendance through Kudu, but if you have a friend, someone could tell you to log on remotely. However, this class was horribly paced. Too much time was spent on simpler topics such as kinematics, projectile motion, and forces and not enough content was spent on during class as Tung rambles about some random topics. By week 8, Tung was rushing to get through all the material, such as equilibrium and torque, making it super difficult to grasp these topics in time. Even though Tung had said the final would be cumulative, it wasn't and was almost completely based on torque. While he does give extra credit, it barely matters if you do well on the midterms. I had As on both the midterms and still ended with a B in the class.
To preface: If you have never taken an AP Physics class, or something along the lines, be ready to put in double the work that your peers are doing. Everyone is relearning concepts from their high school classes. Physics taught at UCLA is tough with any professor.
Tung is honestly overrated. Everyone praises him for being a great professor, but in all honesty, he is just like any other Physics 1 series professor. His format is deriving equations and doing practice problems at lecture, then doing practice problems at home.
Any physics class here is heavy self-studying.
I took the course over the summer, where homework and extra credit assignments were done on Kudu. The exams, also on Kudu, consisted of multiple-choice questions with some short-answer items. There was no partial credit for multiple-choice questions, and the entire course, including exams, was online without a camera requirement. None of the exam questions were available elsewhere online—I think he wrote them all himself.
Exams were held weekly, though he canceled one in week 5 and adjusted the grading scheme accordingly. Class averages never exceeded 75%, typically staying around the mid-60s, yet he didn’t curve the grades at all. While he seemed knowledgeable and, in fairness, putting in the effort could help improve your grade, it was frustrating that, despite low averages and the potential for a curve, he ultimately chose not to adjust grades.
He spends an entire lecture on one problem showing you how to derive problems using basic algebra often with no numbers at all. His lectures were not helpful besides for the MCQ portion of the exams. The TA (josh) posts discussion notes on bruinlearn every week which were REALLLLLYYY helpful. The hw system kudu does give practice problems but they often did not help on the exams.