I drop the class, worst worst worst professor ever

This guy is a joke, so far he has wasted almost all of class lecturing on irrelevant content ( he spent 40 minutes out of a 50 minute lecture explaining to us what a Cartesian plane is). However, the homework and tests reflect no content that was explained in lectures. His voice is very monotone, he does not seem engaged at all, and at times he just starts rambling on tangents. Save your time, save your gpa, do not take physics 1A with Arash.

Don't bother with Bellafard.

I took AP Physics C in high school in my junior year. I got a 4 on the AP exam, so I'm definitely nothing special, but at least I generally know what I'm doing with classical mechanics. If you've taken AP Physics in high school prepare to be confused out of your mind by this professor. His text explains everything in a fairly sensical way, but his lectures will confuse the living hell out of you with explanations that have hardly any bearing on what you might already know. Classical mechanics SHOULD NOT BE THIS HARD. There's a reason he has a 2.7 score, just find another professor or take the class a different quarter if Bellafard is your only choice. It's not worth losing the GPA points.

I feel so sorry for this professor. I usually don't rate professors on bruinwalk unless the other comments or ratings are similar to mine and the professor are super good or ... you know...

Frankly speaking, he is nice, but he is not good at teaching. This may because what we are learning is just too easy for him. After taking his class, I understand why his rating in Bruinwalk is merely 2.0 before I enrolled in the class.

His explanations in class are just not clear at all. No clear explanations of the very basic concepts and therefore confuses a lot of students who are new to physics. Remember, this is spring quarter, many students who have never taken physics before are taking 1A during this quarter.( I took IB physics HL before, but despair of having an A- in this course.)

This is a course with coreq Math 32A, but he includes math skills that will be taught in Math 32B. His lecture just confuses me. Sometimes, he starts his derivation without even telling us his purpose of derivation. The lecture is somehow disorganized. If you feel confused, you cannot even look up your textbook for help, because the lecture is almost unrelated to the textbook. The materials he talks about cannot be found in the book.

Also, his tests include some incredibly hard questions that nobody can solve them. His workload is large, but, these practice questions are so easy and are not strongly related to the things that are talked about in classes. The homework can help you to prepare for 30% of your exams. Homeworks are basically traditional calculation problems that are similar to those in textbooks. But in (most) exams, he tests the type of questions that do not appear in your homework frequently and derivations.

Initially, many of my friends and I really like Physics, but after this class, our passions to this subject just decrease hugely.

We only went over proofs in class that had little to no relation to exams or homework. He was annoyed when students would ask him questions to clarify their understanding and often made students feel stupid for not understanding something (ex- if they haven't taken AP Physics C before and don't already know all the material). He would often use mathematics that was not yet supposed to be taken in his proofs- and would seem irritated when students pointed out that that mathematics hadn't yet been taught in UCLA Math classes required. Overall, only take him if you've already taken AP Physics C in high school. I I think part of the mass confusion among the class was the fact that this course was taken in the Summer so the pace was accelerated, so it may be different in the school year although I think his attitude discouraging students from asking for help (he would praise us for not asking questions) and the fact that the professor would make me feel stupid for not understanding concepts I wasn't expected to previously know is the major issue in this course.

I would say that Bellafard had much passion in Physics, and he really made effort to make physics concepts and derivations clear enough for us to understand and to make use of.

Physics maybe the subject that made many students headache, and University Physics can either destroy your interest or appeal you to deeper and deeper fields.

Here comes a somewhat detailed decomposition of this course.

1% participation (oh, a generous present from the professor)
9% homework (9 homework assignments in total)
20% * 2 midterms (30 grades possible for 3 problems each, 50 min)
50% Final (60 grades possible for 6 problems, 3 hours)
+5% possible extra credits!!!!!(you need to answer the extra credit iclicker questions right to get full credit)

I have to say that...time can be really tight for the midterms, but the final offer you enough time to work those questions out...though it may hurt more if you were "oscillating" from one pathway to another without a firm final answer, huh.

Worst professor on campus

The homeworks in this class are enough to make you not take it. I don't know a single person in this class with me who did the homework assignments without employing the help of either the professor, the TA, or some online website. They are extremely difficult and extremely time consuming, over 12 hours per week. Also, lectures weren't even recorded, meaning that no matter what time zone you were in, you either had to be in lecture or were just screwed on the content for that week. First 3 weeks of content was tough but learnable, however past the third week the introduction of rotational kinematics just confused the whole class, and the explanations all seemed to require some random trick that you couldn't possibly have learned from the lectures.

What a class.

Most of the reviews here are outdated, as his grading scale is 20% midterm 1, 20% midterm 2, 5% homework, 5% participation, and 50% final. With that being said, make sure to participate a lot in class, even if you aren’t so sure about your thoughts, because I’m pretty sure it’s makes a whole sign difference in your grade. I will say though, if you participate early on, Arash will learn who you are and start to call on you every time, as he did with a handful of students in my class.

The midterms were absolute jokes; for the first one, he literally gave us 2 of the questions in lecture (dubbed as “exercises for you to try,” so he didn’t actually do them, but you could look up the answers nevertheless), and the third was straight out from the homework. The second midterm was a little harder, but again, he gave us one word-for-word as a practice exercised like the last ones, and another question was very similar to an example he did in class.

The final however was pretty bad, but that might’ve been because I was over the class by then. 6 questions, expect to cover all of the main topics (except maybe continuous mass transfer). Idk what to say really other than they were more tricky than the homework problems and midterms.

Homework was absolute garbage too. The thing about Arash is that his lecture style is very theoretical and conceptual, so when you look at the homework, you don’t know where to start, because the questions are more computation based. Chegg is an absolute must, not only so you can actually see the thought process behind each question, but also because 2 random questions are checked for accuracy. On top of that, it’s VERY VERY long, especially if you have never seen physics in your life, so for the love of God if you really must take this class, START EARLY. The homework literally is the gateway to mastering the concepts he will test you on, and you definitely do NOT want to be pulling all nighters finishing 20-30 problems on Sunday. I will say though, if you really spend time to do the homework, you will learn the concepts sufficiently.

Speaking of his teaching style, this man is a complete fraud. I kid you not, he ripped off all of his lectures almost word-for-word from the MIT Courseware. Like bruh, what the heck. I’m paying 1.5k for you to regurgitate to me what is considered public domain. Like, ok. And the worst part is that you actually have to go to lecture because he keeps track of participation (and idk how, he doesn’t have iclickers or anything, so really he’s just going based on how much he knows you I assume). In between them though he throws some iclicker type multiple choice questions and open ended examples. Sometimes he’ll go over them with the class, and other times he’ll single out a lucky student to tell him how to do it.

Now for reference, I took AP physics 1 in high school with a terrible teacher and failed the AP test, but I have to say that being familiar with the material, even ever so slightly, was a big advantage. Maybe it’s because I took summer session though. And as for tests grades, I got a 25/30 on MT 1 (mean 17.5), 26/30 on MT 2 (idk the mean), and probably some score in the single digits on the final LOL. As you can see, I was on track for maybe an A-, but that final will make or break you.

I gotta give Arash credit though, because he definitely encouraged his students to ask questions and always gave opportunities to do so, and even though he uses MIT’s lectures, he actually knows his stuff and can answer your questions with his own knowledge. However, his lack of social awareness makes him oblivious to the fact that everyone is afraid of asking a question in front of the whole class, and yet he uses the same techniques to try to get students to ask questions as though he thinks it’s working.

Overall, I’d say to avoid this man like the plague if you’re new to physics. ESPECIALLY if you’re considering it over summer. The pace of a summer quarter is absolutely not sufficient to learn the material thoroughly for the first time WHILE having a life, but if you really must, please, please do NOT take another classes with it.

However, if you’ve taken AP Physics C or have 0 responsibilities other than school, this man will be a walk in the park. Just study all the questions he gives you in lecture (examples AND exercises, btw he shows the exercises super fast so copy it down as fast as you can + all the key words), don’t lose motivation in week 6 (or week 10), go nuts in the final, and you’ll probably get a B+ at minimum. Also watch the MIT videos before each lecture and regurgitate all the right answers so you can get free participation clout without embarrassing yourself. I think the curve also helps because it’s a mixture of students who have never taken physics, and pretty much no one realizes that THOSE questions he gives out during lecture are on the midterm. You’ll know which ones I’m talking about if you do decide to take this man.

Either way though, this man was not very memorable, and the fact that his lectures weren’t original further discredits the few times I thought this man was brilliant and engaging. ucla disappoints again

(Oh and textbook isn’t necessary; hw is on paper, BUT find the PDF either way bc concepts are huge for physics in general)

WORST CLASS I HAVE EVER TAKEN. His lectures don't correlate with homework or exams. He doesn't even follow the book and teaches whatever topic he wants in whatever order. If you ask him questions in class he manages to confuse you more or not answer your question. If this is your first time doing physics you will TREMENDOUSLY suffer because he doesn't explain fundamental concepts and instead derives equations in class. If you can, avoid him at all costs for the sake of your GPA.