PHYSICS 1CH
Physics for Scientists and Engineers: Electrodynamics, Optics, and Special Relativity (Honors)
Description: Lecture/demonstration, four hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisites: courses 1AH or 1A, 1BH or 1B, Mathematics 32A, 32B. Enforced corequisite: Mathematics 33A. Recommended corequisite: Mathematics 33B. Enriched preparation for upper-division physics courses. Same material as course 1C but in greater depth; recommended for Physics majors and other students desiring such coverage. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
1 of 1
AD
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2026 - Overall, this class was a pretty good class and Professor Ong explains most concepts pretty well. I think for this class it is really important that you read the textbook. He likes to pull a lot of his test questions from the readings in the textbook and I'd like to say that some of his midterms + finals are really just fun-fact questions (for the conceptual questions especially) so it was a bit hard to try to figure out what to focus my attention in studying. I would also say time-wise I feel that he puts way too many questions for his 50-minute midterms which is why he always has to add more time for us (and he acts as a ticking time bomb by constantly telling us the time we have left but refusing to just put an actual clock on the screen). I think that he also likes to give students test anxiety by writing on the board mid-test for whatever he is trying to teach right after our midterm that like half the class isn't really listening anymore for... But overall, I really enjoyed his class content and also his office hours were always super informative, whether it be just asking him advice for doing research, asking him questions about extra information from the textbook, or asking him to reexplain concepts. I liked him as a professor but was definitely not a fan of his tests.
Spring 2026 - Overall, this class was a pretty good class and Professor Ong explains most concepts pretty well. I think for this class it is really important that you read the textbook. He likes to pull a lot of his test questions from the readings in the textbook and I'd like to say that some of his midterms + finals are really just fun-fact questions (for the conceptual questions especially) so it was a bit hard to try to figure out what to focus my attention in studying. I would also say time-wise I feel that he puts way too many questions for his 50-minute midterms which is why he always has to add more time for us (and he acts as a ticking time bomb by constantly telling us the time we have left but refusing to just put an actual clock on the screen). I think that he also likes to give students test anxiety by writing on the board mid-test for whatever he is trying to teach right after our midterm that like half the class isn't really listening anymore for... But overall, I really enjoyed his class content and also his office hours were always super informative, whether it be just asking him advice for doing research, asking him questions about extra information from the textbook, or asking him to reexplain concepts. I liked him as a professor but was definitely not a fan of his tests.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Jamie's a cool guy, but he really tries to cram way too much information and too many derivations as possible into his dense, often incomprehensible lectures. His homeworks would easily take hours without help from our amazing TA Trevor, especially since the problems assume comfort with high-level mathematics far beyond what basically all students are reasonably prepared for. According to other TAs, the content covered was at a pace and comprehension level on par with upper-division physics courses. Even so, the class is generously curved with roughly 50-50 As and Bs. Even with the brutalizing amount of content and difficult tests, the grading certainly won't murder you. Take at your own risk!
Spring 2020 - Jamie's a cool guy, but he really tries to cram way too much information and too many derivations as possible into his dense, often incomprehensible lectures. His homeworks would easily take hours without help from our amazing TA Trevor, especially since the problems assume comfort with high-level mathematics far beyond what basically all students are reasonably prepared for. According to other TAs, the content covered was at a pace and comprehension level on par with upper-division physics courses. Even so, the class is generously curved with roughly 50-50 As and Bs. Even with the brutalizing amount of content and difficult tests, the grading certainly won't murder you. Take at your own risk!
1 of 1
