also check out reviews for 6B! it's the same class
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I love Jackie!!! she's so cute and funny but most of all a damn good professor. It seems like she moves fast, but that's because she's going in depth because in the end we didn't cover that many topics and fell behind the lab section lol
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LECTURE: ah my only gripe her is she writes small on the chalkboard so if you can't snag a spot in the front rows it'll be hard to see. it gets better later in the quarter but it's tough at first. she does a lot of difficult practice problems in lecture, and if you don't write down the answers in time, you can google the questions because she uses Pearson slides. other schools do too so you'll find the answers on their websites so don't worry!! jackie takes the time to solve them and explain the methods but you really can't be dozing off at all because she's fast!!
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EXAMS: exams have an average of 74? I got a 100% on the first but bombed the second with a 60%. her grading scheme is similar to the math classes: both midterms with a lighter final, or higher midterm with a heavily weighted final. they are very clear, but at the same time tricky if you truly do not understand the material. you get a full sheet front/back for the final. tremendously helpful. practice your capacitors and resistors
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DISCUSSION: never have been helpful. 3 people show up because I felt bad and decided to check it out week 10. it's not too bad but it's like TA office hours so use if u want.
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HOMEWORK: I love mastering physics. it's just a good program?? I'm not mad she uses it bc you should have had it from 5A and 5B so no additional money there. she even assigns optional "tutorials" which are practice problems with a ton of hints which really helps guide my learning moreso than textbook reading because it's practice and application based rather than passively reading. try them out for circuits especially!
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THE WOMAN HERSELF: Jackie is snarky and cute! and genuinely cares about student learning. if class time conflicts, she goes out of her way to accommodate you. if you have another final the same day, she'll even let you take a different final time
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OVERALL: great course and she's very clear what she expects from you. yes it's challenging which warrants a lot of negative reviews from premeds and bio majors who want to keep their GPA up but as biochem I'm already used to getting shit grades so it doesn't hurt me lol. I noticed this trend with my favorite physics prof anton bondarenko too so people are just salty! I think it's when the professor is so clear and then ur like "damn this class easy" and then they ask something that applies the basic concepts u learn but more conceptually and ask u to solve something thru understanding rather than plug and chug and people flip. just try your best and use all your resources okay! good luck bb

Horrible professor. Avoid at all costs. Terrible at communicating with students and doesn't know how to teach physics. You need to teach everything to yourself which is a sign that she should not be a college professor considering how much money students pay to go here.

Pau is one of the worst professors I have had at ucla. Not only is she incapable of explaining simple concepts, but she is also very disorganized during lecture. She skips important slides and jumps around constantly, and does not finish example problems. And she is dismissive of student’s questions and when she does try to answer them (rarely) she is very unclear. It is also difficult to understand what she is saying because of her accent. And she offers no extra credit or points for participation. Avoid taking physics with her if you can!!

Dr. Pau is a really sweet lady. She means well, but her teaching style was not the best. She was often disorganized and would struggle to clearly explain basic topics necessary to understand her bigger picture topics/examples. She did go through lots of examples in class which were helpful but her tests were really long and difficult to complete in time. Two midterms and a final. I thought they were challenging, but I ended up getting an A+. Launchpad assignments are extremely time consuming and the labs were frustrating. Of the three physics classes, 5C was my least favorite. Overall, if you can take it with a different professor, that would be best. But if you can't, Pau isn't the worst, you'll just have to teach yourself a lot and do a lot of practice problems.

This review is for 5B. Do not take this class with her. She is so difficult to follow and does not explain things well. Lectures were basically pointless. Waste of my time.

Physics 6C is way easier than 6B and maybe even easier than 6A. That said, this class was a chore because of how unengaging the class is. Don't get me wrong, Pau is a nice person and definitely not a bad professor but everything is very by the numbers and overall I didn't enjoy the class that much because of it.

The midterm for this class was ridiculously easy. The average was an 89 which is absurd for a physics class. Like most people have said, the final is where she gets you. It is much more difficult than the midterm IMO but not impossible. Most of the questions are doable but there are just a few very tricky ones.

The labs suck as per usual. Just follow along with the manual and you'll get through alright.

She gives homework out of the book and she gives quizzes which are from masteringphysics. Don't bother going to discussion and just study on your own.

Overall this class certainly wasn't a nightmare like 6B was. It was just really average in all aspects. I'd still recommend Pau though

Dr. Pau, is in my opinion, probably the most average professor I've had. She gets the info across and is pretty thorough I suppose during lectures, but the class is not engaging at all, nor does it get me particularly excited about physics. I think part of it just has to do with the fact that Physics 6C (and 5C in the future) teaches a bunch of miscellaneous crap with little to no flow other than a couple topics about light and optics.

The material is ridiculously easy, especially to the level of understanding she wants you to have it at. The midterm was an absolute joke, with an average of an 89, which is unheard of. Her final was a bit tougher, and a couple questions tested if you actually knew what was going on rather than memorizing how to do the questions, which I know most lifescience people tend to do, but overall, the final was OK.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a lifescience person, I started this series and changed majors to physical science but they forced me to finish the series).

The class was so easy that I lost motivation for the class and hardly paid attention in lecture. Literally one or two formulas dictate almost everything that you'll learn in the class, so if you know the mirror equation, constructive destructive interference phase differences, and buoyancy, you'll be fine.

HOWEVER, her syllabus states only 15% of people will get an A+ or A, which you can see on the grading data on this website. 30 people dropped the class as soon as that syllabus came out, which means only 90 people, or less than 15 people getting A's. I'm not sure if that happened this session, but it isn't the best thing hanging over your head. Every point matters, buy a Chegg account, bullshit the Mastering Physics quizzes, get a good lab TA or fight for your points, look up the solutions manual. A surprising amount of people "couldn't keep up" with the quizzes because they didn't know you could look up the answers online as you were taking them.

Even if you take care of the small stuff, you need to still understand what the hell is going on, or else you won't be ready for that final.

Dr. Pau herself is a super nice person who cares about the class, she's a tiny little Asian lady who talks fairly fast, maybe it was just the class itself I didn't like, but I don't think I would take another class with her.

My experience in this class made me hate a subject that I loved after taking Physics 5A. Dr. Pau's lectures are both incredibly monotonous and unclear, and her lack of command of English often makes her already confusing lecturing style nearly unintelligible. I found myself learning every concept in this entire course from the book without any outside assistance so it took many many many more hours out of my day than a normal class. It is clear that Dr. Pau's grading is done entirely by AI so many people in the class have to submit huge amounts of regrade requests through Gradescope. Also, the tests are all online and as someone who is always 1000% honest and never cheats I felt very vulnerable to the curve on online tests. Additionally, the homework or any of the materials provided to you for that matter will not prepare you for the difficulty of Dr. Pau's exams so you must seek out incredibly difficult problems on your own and then ask yourself "how could I make this question more confusing?". I was able to find success by doing this but it was a miserable experience that I would not wish upon even my worst enemy. I had planned on applying to medical school straight out of undergrad before taking this summer class but if this teacher is teaching physics 5C next summer I will take a gap year just to avoid taking a class with her again. I imagine Dr. Pau is an incredibly brilliant researcher (and she also seems like a good person) because there is absolutely no way a university would keep someone like this around that is so incompetent at teaching unless they were very skilled in another area. Before being in this class I read a review of Dr. Pau on rate my professor that said "I didn't wear a seatbelt on my way to campus because I wanted to die before making it to this class". I thought this was hyperbole but it was not. Be warned.

I took the whole physics series with Professor Pau, and she really makes Physics (a "daunting") topic fun and exciting while still getting the large amount of material across. I took the classes as a pre-med and took the MCAT soon after, and I felt very prepared for the MCAT physics topics with the material that I learned in Professor Pau's classes. I Highly recommend taking the physics series with her!

Professor Sakai is not the best physics prof. When students asked questions she was often rude and dismissive. Her mic + wifi were pretty terrible, and she has an accent so it was VERY hard to understand her lectures. I read the textbook and looked at her slides to learn the material on my own.

We had weekly timed quizzes and Mastering Physics assignments which was time consuming and stressful. However, she did give practice exams before the midterms and final which was really helpful. She also had two grading schemes so you can drop one of the midterms. Overall, I would not recommend taking her, but you can definitely do well if you put in the effort.