Wow, just the sweetest professor ive ever had in my whole two years at UCLA. He cares so much about students and this is the first class I've taken here in the physics department that just seems actually fair. he really really cares about his students and physics. amazing professor

This class is relatively easy. The weekly homework can sometimes be excessive (longer than 40 questions, in some cases). Exams were super fair and very similar to the homework. If you took time to do the homework, you should be able to do very well. McKeown's lectures leave a lot to be desired since they are mostly just screenshots from the textbook, so I never showed up to lecture and instead just learned from the textbook. He is a very nice guy who genuinely cares about his students.

Mr. McKeown, I can say with confidence that you are by far my favorite professor. Day by day, you proved and demonstrated that you care about the learning of the students. I never was one to contest midterm scores in fear of total shutdown, and overall shame from professors that I have seen other students experience at the hands of other professors. I could say that you couldn't be further from the case, and fostered a comfortable learning environment free from shame. As a first gen Latino, this is incredibly valuable to me. And as a cherry on top, you were one of the most understanding professors when it came to the difficulties brought by our current political climate. As a student who personally participated in the encampment protest the night the police raided in, I was brought such comfort in all the peril that you were going to take the class pace slower as a result. You didn't have to, but the fact that you did demonstrates true care in the student body. Thank you, Mr. McKeown for your time as my professor. I hope to be your student once again.

McKeown is an amazing guy and a very fair professor. He makes physics accessible to everyone. His quizzes and exams are very fair and similar to both his lecture and the homework. He gives adequate homework to really help you understand the lecture material. I really like the textbook as well, and I find it really helpful for me to tune into his lectures and then read the corresponding section of the textbook after. Considering how I took 1B in Winter 2023 (over a year by now) and how I got a C+ in that class (worst class I've ever taken at UCLA especially as a CS major who will never need physics in my life), take it from me: McKeown makes physics accessible to EVERYONE. I hate physics and I still do, but damn did I really enjoy his class. He's just an overall super nice and chill professor and I really appreciate how fair he tries to be. It's a shame that the UCLA physics department is so stingy with their GPA quotas because physics should not be made as hard as it is at UCLA, but I have faith McKeown is a step in the right direction for the future of UCLA physics.

The professor clearly cares about the class and the grades of individual students. The instruction is good (mostly directly from the book) and the exams are pretty fair in my opinion. You don't really need to study if you just do the homework and understand it which is nice. The thing I didn't like was that there would be 3 or 4 released homeworks at any given point and they were just due a month or more from the date they were posted. This meant it's more on the student to self-pace when it came to homework.

Overall, I would take this class again. Not a big Physics fan and bad at it too but this Professor made Physics manageable.

Grades were composed of: Midterm 1, Midterm 2, Final, Homework, Quizzes, Lab

Lectures: Recorded, not mandatory. Didn't find the lectures super helpful.

Homework: Mastering Physics, graded on completion. There were A LOT of problems assigned for each chapter but it was CRUCIAL to do them and UNDERSTAND how to do them because his exams and quizzes were basically homework problems reworded. Do the HW thoroughly and you'd be fine on exams.

Exams: Fair. MTC and FRQ, mtc often pulled from lecture examples, had multiple FRQ questions with different parts. Very doable but if you don't study enough you'll be very strapped for time. Quizzes were like one small HW problem.

Grading: Very fair. If you did better on the final it would replace your lowest midterm score + 5 points EC.

Best professor or teacher I've had in my 14 years of school. This class had me learning complex, difficult material while at the same time feeling like a chill intro class. Instead of being expected to master these concepts and apply them to ridiculous problems (which leaves students lost and learning nothing), Professor Mckeown kept all problems relatively simple. HW was a bunch of easy problems and a couple hard ones, and after watching lecture and doing HW I was very comfortable with everything covered. If I needed extra help though, discussion was very helpful (I stopped going but apparently it had good extra problems and HW help), and I heard amazing things about the professor's office hours. Tests were very plug and chug (with equations provided), so I was never stressing that much. Professor Mckeown should 100% be in charge of the entire physics 1 series, as he's the only one in the department who seems to understand that although the material should be challenging, it is an introductory series.

McKeown passion for teaching really shows, as does the care he has for his students and for maintaining fairness. His efforts to rework the ways physics is traditionally taught truly is inspiring; I always felt respected in the classroom, both during exams and in classes. Quite honestly one of the best professors I've experienced since coming to UCLA.

McKeown passion for teaching really shows, as does the care he has for his students and for maintaining fairness. His efforts to rework the ways physics is traditionally taught truly is inspiring; I always felt respected in the classroom, both during exams and in classes. Quite honestly one of the best professors I've experienced since coming to UCLA.

Professor McKeown is very passionate about physics and clearly cares about his students. I think he will become a very good physics professor. However, I have to say this quarter has been pretty difficult and disappointing. The professors slides consist of screenshots of the textbook. Then, during lecture he reads, verbatim, the screenshots of the textbook. His example problems in class are from the textbook. At a certain point in the quarter I just felt like I was wasting time going to class. I can read, so I dont need someone to be reading the textbook to me. He also spends a large amount of time deriving formulas. Sure that is interesting, but it is not necessary for the level of this course and honestly wastes time where he could be doing practice problems instead.
One more thing I will say is that by week 4 or 5 we were so behind the lab portion of this course that I literally had no idea what was going on. The lab topic was completely different from the lecture topics. I know that lecture and lab are separate parts of this course, however I found it very frustrating to complete pre-labs and labs with NO KNOWLEDGE of the topics being covered.
Overall, he has potential to be a great professor. It's rare to have one that cares so much about his students. I will say that for the most part he listens to our suggestions and complaints, which I appreciate. He is just a bit disorganized and it comes at the cost of your sanity and grades.