Professor Samani is by far one of the most polarizing professors I've had at UCLA. While the other review from March 30, 2023 covers it well, I'd still like to add my own opinion to help future 5B students. TLDR: 5B is just difficult, and there's no way around it lol.
I want to start with how kind and engaging Samani is. It is clear he has a genuine passion for physics and in all of his lectures he is organized, concise and gives you a reason to pay attention. He gets a bonus for really acknowledging that the class is for life science majors and catering his lectures towards topics relevant to us like blood pressure, audiology, optometry, etc. and even taking the time to learn concepts from biology on his own to teach us. It's in this way that I loved Samani as a professor and person.
However, he is one of those professors passionate about education and researches the best way to teach a class, hence why he has a vastly different class structure than other physics professors: mandatory lecture attendance (you can miss 3), mandatory discussion (can also miss 3), weekly quizzes instead of 2 midterms, and a cumulative final exam with no equation sheet. He explains this structure on the first day and theoretically it makes sense. Lectures are very important for learning material, discussions allow you to practice the way he'll ask questions, weekly quizzes means lower stakes and encourages long term retention, and hopefully that means you'd be more ready for the final compared to a standard physics class.
While theoretically this makes sense, I think Samani just doesn't take into account that we have to take other classes (likely more important than physics). The gripe I had with this class structure is that it was very flipped classroom heavy. Firstly, with quizzes every Monday, it meant we only had 2 lectures per week to learn the week's material and he would assign supplementary textbook readings and old lectures that often would've taken 5+ hours if I actually did them lol. This meant there'd be equations in his "need to know" equation sheet that are foreign to me because they were only in the book, not his lecture. This made studying for the quizzes annoying because you'd have to wait until Fridays to start studying, but if you don't do the supplementary things, you'd have to spend the weekend learning it (I recommend doing the optional Mastering Physics to do this) on top of doing his practice quizzes and memorizing that week's equations.
The quizzes were slightly annoying to deal with but on top of the stress of 2-3 other classes, it definitely stressed me out. While the quizzes are fair, by no means were they easy, and almost packed a punch like a midterm would, which made me feel like I had the stress of a midterm every Monday. The way I described preparing for the quizzes made them pretty doable though. The potential saving grace for this class is having 3 of the 7 quizzes be group quizzes (granted you have a good group) but it can also make things a lot worse. Overall, the quizzes are lower stakes in terms of its effect on your overall grade, but the stress makes them feel higher stakes if that makes sense.
Finally, his final. Samani was great because for week 10, he spent it teaching us how to review for his final and applied it to the actual material, which did shave off some studying. Honestly, the studying for it really isn't that bad if you memorized the equations, knew how to apply them doing the practice quizzes and Mastering Physics, and did well on the quizzes. The thing about Samani is that he is so good at his subject, he has almost mastered the art of making you apply your knowledge to scenarios you've never seen before. His final was completely fair and doable given the 3 hours, but it was one that made me really have to dig deep conceptually instead of just plugging and chugging. My only advice for the final is to utilize his study strategy (analyzing the concepts numerically with equations, with drawings/diagrams, and through words) to get those concepts down, because that's the way the whole exam was.
Despite it all, I would still recommend Samani for 5B. Based off of the complains I've heard about the other 5B professors, all I could conclude was that the 5B material is just very difficult, and there isn't a perfect professor who has easy exams, is a good lecturer, etc. What Samani does offer is engaging lectures, teaches you topics actually applicable to things like the MCAT, and at the very least teaches you discipline for 10 weeks.

This class, in regard to my opinion of it at least, was total whiplash. I feel that even after the final, this class was overall pretty good. I'm going to go over each part of the class since my experience in each was very distinctly different.

First, the lectures. Honestly, Samani has some pretty spectacular lectures, all of which got me very interested in the subject. Often times, professors fail to apply the concepts taught in class to practical real life applications (even in physics, which should be the easiest to apply to real life). Samani takes a fat W here, his lectures are engaging and the way he peaks student interest with a concept's application before going into the lecture keeps students very engaged. These lectures are mandatory (you can miss 3), but for good reason, they are instrumental for introducing you to the topics this class covers and helpful in ensuring you begin practicing with a good baseline understanding. These are 9/10 lectures.

Second is Samani both as a person and as a professor. You can tell that this man loves physics and wants students to learn. He ensures you will walk out of this class with a strong understanding of both the concepts and the different ways to apply said concepts. He is very open to feedback, and has made multiple changes to the course based on feedback from students. When students were confused during lecture, Samani made sure to announce clarifications. He often times returns points when you request a regrade as long as your reasoning is valid. He is without a doubt the professor most open to feedback. 10/10 in this aspect. Despite his class being difficult, he never makes you feel stupid.

Third, are the quizzes. This quarter, Samani replaced the 2 midterm structure with 7 quizzes on every non holiday Monday (starting Monday, Week 3). 4 were individual quizzes, 3 were group quizzes. This is where my opinion becomes slightly mixed. I think that overall, his individual quizzes were fair, and as long as you did the practice tests and went to lecture, these quizzes should be pretty straightforward. You will be asked to derive equations on the spot, so ensure your algebra is solid (mine isn't, so I took some Ls on derivation questions). I personally did not read the textbook or do mastering physics questions, and I still did ok on the quizzes. Try to study throughout the week, it should take at max around and hr to 2 hrs to adequately prepare for the quizzes. Now the group quizzes were harder, understandable considering that you get to work with a group of 3 others to finish them. You have 20 minutes to work individually, then 30 minutes to work on and turn in 1 group packet. This is where the quizzes become a slight game of chance. If your group is goated, you should be fine. If you are stuck with a group that has no clue what they are doing, you will suffer. The latter unfortunately, happened to me, and while we still did ok, it certainly felt like a solo effort. Samani usually made the harder exams group quizzes, which is understandable, but painful when you really don't have a group to work with. I understand that random groups are the most fair, but personally, this system feels unfair to those who put in effort but are stuck with groups that refuse to put in effort. I have a few suggestions here, either remove group quizzes entirely or allow for students to submit individual quizzes but still have the option to collaborate. That way, students that do not want to collaborate, don't have to, and student who do want to collaborate have that option. Quizzes would be a 7/10, but group quizzes lower them to a 6/10

Lastly, the final. I did not listen to my instinct here and just assumed it would be similar to the quizzes (Samani said this himself in lecture). This was not the case, but the final still felt kind of fair? It was harder than all quizzes for sure, especially because some topics were combined which forced a good understanding of both. But the amount of derivation questions made this feel more like an algebra exam then a test of concepts. However, this final was graded VERY fairly, to the point where he even gave full points on a question that was explained poorly, tying back to Samani being great with feedback. The final gets a 5/10, more difficult than I expected, but still not too terrible. Put a lot of time on the quizzes so you have a healthy buffer for the final.

Overall, the class was a 7/10 for me. S tier professor, B tier quizzes, C tier final. If you are a good test taker and have a very good algebra background, I'd recommend it. If you want to really learn a lot, regardless of your grade, I'd also recommend it. If you care about grades though, know that an A might be a little tough to achieve (though, 55% got at or above an A- this quarter, which is pretty good).

This class is absolute hell. Samani was the most inconsiderate professor I've ever had, and he continuously expected us to memorize an insane amount of information. For background, he started the week off with a prerecorded lecture, which was ALWAYS longer than our 50 minute section for Monday. In addition, he constantly made changes to our quizzes and what was and wasn't allowed. Our discussion worksheets were extremely unhelpful, and our grade was largely made up of quizzes. The best thing Samani did was give us redos for the quizzes. Near the end, he became very stubborn about his expectations about the final, and he refused to listen to concerns from students. I would never take this class with him again, and I would never recommend for anyone to take a class with this man.

The homework and midterms are extremely hard. He is a nice and funny guy but the exams are really hard. Grading are pretty good though, so take him if only you are a physics person.

I've only taken this class for 6-7 weeks so I can't say anything about the second midterm or final yet. They'll probably be brutal so pray for me :D. From what I've seen so far, Samani is a pretty passionate teacher about physics. We generally go over main concepts, correct common misconceptions, prove formulas, and go over practice problems in lecture. In discussion, the TAs give us practice problems which we do in groups and then go over. There is generally a little time to ask the TAs questions afterwards because there aren't that many problems.

Since Samani is still a pretty new teacher, he mentioned in the beginning that he revises his class every time he's taught it. This quarter he's teaching it with a scale set from grades from previous years. He also has this "improvement score" thing that takes into account any improvement over midterms/finals to help him calculate final grades (so if you're like a bit away from a higher letter grade he'll probably bump you up).

I've only been to his office hours a couple times, but they seem to go over homework or practice problems or any questions students ask him. They're pretty chill. Participation is enforced in his lectures because he uses clickers. Overall clickers are like 5% of total grade with most going towards participation and the rest going towards correctness. The lowest 3 clicker grades are dropped, I believe.

He has recommended reading from the textbook for every lecture. It's probably a good supplement if you need it that goes over more example problems and sometimes more in-depth on a topic. If you haven't taken a physics class before, it's kind of hard since this is a pretty fast-paced class. I last took a physics class 3 years ago so I did have a fundamental understanding of key topics; it was just hard to apply them to the practice problems.

His first midterm was 3 problems with 2-5 parts each. The time crunch wasn't too bad. The first problem was pretty much conceptual, the second the same, and the third was basically one of the challenge problems from homework. If you understood the homework, all of the problems would have been very doable if you didn't make stupid mistakes. The average was pretty low, around 61%, but I felt like the problems just had little things you had to do and people missed points on that. Feeling around a lot of people just said the midterm was death so I don't really know if you can really get an understanding of its difficulty from reviews. I do believe that if the time limit was greater than one 50 minute class period many people would have done much better.

Samani is a fan of Piazza, an online forum/discussion site where people can ask questions and get (anonymous or not) responses from other students or the instructors themselves. Unfortunately, it gets kinda cluttered with many questions on the same problem in different threads so maybe it could be combined or better structured somehow. It is helpful though, especially if you're one of those people that is unwilling to get help unless it's anonymous.

Now the homework is biweekly, which is really, really nice. It's not death every week, just every other week. The homework usually consists of a MasteringPhysics problem set of around 20-50 questions with multiple parts each. They're generally pretty doable and you have 5 tries each and really helpful hints. A lot of them require finding an equation that can be kinda challenging, but I found it helpful. Accompanying that online portion is a problem set of like 3-5 questions. That are death. OMG send help. They are really just... hard. It's either a math problem or finding equations and it's just hard to apply what we've learned in an appropriate way. This is turned in on paper during lecture on Fridays. The challenge problems are hard, but they are also really good ways to study the problem-solving for the tests. It also really helps ingrain the concepts into your head because you have to spend so much time on them (googling, asking around, getting help from TAs/teacher/anyone, working on them desperately).

In general, I quite enjoy the class so far. It's fun, funny at times, and pretty enlightening. Sometimes it's hard to read the chalkboards because they are already so dirty/chalked up, and it can be hard to get a seat if you arrive late, but it's not too bad. The demos are pretty snazzy too. He got on the campus story for a demo once. A lot of his examples involve an eraser and his notebook. Pray for his notebook because it goes through a lot.

Grade %s:
30% Final
20% Midterm 2
20% Midterm 1
20% Problem Sets
5% Clicker participation
(3% of clicker grade is participation, 2% is correctness)

Straight Scale Grading:
78 A-
65 B-
50 C-
35 D-
(I only did the bottom limits because tbh that's all you really wanted to know)

Side note I just thought of:
Sometimes his clicker questions give you extra credit if there's a large difference in answers so he gives you like a quarter percent EC on a test or something if the class majority votes on the right answer the second time.

I took Samani for W16 Physics 1A, and I really struggled. I would say about 95% of the class has taken some form of physics before (usually AP Physics B or C). I took AP Physics C (which included Mechanics) and I still had a really hard time in this class. The challenge problems were really hard, and even though they weren't graded, you could expect the exams to be even harder. I bombed the 2 midterms (the averages were 61% and 53% respectively) and the final was beyond difficult. Seriously. People were crying in the bathrooms after.

Besides that, I think Samani is a pretty good lecturer. His examples are interesting, his handwriting is great, his voice is clear and coherent. He's funny, and clicker scores are participation only. The TA's are somewhat okay, but the discussions are just some basic problems. We used the website Piazza for class questions and concerns and I thought that was the most helpful; Samani usually took the time to answer many questions and if he didn't the other students were very helpful!

Overall, I don't think I would take him again, but thats probably because his exams were so hard. His grading is lenient though, which is helpful.

Homework: There are problem sets and MasteringPhysics assignments due every other week. The problem sets are fairly difficult, but with the help of peers there is no reason why you shouldn't get a very high homework average.

Tests: Pretty difficult. The first one wasn't too bad and if you took AP Physics, you should do fine. The second one was tough and the grading was merciless. The average was around 45%. The final was really hard, probably harder than both midterms.

Lectures: Four times a week is kindof a pain, but Samani is an enthusiastic guy who does plenty of demonstrations to keep students interested. This is a clicker class, which is good because I feel like a lot of students would skip lectures otherwise. Definitely go to lecture, it is helpful.

Discussions: Not helpful, I went the first two times and then never again. My TA just wasn't very good so I can't really speak for other discussions.

Overall: Samani is really a great guy who cares a lot about the students. He seemed legimitately hurt when he heard students were crying after his final exam. Besides the second midterm, he is very fair with grading. Take Samani if you can, I learned a lot and the workload is easily manageable.

Samani surprised me this quarter and after getting a feel for the class, I am grateful I enrolled in his class after not getting Corbin.

Josh is highly organized, which reflects in his lectures. He engages the class and makes it interactive by using clickers.

He also uses Piazza, which proved to be a useful discussion platform to ask general questions and discuss physics concepts on problem sets and exams anonymously.

He opens his office 7 hours a week to students and on the morning of midterms. Josh makes himself available and does a good job of helping students get to the answer themselves without making them feel embarrassed.

I recommend following his advice and reading prior to lecture because lectures aren't summaries of the book and they are interactive, so not knowing what's going on can limit your participation and understanding.

The midterms are doable if you read, do the problem sets honestly, and pay attention in lecture consistently.

The final was more difficult than midterms because most of the problems were unlike the challenge problems and lecture examples- however, the final was fair in that it was testing our knowledge by asking us to apply what we knew to situations we'd never seen before.

TLDR: Samani is passionate and cares about his students learning physics and if you work hard and make an effort to ask questions about confusing topics, you can succeed in the class. If you think you can't learn physics, take Samani and let him prove you wrong.

Professor Samani is the physics guy you want. He is extremely passionate about the subject and willing to devote 100% of his effort in teaching. His use of clickers really gets me involved in the class instead of falling asleep.

In summer the class was much smaller and we did not use mastering physics. He gave a problem set every week. The first midterm was fine but the second one was really hard, and I think I only did 3 out of 6 problems on the final...

I would FULLY RECOMMEND TAKING PHYSICS 1A WITH SAMANI.

This guy is SO PASSIONATE about not only physics, but teaching it to students. I had previously no AP Physics experience and ran into a steep learning curve. However, I could tell that Josh really CARED about understanding the physical concepts and applying them to problems. Yes, the exams are difficult (but the averages were quite higher than the other instructors, the overrated Corbin and Professor Campbell, each at ~35%). Josh does make it easy to stay on track in the class with his clicker participation questions and biweekly problems sets. I am NOT A FAN of MasteringPhysics but whatever.

I would say you're DEFINITELY MISSING OUT if you don't take this guy at least once in your UCLA Physics undergraduate career.