Dr Gelmini is friendly, but her tests leave me in tears for how confusing it is, especially the finals (and I mean unbelievably confusing). Her grading is very lenient however. Make sure you participate so she can remember you (it helps when she determines whether to give you a B or B+ for example if your grade is in the borderline like my case)

Even though I did okay in this class I wouldn't really recommend anyone to take it. It's unnecessarily hard, the homework is a huge pain, and her lectures are a drag because she's quite hard to understand (at least for me). If you have any doubts about your Physics Mechanics knowledge then I'd say take it with someone else.

If you're already enrolled in this class, you will still be able to succeed, it'll just take some effort. Go to discussion, go to office hours, do a TON of practice problems, and make sure to ask your TA for clarification on anything you find confusing. I'd say the most efficient way to learn is write down any problems you struggle with, and bring them to your TA's office hours every week. Since physics problems often have multiple ways to solve them, it is super helpful to have your TA show you the "best" ways to solve certain problems, rather than figure it out on your own. Good luck.

Physics 1A is supposed to be an introductory class to mechanics, but that sure isn't what this class felt like. Thank goodness I had taken AP Physics in high school or I wouldn't have been able to survive. Professor Gelmini reads off her sheet of notes during lecture, but it isn't the best. If you've never seen physics before, good luck because this class will be hard. Homework is done through Mastering Physics, and she does not grade for completion. You'll also get deducted points every time you make a mistake, so make sure you're using the right symbols. Seriously. Professor Gelmini was always helpful during office hours and was always willing to answer questions during the break (it was a two hour lecture). Go to discussion because those questions are similar to the midterms, and DO the practice midterms because that's as close to the actual midterm as you're gonna get. If something is confusing on the exam, raise your hand immediately. Her exams are a time crunch and sometimes they are hard to understand, so ASK. Also she likes to use a lot of math and ugly trig in her exams, so try to remember your verticle angles and all that good stuff. And if you're seeing mechanics for the first time, PLEASE watch youtube videos or whatever you can find. Also, go to your TA's office hours, or the other TAs. Professor Gelmini can help with homework problems, but if you want a good explanation, I would say go to the TAs.

I actually liked Gelmini a lot. She taught in a way that was easy to read her notes and follow along. She also had a lot of fun demonstrations that kept the lecture awake (it was an 8am). Her teaching wasn't bad and I think a lot of the issues people had were with the material itself which isn't her fault. Physics is hard and of course, people who've taken physics in high school will have a leg up on everyone else. But, she explained things well and did example problems in class. She does use Mastering Physics which can be annoying because for each problem you miss, you lose partial credit, but it's not hard to find answers online if you're stuck. Also, her tests are very similar to the Mastering Physics so if you take the homework seriously, you won't have a problem. TLDR, Gelmini is a good professor, it's just the subject material can be challenging. Just do the homework and the class will be easy enough.

I took this class my second quarter here along with Math 32B, Chem 20B, and Chem 20L. This class by far was my hardest. Thankfully I took AP Physics in high school, which meant all the material and concepts were the same, but this class was still very hard and took everything we learned in high school physics to another level. As others have said, I wouldn't recommend taking this class w/Gelmini if you haven't taken AP Physics before. The homework was pretty frustrating for me, not only because it felt so annoying to get these problems incorrect when I felt I 100% knew them, but also because it was through Mastering Physics which is a God-forsaken awful online software that makes you pay ~$70 for a program that doesn't function on an acceptable level for any class whatsoever. The exams would be do-able if given 1.5x the amount of time. All the problems felt solvable, or sometimes had a trick to them that needed time to be seen, but you're only given 50 minutes so many people had trouble even getting to the last multi-step problem. The final was actually fine for me, I studied pretty hard for it, but I made a lot of dumb mistakes that if I had caught I might've been able to get an A with. This class is made pretty challenging by Gelmini, as you have to be able to really understand the concepts behind physics, but also be able to solve problems well and solve them quickly. I'm overall pretty happy with an A-, I thought I might've gotten a B in the class. Oh also, the midterms will make you feel like complete shit, and you might even get a panic attack but don't worry too much since basically everyone will feel the same way (the worst part is that these were all at 8 am, and you had to go back to lecture for another hour right after you just got mindf*cked).

Tests are very difficult (averages ~50-60%) but grades are curved. Work as fast as you can to do well since a lot of people will struggle to finish all the problems on time. If you're taking physics for the first time, don't take this class as many students who have taken it before will do better than you and destroy your chances of getting a good grade. If you've taken Physics C or Physics 1 in HS, the tests will still be hard, but it should be easy to outscore the curve.

I really like Gelmini, but her class was definitely tough and would be a struggle for those taking physics for the first time. Tests were really hard and everyone left feeling miserable because they ran out of time. It didn't really feel like the tests were a good representation of our knowledge, because they were time constrained and often included what seemed like "trick" questions, where it didn't matter how well you knew the material, if you didn't see the "trick" then you would score very poorly. I also thought her lectures were long and a little boring, and sometimes her wording was unclear. We also mainly did conceptual work in class, which made the problem solving on the test difficult to understand (mostly because we weren't used to the way she worded her questions). She definitely tried to help, but the pace of the class was very fast.

Very bad teacher who makes very hard test averages on midterms and finals around 60%. This is because the midterms are to long to finish in a hour so most people don't finish. Very poor teacher won't learn much in lecture but show up to get clicker credit, many learning occurs during HW. All HW online with mastering physics. The program is expensive $50 and some people don't like it deducts points for sig figs (not a big deal will learn sig figs very easily) but doing the extra practice problems and fully learning the concepts will make or break your test grades.

Keys to do well:
-attend lecture get clicker credit even though waste of time
-do online HW (all problems answer online so can copy and paste question and cheat, but will waste your time actual learn how to do all of the problems the same concepts will be on test which is all computational)
-Work super fast on midterms partial credit given need to attempt all questions to score well
-Take AP Physics (I already new all concepts coming into the class and scored 30-40% above avg on every test and got an A+)

If you didn't take AP physics study hard and good luck. Also she curves to a low B so need to do well above the curve for an A

I think that Professor Gelmini means well, and she does put in effort to make the class a good learning experience; however, the execution is just a bit off. Lectures are often filled with clicker questions (which test very basic fundamental knowledge), and mathematical proofs of formulas - which can be interesting at times, but don't delve into how to solve the kinds of problems that appear on our homework, midterms, and finals. As a result, I felt rather unprepared.

The homework is what's supposed to prepare you for the midterms, but I still felt like there was a gap in the difficulty of the homework problems and the midterms/finals; compound with the fact that Mastering Physics is just a bad piece of software, and coupled with the fact that you can't really understand where you went wrong, makes the homework somewhat unimportant in midterm and final preparation.

The pacing was also a bit awkward: a majority of the material seemed packed in the last third of the class, as we went over rotational motion (i.e. torque and angular momentum); this made up almost the entire final, which seemed a bit... off. We weren't even tested on some of the other material that we spent quite a bit of time on (e.g. Gravitational Potential), which seemed a bit unfair.

The midterms and the finals were quite hard, with a significant curve in our class; some of it is definitely me not being that good at physics, but overall our class struggled with the material.

Overall, I didn't love having Gelmini, and I didn't hate having her, but I wouldn't recommend this class to others.

I was pretty scared to take Professor Gelmini's class when I first saw the grades she gives out and the other reviews on Bruinwalk. However, I this she is a pretty humorous and good professor who really enjoys teaching students and will be more than willing to answer questions during breaks/office hours. Her lectures are definitely more conceptual and basic and she has a lot of demos to show these concepts in action, however she doesn't really go over how to do any challenging examples in class, which is a shame. The tests are challenging, but like others said the midterms are doable (around the same level as some of the challenging masteringphysics homework problems), but the final is on a different level (as it forces you to apply many of the topics covered in class on a single problem). She gives a pretty generous amount of partial credit and likes to average her tests around 60%. For reference I received a 76% on MT1 (median 77%), 82% on MT2 (median 58%) and 61% on the final (median 61%).