Corbin's engaging personality and interesting lectures are not worth the GPA dip you will get if you are not at the very tippy top of the curve. Do not recommend unless you are absolutely positive you GET physics.

Corbin <3

Ah, Corbin. What can I say, you probably already heard everything you need to know. He is easily the best lower-div physics professor. His lectures are engaging, funny, and very clear. Yes, his exams are hard af, but that is how you learn. And keep in mind that they are hard for everyone, and at the end of the day his grade distribution is not worse than other professors'. If you are a physics major or like physics, I think you should take Corbin at least once.

Did I learn a lot? Yes. Was it worth the major GPA hit? No. Corbin is funny and I like him as a person but having him two quarters in a row was a big oof, although I will say it's kind of a rite of passage. However, tests are nothing like the textbook or lecture problems and they destroyed my self-confidence and happiness. Doesn't matter how well you study if you aren't a quick thinker you aren't getting a good grade. I've never worked so hard for a class and still gotten poor results. If your GPA can tolerate it then take him but if not then better pray for a good enrollment time.

Prepare to actually seriously learn physics when you take Corbin - to actually even do well you need to actually be able to grasp and apply the material, something I can say not many other physics teachers do. But also prepare for tests to show that you don't know any physics and completely destroy any delusion you might have had that you had any sort of mastery on physics.

On Corbin himself, he's a super entertaining lecturer that teaches Physics in what I consider a very interesting and engaging way compared to how Physics is usually taught - his office hours are popular and useful and he's overall still quite generous with the curve.

Tests will still make you die though.

TL;DR: Great lecturer, tests will kill you, and you better be some sort of genius at physics if you expect to get higher than a 50% though the curve is generous regardless.

Corbin is hilarious and very very very smart and a great professor. If you don't care for your grade or GPA, I would recommend taking this classs!! You truly learn a lot about electromagnetics and special relativity. As a Civil Engineer, taking the class with Electrical Engineers who were more familiar with impedance and circuits than I was (esp after the summer gap between 1B and 1C), it was really difficult for me to do well. Also it wasn't academically relevant for me to take a hard "lets REALLY learn this material" class for 1C. But if you are going into this field, he will teach it very thoroughly that will help you in the long run!

Corbin is a legend. Don't fall behind on homework and make sure you know everything presented in lectures.

This is quite late, but I took 1B and 1C with him last year and his 1B course is a big part of why I decided to do a second major in physics (my first major is in an unrelated field that's often laughed at by physics majors.)

Anyway, he's without a doubt the best professor I've ever had. I'm not very good at explaining why/how, but he simply excels at teaching. Go to one of his lectures, and you'll understand.

I did well in 1B despite being positive that I'd failed the class. I slacked a bit in 1C and bombed the final after pulling three all-nighters in a row (bad, bad idea, sleep is very important for your brain) but I still learned so much in those two classes and am very glad that I took them with him.

If you're not a physics/math/engineering major, are not interested in physics as a subject, and only care about getting an easy A, I suppose you're better off taking one of the other professors (try Zocchi). However, if you have even the slightest interest in actually learning the material, take him. If you're a physics major, how well you do in his course is a good indicator of how well you'll do in subsequent upper division classes. He approaches physics from a theory-based perspective rather than focusing on regurgitative plug-and-chug, so you'll have a far easier time in upper-div courses if you take the 1 series with him.

Also, his classes are not as difficult as people make them out to be. Yes, his exam averages are low, but once you get past the shock of receiving a 40% on a midterm, that's really irrelevant - what matters is a) how well you do relative to the class average and b) how well you learn the material regardless of your numerical score.

Corbin is the best professor I've had in my two years at UCLA. He legitimately cares if his students learn the material and he really prepares you for upper division classes.

His lectures are all proofs so they're really hard to follow. Make sure you copy everything down in your notes and go over them later.

His tests are really really hard. Do all of your homework and do additional problems in the book and you'll have a chance. But in the end, he's really generous with the number of A's he gives out.

I'm going to start off by saying Corbin is a good professor. Is he great? I personally didn't think so. His lectures can be a bit hard to follow even if you are pretty good at physics. He definitely caters to students who really like physics and consider themselves to really understand it.

Nonetheless, you do learn a lot in this class. The way the class is structured forces you to keep on top of the material and really know it, not just memorize equations.

The first midterm was ok, time is a really big constraint though. The second midterm was pretty difficult and I was scared going into the final, but I got a B in the class. The grading is fairly generous in terms of the number of B's given out. It is very hard to get an A but not too hard to get a B.