Prof. Samani had very engaging lectures, and made me understand the material even though I went into Physics 1B thinking I wouldn't understand anything. Grading is based heavily on homework for online Spring 2020, but also on two midterms and the final. Lectures were very nicely broken down with a Spotify session before and after lecture, and he gives a break during the two-hour block. He's very nice and checks chat often for questions, and is tech savvy when it comes to using Zoom and CCLE. Homeworks were the only thing submitted every week, but very difficult to complete on the day due (7+ multi-part problems), so definitely collaborate with friends. Midterms were 24 hours, but he is very worried about cheating, so the final was 3 hours :/

Samani was the best professor I've had at UCLA. The class was hard, but I definitely felt like I learned a lot in every lecture and through every assignment. Plus, his taste in music is solid

Picture an ideal professor. One that plays music before lectures and during breaks, one that is understanding of all current situations (especially considering this quarter occurred during a global pandemic and a massive racial movement) and one that delivers engaging lectures filled with analogies that help one grasp a conceptual understanding of the material and clearly understand theories through nicely drawn diagrams and thought experiments. This is precisely what Professor Samani is. A professor of such high caliber that he should be teaching every class at UCLA (no cap). Professor Samani is an extremely down-to-earth professor that hosts useful office hours where he would literally spend as much time as needed to address your concerns and actually try his best to answer his students' diverse set of questions. It is unfortunate he isn't teaching 1C next quarter because this man is a gem. I truly started to like even the gorey calculus bits of 1B because Samani made it fun. His grading scheme is also very reasonable. The class is not curved but rather scaled where 50% of your grade are his problem sets. These problem sets are extremely hard but collaboration is encouraged and the TAs and Professor Samani provide a lot of support via Campuswire. Also, they are graded mostly for accuracy. An A is roughly 93% but very achievable since the midterms and final exams are based off of the problem set content and thus quite doable. I only have one small critique for Professor Samani: he does not do complex enough examples in lectures sometimes (unlike Corbin) which left me lost trying to approach his difficult problem sets and made the class time consuming since I would have to read OpenStax (a free online textbook he follows). Nonetheless, this man is a godsend and I highly recommend all freshmen take him if possible for a lower div class! He really made online classes so enjoyable that I stayed up till 3 am to attend his lectures live (being located outside of the US).

BEST PROFESSOR I HAVE HAD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. PERIOD. (u better take him)

Samani is the single best Professor/Teacher I have EVER had. He is a wonderful person and I felt like I had a lot to learn from him, both in terms of Physics and life. He is incredibly down to earth, easy to talk to, and wonderfully clear in his lectures. Going to class was a treat.

100000% I would take another class with him.

Professor Samani is probably one of the best professors at UCLA. I took 1B with him during Spring Quarter, the first quarter to start online, and it didn't feel like I missed a lot by not being in a classroom. He made sure to go over every topic thoroughly and used a blackboard to draw/write everything during the lectures. He made sure to allocate time for questions multiple times during the lecture, made the class engaging and explained things extremely well. At least for me, the material of 1B was not the easiest to understand and grasp completely, but Professor Samani really helped in making sure we understood what was going on. The homework problemsets were difficult, and if you can form study groups I highly recommend doing so. They take a while to figure out (I'd recommend doing them in the span of 2-3 days if you have the time since they take a few hours at least) but give you more insight on the topic that is covered during lecture that week, and helped prepare for the midterms and the final. The midterms were very difficult: They took hours ranging into the double digits and very heavily relied on how well you understood each and every aspect of the topics covered. Even then, the answers posted afterwards were very thorough and left almost no room for doubts and extra questions. The final ended up being optional for us, and was much more manageable since we were given a 3 hour time frame. He is very passionate about Physics and very understanding of his students, and if you can take him for 1B I highly recommend you do so. He's one of those professors that really wants you to succeed and makes it worth the difficulty of the material.

Really nice guy, really engaging. Really hard work (in a fun way, like solving a puzzle). Forgot about tests, but it seems like everyone did pretty good. Also has some good elevator music intro / breaks.

Professor Samani is one of the coolest professors I've ever had, in terms of his humor/relatability as well as his ability to teach physics in such an understandable and structured way. He introduces each of his lectures with goals and builds up to the big concepts, allowing for a much better holistic understanding. In terms of class structure, there are PSets due almost every week, which take a lot of time, but I enjoyed some parts of them to be honest. The midterms were 24 hrs for us in Spring 2020, and were very doable! I highly recommend taking this class – it was not only great for my GPA lol but also in terms of my understanding towards 1B material/physics intuition in general!

Overall Samani is a great man. It's hard to like a physics class and looking back at it this was probably one of my favorite classes at UCLA, content wise. But, a few thoughts. The jump between in class problems and the questions on problem sets is huge. Homework was worth 50% of the grade, which may justify this. If this format continues definitely find a group to work with and the time to dedicate to it - it's doable, but you don't want to waste the easy points. The midterms and final were comparable in difficulty to those problem sets, but felt doable because we received problem set solutions, so could study from them. Nonetheless, I felt like I knew nothing while taking them, and only realized I was ok when I got the grades back. Samani is overall passionate about physics which is visible in every lecture, and he genuinely cares about students, but may seem intimidating.

Professor Samani is a godsend that I wish we could have again and again. The course overall WILL eat up a considerable amount of your time since it is very intensive in workload; you have been warned. His lectures are very concrete and, more or less, tangible to real-world examples, so they were very easy to follow through. His assigned weekly problem sets are tough and worth 50% of the final grade, but they also force you to interact with it, especially in collaboration with peers. His midterms are fair game if you're caught up with the material. It was also nice of him to recommend Openstax textbooks which we didn't have to pay a single penny for. His tastes in music outside of lecture are gold. Granted, I took this course during a pandemic and a time of racial unrest, but he adapts well to address the needs of students, from checking chat often to making sure the final is as fair as possible. His very down-to-earth personality creates a welcoming environment whenever I have to ask him about something.

All in all, I wish every other professor was like Prof. Samani.