One of the best professors all around! He was super flexible, gave fair exams, and his lectures were really great. 10/10 recommend.

Really enjoyed this professor and his course! Just be weary that he writes in chalk on the blackboard and doesn't use slides so showing up to class is kind of a must. He doesn't take attendance or clickers or anything but if you want the notes from him you should go. He does upload a notes paper to CCLE but its not the exactly same thing. His tests were straight forward and honestly I thought they were decent. It's physics so as long as you memorize the formulas and what they are for you're already halfway there. His exams were kind of just knowing how to correctly interpret and apply formulas, pretty good. Also he allowed an opt out option for the final!! (COVID 19) which was amazing and I really appreciated that. I opted out because I already had an A because the midterms were decent for me. Overall he was a funny and great professor and I really enjoyed his classes and lectures and would definitely recommend!

Not much to say about this class other than Bauer has trouble making a test that is at the correct level of difficulty. He made the first midterm way too hard and promised to make the second midterm easier but the second midterm was still hard. Then he promised to make the final easier, but because of covid-19, a lot of people opted out. Just be aware when taking his class. Other than that, nice guy. Decent lecturer.

Like other reviewers have said, Bauer cares a lot about student learning and it shows. He's very supportive of the class in general and is always active on Campuswire giving advice and communicates regularly by email. That being said, his lecture style didn't work well for me. Definitely dry and not particularly exciting, and I felt that he spent way too much time on derivations instead of examples (which is mainly how I learn). It was difficult to tell which equations were actually important for the class. I personally thought his exams were challenging because of wording and the lack of in-lecture examples. As mentioned in the other reviews, he is NOT good at judging the difficulty level of his own exams so always be wary.

TLDR; Class was manageable, and Bauer is a great person. Not the best lecturer and I wouldn't take him again, but I wouldn't be too worried about my grade if I had to.

Bauer is okay, he writes all his notes on the board, which can get a little exhausting / isn't very engaging. But Physics 5B is a genuinely easy class to work through, just do the mastering physics problems and the practice midterms / finals (though when I took this class he was still figuring out how hard to make it so the practice midterms were a gross overestimation of how easy his paper was going to be, so don't trust it, and just work hard to really get the concept if you want to do well). He was really accommodating with the shift to online, so he's an overall sweet guy. Not a bad class :)

Okay, let's set the record straight. Bauer is a fantastic guy and a great lecturer. Yes, he writes things on the board and is occasionally pretty dry. But the class is about waves; it's really not that interesting. He has original notes that aren't from a powerpoint and is clear about what you need to learn. I agree the tests were a bit tricky but not impossible and he more than prepares you for it, although the practice ones were easier. Overall, he honestly is the best professor I've had at UCLA and made me love physics after the math series railed me, so kudos to him for doing that. Take him for any class if you can.

I loved this class, because in Physics 5A, I always felt behind and I couldn't comprehend half of it. However, this class helped change my perception of physics. I loved how Professor Bauer would handwrite everything on the board, it made it easier for me to follow and understand. He also would show us interesting labs and demos during class, which helped make class even more amazing. The grade distribution is: 10% Homework (Mastering Physics), 15% Lab, there are 2 Midterms and whichever one you did better on would be 20% of your grade and the other one 15%, and finally the Final is 40%. You could get up to 0.6% extra credit from Campuswire. Overall, he also was funny and made lectures go faster, so I would highly recommend this class!

Dr. Bauer is extremely helpful and accommodating as a professor! He always asked for input from the class and wanted students to succeed. He's very active on Campuswire by answering questions and makes lectures easy to understand. The quizzes and final were fair and similar to the homework and practice problems we were assigned. I had a stronger conceptual understanding of the topics than I did in high school because Dr. Bauer explained them very clearly. Even if you don't enjoy physics, the class is very doable. I highly recommend taking 5A with Bauer!

I hated physics in high school but Bauer made it very manageable. He was super accommodating to everyone's requests and overall he's just a really great guy. Definitely recommend him for any physics class!

If you need to take this class, take it with Professor Bauer! The class consisted of weekly mastering homework assignments, weekly labs (no pre-labs!), four quizzes with the lowest being dropped, one midterm, and the final. All of his lectures were recorded beforehand but he would livestream them on zoom and allow us to ask questions in the chat which he would answer while lecture was playing which I thought was really efficient. His lectures are straightforward and easy to understand. If you have any questions, Bauer was extremely active on campuswire as was the rest of the class and we would usually get responses in around an hour. The quizzes were also very straightforward if you had been paying attention in class and following the homework. He didn't use any numbers and we had to write out answers in terms of variables which ended up being really nice due to the home-testing situation; we were less likely to make dumb calculator mistakes. Lastly, Bauer gave us an optional final which was really nice and he scaled the rest of the class to be worth more if you opted out (he even made the last homework extra credit). Even though I didn't take the final, I have never learned more in a single class. All in all, Bauer was such a caring professor and I 100% recommend him if you want to learn and do well.