Dr. Tung was one of the best professors I've had at UCLA! I had a very poor experience with physics in high school and was very nervous coming into 5A, but Tung broke down the material in a way that was really easy to understand. He mostly goes over concepts in lecture with little emphasis on "plugging and chugging." He really cares about his students and was very accommodating for the current situation. He did his lectures via YouTube for spring quarter (COVID).

You need to be able to solve problems on exams without numbers, which can be slightly confusing, but after the first midterm it becomes a little easier. The best advice I can give you is to GO TO HIS REVIEW SESSIONS! They really make the exams a lot easier and help you with the reasoning behind a lot of the questions. Make sure you understand how things are derived instead of just memorizing them.

I'd say the biggest pain in this class was Mastering Physics, but he only required us to do 65% of the problems and the rest was extra credit. Extra credit was also provided through TopHat, typically with 1 point for attempting the question and 1 point for getting it right.

Don't be worried by reviews from his other classes, overall I'd say this was a great class and Tung is a very clear instructor.

Professor Tung is a genuinely nice guy who cares about his students and wants them to succeed. Unfortunately, the class can feel a bit unstructured at times. Additionally, it’s hard to feel prepared for the exams because he really doesn’t give any supplementary materials or any past exams to review. He is really good at explaining the concepts but I wish he would do a better job at preparing us directly for his tests.

The class is divided up in four categories, 20% comes from homework, 5% comes from discussion section, 15% comes from labs, and 60% of your grade comes from four midterms spaced out throughout the quarter. The homework is pretty easy to complete and you get unlimited tries and it’s not due until the end of the quarter! I found it to be quite useful since he doesn’t give any practice materials. The discussion worksheets were pretty ambiguous and I don’t know if it was just my TA but I felt that sometimes what we were being graded on it was not very fair because we had not yet given it in class. The labs are just glorified busywork, they’re not hard to do but they take a ridiculous amount of time and you have to use this software called tracker...it sucks. They’re not fun to film and they’re not fun to do but they’re pretty easy to complete and since we’re doing this at home the TA’s are quite lenient with the grading. Finally, the midterms, they are not particularly hard and he does give a 24 hour window to complete them which is very useful! However I do feel that they are very tricky in the sense that they do not use numbers and they do require you to go slightly above what we gave in class. My recommendation is to try and do all the related homework problems before the test because that’s basically your only source of practice. Additionally, I would recommend asking him to do his review sessions because he does give out very similar problems to what he would expect on the test and they’re very useful in understanding what he is expecting of you. Overall he is a good teacher that genuinely cares about his students and his video demonstrations are amazing, I just wish we would’ve had a little bit more of material given by him so that the concepts and ideas he worked so hard and explaining would better stick in terms of problem solving! He does however give a lot of extra credit which is very very useful. You’re only required to do 65% of the homework which means that anything you do above that is extra credit, he also uses this app called top hat which is kind of like assistance and participation which also counts for extra credit. In the end I believe the extra credit comes out to be around 5% of your grade which is amazing.

Overall would recommend if he is available to give this class just be willing to put in the work on your own time. It honestly is not a difficult class to do well in.

Selling past labs and exam materials that could be helpful for this class!
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Tung is a really nice guy but his exams almost made me cry. Even having taken a few years of physics in high school, paid attention to Tung's classes, watched review sessions (which as the other reviews describe cover problems very similar to those on the exams) and all the good stuff, I couldn't fully understand the written response sections in his exams (the multiple choice questions were very reasonable though). Tung is a super passionate teacher who obviously cares about his students but he really needs to re-level his exams, because I spent hours and hours on what were supposed to be short exams, so I can't imagine what students who'd never studied physics before must've felt like during the midterms. My other critique is that Tung was a bit too flexible with his schedule because it was flip flopping every other week; yes COVID is an unprecedented situation and the professor was just trying to accommodate as much as possible, but not sticking to schedule sometimes made things stressful.
That being said I wanna say how cool Tung is. He brings in awesome video demonstrations to explain concepts, is a big nerd like myself, absolutely loves teaching and gives a bunch of extra credit, so I think that with improvement he can become the best 5A professor.

I was kind of apprehensive before taking this class because this professor didn't have the best reviews. However, I think he was great! He was very clear about his expectations, good at explaining, and his exams were very fair. No complaints.

I'm seeing a lot of reviews bashing Tung, however I think one thing to note was that this quarter was a really special case since he had a family emergency. Like you can't really expect him to be as good of a professor when he's not even present due to the emergency. If the roles were reversed and you had an emergency, you would definitely have your work quality be compromised. That being said, yes, Tung did use old recorded lectures while he was away, but everything in those video lectures ended up being on the midterm/final which I think is pretty fair. And in terms of this quarter, I do think the performance of the students was very reliant on the TA's as they held review sessions that were key to doing good on the tests. Another complaint people seem to have is that he used ChatGPT in his emails, but like c'mon yall, it's just emails. Everyone acting all high and mighty about using Chat when practically everyone uses it so I don't really care about this in my opinion and it doesn't inherently make it "Ai-Slop." Speaking for when Tung was in person, his lectures were always engaging and my only complaint was that he moved too slow among the simple topics like vectors and displacement and really went fast on topics like statics, torque, and circular motion.

The important things are for people taking the class in the future:
-Lectures: optional, recorded,
- Homework: graded on correctness (with unlimited attempts), helpful conceptually, not really great for performing on tests
- Discussions: optional however highly recommended, this is what's gonna help you pass the class. If you went to every discussion and read the lecture slides you can easily come out with an A in the class.
- Labs: Just show up, however, you do not get a skip on the labs.
- There is extra credit!

[Do not take this class unless you are prepared to fully teach yourself, receive ChatGPT announcements, and deal with last-minute, poorly communicated decisions.]
I want to start by saying this professor is genuinely a cool guy and clearly passionate about physics. When he was present, he tried to make the class exciting and engaging. Unfortunately, passion alone does not make a functional course, and the lack of communication and structure this quarter was completely unacceptable.
Around weeks 4–5, the professor disappeared from teaching. He was not present for the midterm, which I completely understood at the time due to his wife undergoing surgery. However, what followed was weeks of essentially no instruction. During his absence, we were given a mix of prerecorded YouTube videos some were years old, some were somewhat recent, and some were not even Physics 5A lectures but actually 1A lectures. The course became entirely self-taught and honestly a waste of tuition. Relying on inconsistent videos and external resources that students could have accessed for free.
Communication during this period was extremely poor. Announcements appeared to be written using ChatGPT (he once literally left the Ai notes and suggestions at the top of the announcement), emails from students and even TAs often went unanswered, and there was no clear guidance on expectations or exam preparation. When the professor finally returned in week 10, he taught only two lectures, which felt more showy than instructional. There was lots of flashy demonstrations, but very little actual teaching, almost as if trying to compensate for weeks of absence. He also flew by the last few topics as we were behind... (speaking of being behind. the lectures were ALWAYS behind compared to the labs and because of this students were always a little confused during them. BLESSS UP THE TA AND LAs DURING LAB THEY WERE AMAZING).
The final exam situation was the breaking point. The two lecture sections would take the final exam on different days. One on Wednesday while the other tested on Friday. TA review sessions were released on Monday for both sections (also BLESS UP THE LECTURE TAs BECAUSE THEIR REVIEWS WERE VERY HELPFUL) , already giving the Friday section more prep time. On top of that, the formula sheet was posted late Tuesday night, the night before the Wednesday exam, while Friday test-takers had multiple extra days to study with it. This created a clear and unfair advantage between sections.
Participation credit ended up being 100% for everyone not because of engagement, but because Kudu wasn’t working early in the quarter and later because the professor simply wasn’t there. That alone says a lot about how disorganized this course became.
Overall, this class felt like a waste of tuition. It was largely self-taught through random YouTube videos, with minimal instruction, poor communication, and serious fairness issues in exam administration. A professor can be kind and passionate, but students still deserve consistency, accessibility, and a course that is actually taught.

Professor Tung is a great lecturer and is very clear in his explanations. He also adapted very well to remote learning, probably the best I've seen out of any professor so far. Everything in his class was done on Kudu including the midterms. I think they got progressively longer and also more difficult, but they were still very reasonable. Tung also gave a lot of extra credit and hints for the midterms throughout his lectures.
The labs in this class were sometimes frustrating because it is taught like a separate course. Sometimes labs do not line up with lecture which can make it difficult to get prelab questions correct. The tracker program used in lab was a bit slow for me so it took me a long time to complete the labs at first, but with more practice I got the hang of it.
Overall, this course with Tung is not too difficult and I would recommend choosing him as a professor if you can.

Background on where I approached this class with: apprehensive yet excited to see if I would like physics, and I have adhd.These reviews made me feel like even though I had no previous experience in Physics, this class was tailored to life science students like me who don't really have a physics mindset or background and wanted to dip their toes in. I was extremely wrong. This class made me depressed from weeks 4-10. I poured around 20 hours a week into this class, blood, sweat, and tears, but it still was not enough. I tried my damnest, had 3 engineering friends help me with homework, and I still got a C-. He is a decent lecturer, and I can tell he's knowledgeable. The homework is hard, but forgiving (you only have to complete 65% of all assigned work, and its online so you get unlimited attempts and sometimes hints, which I appreciated). The labs stressed me out so much, my TA was cool to talk to but a hardass on grading, but he has no control over that. The workload is pretty rough, not because its so much content, but because the content is extremely challenging. We had homework problems on Mastering Physics where you get unlimited attempts at the questions and only have to complete 65% of the total assigned homework problems for full homework grade, which I appreciated, most of these chapters had no more than 30 questions. The majority of the grades are the tests. I went to every lecture, every discussion, and every lab, rewatched lectures, studied homework problems with my generous engineering friends, and got a 51/100 on the first midterm. He does not curve to the benefit of students (or at all). His testing format is generous, but to be honest, the only acceptable format for free-response tests during COVID. A pdf is released and we have 24 hours to do it. We have 4 midterms throughout the quarter, which I also appreciate this format. Professor claimed that these tests were meant to be completed in an hour, every single midterm I spent a minimum of 10 hours on. Worked from when it was released (around 5) until I went to bed around 11-12, and then got up in the morning and worked on it until my brain was fried and I couldn't bear to look at it any longer. You know if you struggle with math or chemistry or physics, and you will struggle with this class. I passed with this C- by a miracle. Overall, the professor is generous and forgiving on assignment submission formats but the content is absolutely brutal. My mental health and daily life have improved since I no longer take this class. Professor, if you're reading this, make the content easier. It is ridiculous what we are tested on and what we are expected to know as life science students to an introductory physics course. Sincerely, someone who tried her hardest and barely succeeded.

This was the easiest class I've taken at UCLA so far (easier than my GEs), and I'm no physics genius. However, I did take AP Physics in high school, so that may have somewhat helped, but even if you don't have prior physics experience you should still be able to succeed in this class. Tung is a goofy guy, but he isn't really a good lecturer and his lectures tended to be mediocre at best. I ended up never watching any lectures past the first midterm, but only went to his review sessions where he literally walked through each free response problem (which are worth most of the points) that would be on the exams.

Speaking of exams, there are four midterms and no final. His exam schedule was constantly changing though, so I never really knew when each exam was until about a week before. They consisted of some multiple choice questions, which were pretty easy to answer if you went back in his lecture notes, and a few free response problems which shouldn't be that bad since he goes over them during his review sessions but just changes a few numbers or adds a small detail.

Tung also offers an abundance of extra credit, which is fairly easy to get and is supposed to bump you up a whole letter grade if you do all of it. To get extra credit, you can complete extra mastering physics problems (homework) and answer the clicker questions during lectures. Besides the extra credit, the workload is fair. There are weekly mastering physics problems (he gives you unlimited attempts which was really helpful) and a weekly discussion worksheet, all of which take about 2-3 hours to complete.

Taking everything into consideration, this class should be a breeze, especially with the huge amount of extra credit offered. However, I felt that this class wasted my time. I didn't really learn anything and the fact that he basically solved the exam questions for you beforehand takes away any motivation to study. Additionally, because there was no final, I can't really say I mastered all of the material. This entire course consisted of regurgitating his work from his review sessions onto the midterm. If you want an easy A, take Tung, but if you actually want to learn something try taking someone else.

Professor Tung is an amazing professor who was very accommodating to us during the pandemic. He gave detailed reviews before his exams and was very lenient while describing everything so well :) He cares so much for his students and always went the extra mile to make sure everyone understood (he answered all the questions in the chat and risked getting injured to give us physics demonstrations). He has detailed notes for his whole course (literally like a second textbook). During the pandemic, he had 24 hour exams and offered extra credit questions to take roll. Homework only needed to be done to 65% and if you did 100% you got a little bit of extra credit. Coming in with no background physics knowledge, he made the subject approachable. Thank you Dr. Tung!