PHYSICS 5B
Physics for Life Sciences Majors: Thermodynamics, Fluids, Waves, Light, and Optics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; laboratory, two hours. Requisite: course 5A. Thermal properties of matter, free energy, fluids, ideal gas, diffusion, oscillations, waves, sounds, light, and optics, with applications to biological and biochemical systems. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2019 - Dr. El Alaoui is simply a terrible lecturer so don't take him unless you're willing to teach yourself all the material. I managed to get 98%s on both midterms.... after spending 10+ hours doing all the available practice problems before each exam. His exams all drew problems directly from the homework and lecture examples, but that didn't really help because it was pretty much guaranteed that I wouldn't understand what he was doing in lecture and I would have to go through the textbook and online tutorials to learn how to do them myself. When we tried to ask clarifying questions he would eventually cut us off, saying we were taking too much time. I don't think it's too hard to get a good grade if you're willing to put in the effort, but you will be dragging yourself through the class completely on your own. The labs are also bullshit as always, and Mostafa got so behind in lecture that you would have to do the pre-labs with literally no knowledge of the material. Hell, we skipped the complete last chapter of material entirely. I would recommend taking literally any other professor unless you know all the course content or have a lot of time to spare. The one positive is that he gives formula sheets with his exams.
Spring 2019 - Dr. El Alaoui is simply a terrible lecturer so don't take him unless you're willing to teach yourself all the material. I managed to get 98%s on both midterms.... after spending 10+ hours doing all the available practice problems before each exam. His exams all drew problems directly from the homework and lecture examples, but that didn't really help because it was pretty much guaranteed that I wouldn't understand what he was doing in lecture and I would have to go through the textbook and online tutorials to learn how to do them myself. When we tried to ask clarifying questions he would eventually cut us off, saying we were taking too much time. I don't think it's too hard to get a good grade if you're willing to put in the effort, but you will be dragging yourself through the class completely on your own. The labs are also bullshit as always, and Mostafa got so behind in lecture that you would have to do the pre-labs with literally no knowledge of the material. Hell, we skipped the complete last chapter of material entirely. I would recommend taking literally any other professor unless you know all the course content or have a lot of time to spare. The one positive is that he gives formula sheets with his exams.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Holczer is a very kind professor who genuinely wants his students to succeed. However, he's not the best lecturer. After the first lecture, I never watched another one, even the recordings. His teaching style is vague and his handwriting is difficult to read. Honestly, just read the textbook and you'll be fine. It does a great job explaining concepts and also gives plenty of example problems. The homework for this class is typical for a physics 5 class. There's a weekly problem set and weekly mastering physics questions, but they shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours to complete. In my opinion, the exams (2 midterms, 1 final) were pretty easy, considering that I only watched one lecture throughout the entire quarter. Going through the example problems in the textbook and the problem sets will definitely help you prepare for the exams. So if you want an easy A, which most people do, take Holczer. However, if you want a more engaging lecturer, maybe try a different professor.
Winter 2021 - Holczer is a very kind professor who genuinely wants his students to succeed. However, he's not the best lecturer. After the first lecture, I never watched another one, even the recordings. His teaching style is vague and his handwriting is difficult to read. Honestly, just read the textbook and you'll be fine. It does a great job explaining concepts and also gives plenty of example problems. The homework for this class is typical for a physics 5 class. There's a weekly problem set and weekly mastering physics questions, but they shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours to complete. In my opinion, the exams (2 midterms, 1 final) were pretty easy, considering that I only watched one lecture throughout the entire quarter. Going through the example problems in the textbook and the problem sets will definitely help you prepare for the exams. So if you want an easy A, which most people do, take Holczer. However, if you want a more engaging lecturer, maybe try a different professor.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Not sure what changed, but this professor is actually one of the worst I've ever had at UCLA. From the previous reviews, I was expecting an easy, educational quarter in physics 5B and was even pretty excited for the material. However, this quarter the professor must have changed his way of teaching, and not in a good way. The class is asynchronous, but his lecture videos are basically just reading off the textbook and the concepts are not explained well. Each week, I had to go to office hours to re-learn the material because it was so poorly explained in the videos. He is also not active on Campuswire, and he changed his time for office hours midway through the quarter to a time that many students couldn't attend due to time conflicts. Oh, and his exams are only 35 minutes. So yea, if you are not comfortable learning physics completely on your own with minimal help, don't take this professor for 5B.
Winter 2021 - Not sure what changed, but this professor is actually one of the worst I've ever had at UCLA. From the previous reviews, I was expecting an easy, educational quarter in physics 5B and was even pretty excited for the material. However, this quarter the professor must have changed his way of teaching, and not in a good way. The class is asynchronous, but his lecture videos are basically just reading off the textbook and the concepts are not explained well. Each week, I had to go to office hours to re-learn the material because it was so poorly explained in the videos. He is also not active on Campuswire, and he changed his time for office hours midway through the quarter to a time that many students couldn't attend due to time conflicts. Oh, and his exams are only 35 minutes. So yea, if you are not comfortable learning physics completely on your own with minimal help, don't take this professor for 5B.
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2024 - I had Dr. McKeown for Physics 5A (for some reason not listed here), and going into the course, I was concerned that we would be learning a lot of irrelevant, technical physics that wasn't related to my career path as a pre-med student. However, this wasn't the case, as Dr. McKeown correctly designed this course to be relevant to pre-med students by including topics and concepts that are actually relevant to biology and medicine. Because of this, I was interested in the topics of this course and found what we had to learn to be intriguing rather than tedious. Additionally, Dr. McKeown's lectures were helpful, on-task, and weren't boring. He always stopped to take questions from students and clarified everything thoroughly, which not all professors do. I felt that our quizzes and tests were very reasonable and had nothing unexpected/surprising that strayed from the lectures/homework. I also appreciated how he gave us unlimited attempts/graded the homework on completion, rather than correctness, so we could actually use it as a learning source and not an assessment. Overall, I would highly recommend taking a course with Dr. McKeown as he is passionate about Physics, and teaching his students in an effective and legitimate manner. You definitely won't regret taking a class with him.
Summer 2024 - I had Dr. McKeown for Physics 5A (for some reason not listed here), and going into the course, I was concerned that we would be learning a lot of irrelevant, technical physics that wasn't related to my career path as a pre-med student. However, this wasn't the case, as Dr. McKeown correctly designed this course to be relevant to pre-med students by including topics and concepts that are actually relevant to biology and medicine. Because of this, I was interested in the topics of this course and found what we had to learn to be intriguing rather than tedious. Additionally, Dr. McKeown's lectures were helpful, on-task, and weren't boring. He always stopped to take questions from students and clarified everything thoroughly, which not all professors do. I felt that our quizzes and tests were very reasonable and had nothing unexpected/surprising that strayed from the lectures/homework. I also appreciated how he gave us unlimited attempts/graded the homework on completion, rather than correctness, so we could actually use it as a learning source and not an assessment. Overall, I would highly recommend taking a course with Dr. McKeown as he is passionate about Physics, and teaching his students in an effective and legitimate manner. You definitely won't regret taking a class with him.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - Let me start by saying, if there has ever been a professor more deserving of a review, it’s Mehta. Much like the other comments from this quarter, this class was a complete disaster. I have never had a professor who so blatantly cared less about the well-being of his students and the organization of a class. Despite only having three instructors—Mehta and two TAs—there was effectively ZERO communication between them ever, and there was never a clear answer as to what would be on a test. Concerning the lectures themselves, he frequently ended the lectures early, as if he just wanted to leave asap; he only ever read from pre-made slides, clearly never putting extra effort into making the material even remotely interesting. While the midterms were not too bad, the final was an actual joke. Not only incredibly difficult, but it was unproctored for portions of the test and we were given (supposedly) 4 hrs to take the exam— both of which are completely against university policy regarding a final. Additionally, and perhaps most insane, students went outside after the test proctoring was over, still with tests in hand, and collaborated on the tests together. Despite all of this chaos and disorganization, the TAs essentially didn’t even read the finals and curves most people’s grades really highly. TLDR hear me now, listen to me later: do NOT take this class w Mehta. I have never had a professor so undoubtedly unfit to teach students at this university. Ripp all y’all fouls that end up taking him ha.
Spring 2023 - Let me start by saying, if there has ever been a professor more deserving of a review, it’s Mehta. Much like the other comments from this quarter, this class was a complete disaster. I have never had a professor who so blatantly cared less about the well-being of his students and the organization of a class. Despite only having three instructors—Mehta and two TAs—there was effectively ZERO communication between them ever, and there was never a clear answer as to what would be on a test. Concerning the lectures themselves, he frequently ended the lectures early, as if he just wanted to leave asap; he only ever read from pre-made slides, clearly never putting extra effort into making the material even remotely interesting. While the midterms were not too bad, the final was an actual joke. Not only incredibly difficult, but it was unproctored for portions of the test and we were given (supposedly) 4 hrs to take the exam— both of which are completely against university policy regarding a final. Additionally, and perhaps most insane, students went outside after the test proctoring was over, still with tests in hand, and collaborated on the tests together. Despite all of this chaos and disorganization, the TAs essentially didn’t even read the finals and curves most people’s grades really highly. TLDR hear me now, listen to me later: do NOT take this class w Mehta. I have never had a professor so undoubtedly unfit to teach students at this university. Ripp all y’all fouls that end up taking him ha.
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