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
Winter 2025 - There is nothing else I can say that all of these other reviews before me have not covered yet. Mehta has to be one of the most careless professors I have ever learned under, and how he is still able to teach at the #1 Public University is seriously beyond my comprehension. I stopped going to lecture after the FIRST one and opted to just watch the videos he would upload (especially because that is what he forced us to do amidst the wildfires during week 2 instead of doing zoom meetings). Best of all, we had a midterm the week upon our return from evacuation! Average was a 70, so not terrible, but come on man. He is also never clear in his lectures. He simply reads the slides, does not explain why the example problems use specific formulas or reasoning, and verbatim always says "If you don't know why xyz is happening, I encourage you to look at the past slides or watch the past videos" you can LITERALLY just tell us, why make things so time-consuming and more difficult than they have to be? Also, the average on the 2nd midterm was a 66. He had first told us our lowest midterm would be dropped, simply changed that course policy halfway through the quarter, and then ended up dropping our lowest after basically being forced to by the department because his averages were so terrible and because of the wildfires. If it wasn't for our TA Andrew, I would have dropped the class after the first midterm. He explained everything clearly during discussion, extended his office hours for us, constantly told us not to worry, and literally was the actual professor as he would be the only one there during midterm and final days (Mehta did not show up to a single in-person exam, nor did he make them, nor did he grade them. It's been 2 weeks since Finals Week and our grade JUST got uploaded because I assume that poor Andrew has to grade all of it on his own). Not to mention, Mehta assured everyone the grade would be curved and it seems like he didn’t curve anything? We also didn’t get our final grades back. TLDR; terrible, terrible professor. content is doable, but if your TA isnt goated then genuinely good luck. do not take him unless you have to declare your major, it's better to wait another quarter and try to shoot for a better enrollment time.
Winter 2025 - There is nothing else I can say that all of these other reviews before me have not covered yet. Mehta has to be one of the most careless professors I have ever learned under, and how he is still able to teach at the #1 Public University is seriously beyond my comprehension. I stopped going to lecture after the FIRST one and opted to just watch the videos he would upload (especially because that is what he forced us to do amidst the wildfires during week 2 instead of doing zoom meetings). Best of all, we had a midterm the week upon our return from evacuation! Average was a 70, so not terrible, but come on man. He is also never clear in his lectures. He simply reads the slides, does not explain why the example problems use specific formulas or reasoning, and verbatim always says "If you don't know why xyz is happening, I encourage you to look at the past slides or watch the past videos" you can LITERALLY just tell us, why make things so time-consuming and more difficult than they have to be? Also, the average on the 2nd midterm was a 66. He had first told us our lowest midterm would be dropped, simply changed that course policy halfway through the quarter, and then ended up dropping our lowest after basically being forced to by the department because his averages were so terrible and because of the wildfires. If it wasn't for our TA Andrew, I would have dropped the class after the first midterm. He explained everything clearly during discussion, extended his office hours for us, constantly told us not to worry, and literally was the actual professor as he would be the only one there during midterm and final days (Mehta did not show up to a single in-person exam, nor did he make them, nor did he grade them. It's been 2 weeks since Finals Week and our grade JUST got uploaded because I assume that poor Andrew has to grade all of it on his own). Not to mention, Mehta assured everyone the grade would be curved and it seems like he didn’t curve anything? We also didn’t get our final grades back. TLDR; terrible, terrible professor. content is doable, but if your TA isnt goated then genuinely good luck. do not take him unless you have to declare your major, it's better to wait another quarter and try to shoot for a better enrollment time.
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