Just like for Physics 5B, Bauer was a very straightforward professor. The quizzes seemed a bit harder but maybe that's because he made them open note this quarter. He ended up giving us a free 100% on a quiz and also dropped our lowest quiz. The midterm, at least personally, I felt was a lot easier than the 5B midterm. The final was meh, definitely did not understand 2 of the 7 questions, but his generous partial credit pulled through and I still got an 85% on that final.
Honestly, the class content is a lot easier than 5B and I think that reflects in his grades of this class as I put a lot less effort in this class. Bauer is a pretty decent professor and I don't have any big complaints on this class.

Dr. Bauer tests us fairly and adjusts the difficulty of future exams according to our past performance (he aims for a B/B- median overall). The textbook, homework, and lecture all complement each other. Lectures are extremely clear, with a good amount of relevant derivations and examples. Discussion worksheets are really challenging for some reason (how many times did the binomial theorem/miscellaneous approximating assumptions crop up?), but they're only graded for completion.

Let me be clear, Dr. Bauer is who you should take physics with if you have struggled in the past. He makes everything simple in his lectures, and then it is up to you to practice. The material is not too bad, and weekly quizzes (8) are challenging but not anything unfair by any means.

A lot of people were unhappy this quarter that he assigned a paper due on finals week along with our regular final, but other than that, the workload is not much besides studying. He is a chill dude, take him if you can!

Honestly, Professor Bauer is a pretty good professor and lecturer. His lectures were very clear and I think he covered the material at an appropriate pace. He also records all of his lectures and broadcasts them on zoom, so most people never came in person except for exams lol. The weekly homework is light and shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours max, but I would definitely recommend doing the optional textbook problems. The exams range in difficulty because he adjusts them based on student performance, but they are always fair. The midterms were pretty straightforward, although the final exam was a bit hard. He does not curve, but honestly, it wasn't really necessary for his exams. His discussion worksheets are hard, but they're nothing like the exams and they aren't graded based on accuracy.
Overall, I would recommend Bauer for Physics 1B!

Bauer honestly cares a lot about his students. I had him during the TA strike. His lectures are just note taking on the board, not a lot of example problems, not a lot of explanations. He doesn't lecture about how to do the problems, only the equations and where they come from. Weekly hw that you have to enroll in Pearson. He lets you have a single page cheat sheet on each midterm to fill with equations and stuff, just has to be handwritten. The midterms are HARD. Like 3 questions, abcdefg. He did give partial credit but his tests are just so hard. He doesn't go over how to solve problems at all, and he expects you to be able to solve novel problems by rearranging the equations on the spot. I struggled a lot. The final was moved to be multiple choice because of the strike, and I was able to do well due to this... he bruincasted everything my quarter, participation meant nothing. I would watch recordings online so I could pause and rewind. But he cares, a lot. He totally understood when we had a strike come through the class during a midterm. He also is doing his best. Bauer is a sweetheart, but I wish he did more practice problems during classtime. Office hours was very helpful though!

Professor Bauer is one of the sweetest STEM professors I've had at UCLA. He's truly a sweet guy who just wants you to learn some physics. He's very patient answering questions and is an approachable person. His tests, although difficult, aren't trying to trick you or screw you over. With the TA strike fall quarter, he altered the structure of the final and even included a free bonus question at the end which made me smile.

I had him for both 5A and 5B. As a disabled student professor Bauer has always been an accommodating and understanding professor. I experienced an extremely traumatic event the day before our final, and wasn't sure if I was going to make it to the exam. Professor Bauer was very understanding and offered to accommodate me for the final even though it ended up not being necessary. He also let me take a midterm on a different day for 5A when my disability was giving me a lot of trouble. I can't say enough nice things about professor Bauer. I wish I could take him for 5C but unfortunately he isn't giving it next quarter.

He gives good lectures that set you up with the equations needed to complete the homework. He was super responsive on campuswire and helped provide advice on the homework. His review sessions were also quite in-depth and gave a good idea about what would be beneficial to know for the exams. The exams are challenging, but he lets you have an equation sheet front-back which is helpful. I would prepare for the exams in this class by doing practice questions. He was also very accommodating with the TA strike and allowed our final exam to be multiple choice, it was still hard though. Overall he is a good professor, and I would suggest taking him.

Like what everyone else said in the reviews, Bauer's exams are reasonable and in my experience/opinion, I don't think he had any "curveballs" in the exam. The best way to prepare would be to consistently do the textbook problems (especially the "General Problems" section of the book) and stay caught up with the lectures and weekly homework assignments (which are just as do-able.) He also allowed us to bring a cheat sheet with a front and back side filled with anything you wanted for the midterms. The final was adjusted to be more accommodating because of the strike (as our second midterm was disrupted by strikers)––it had two components where the first component was an in-person, open-note, 12 question multiple choice exam and the other 50% was an asynchronous, Gradescope-submitted 1-page reflection on your performance on a past midterm. He did host review sessions where he ran through the equations and did problems problems that people requested but I personally didn't really find them helpful––though it was nice of him to make himself available as a resource.

Bauer's lectures were clear and straightforward as he would explain the important concepts and tell you what you would need to know for problems and the exams. He's not the most charismatic or energetic but I'd say it was much more helpful than reading the textbook (especially when it came to the wave, light, and diffraction units). He also Zoom recorded his lectures so you would be able to both see what he wrote on the board and hear what he was saying when you watched them again.

My interactions with Bauer were next to none because I didn't attend his office hours nor did I participate in Campuswire, but he seems like a chill guy. Overall, the course had a reasonable workload and fair exams––you just have to put the time into studying.

This class felt like 2-3 classes in one: the combination between the lecture, discussion, and lab, all with their own homework, was kind of overwhelming. Prof Bauer is great, but he's only like 1/3 of the class experience haha

I actually had Physics 4BL with David Bauer, but he is by far the best TA I've had for any physics class. Most of the time I sent him an email, he replied within the same day, sometimes within an hour. Also, his grading is actually fair and reasonable. For 4AL, I had Eric Kramer, who was nice enough but his grading was absurd. If you want a good grade on your lab with Kramer, you HAVE to finish it early, go to his office hours, and let him correct it for you. I had a conflict with his office hours, so I missed out on this one-on-one correction. I was only marked down on the actual content of my lab maybe once or twice; a majority of what I was marked down for was "incorrect line spacing" or "not enough tick marks on the graph". I ended up with a B- because Kramer didn't like the style of my reports. This is why Bauer is MUCH better. For one, he provided us with a style guide to follow, thus avoiding these issues in the first place. Also, whenever I asked him about the formatting issues, he response was typically "___ is what you should do, but I won't mark you down for something minor." Long story short, 4AL and 4BL are difficult classes, expect to spend about 8 hours a week on your lab report, but if you have a chance to take it with Bauer, do it.