Favorite professor by far at UCLA!

Samani not only brings in real examples to help understand the applicability of the material from the very beginning, but also makes you feel like you are not even learning physics. Attendance is taken through in person reflection sheets, yet I found them so much more engaging than iClicker used for other classes, as they had us working through ideas and actually encouraged discussion with our peers around us. The homework is an automatic 90% through completion, and are the SAME level of difficulty as exam problems - which I found challenging in the very beginning, but appreciative that there were absolutely NO curveballs thrown whatsoever. No online access for a textbook is needed for the homework too (which is a plus), he just releases assignments through BruinLearn.

On the note of not having an equation sheet - it honestly is not that bad, coming from someone who took 5A with an equation sheet. Through lecture, Samani gives tips for memorizing the least information possible and use that information to create a logical system of reasoning to get to almost any equation you need. Also, using active recall by redoing the homework and the practice exams he releases without looking anything up really helped me succeed. Also, by doing so many problems over and over again, you'll find that most of the equations become muscle memory.

Lastly, one piece of advice I would give is to go to office hours! I found that my discussion section wasn't particularly helpful in my understanding of the material. However, once I started going consistently to office hours, I saw how my conceptual understanding of the material improved drastically - which just made it easier when studying and doing homework. (one tip though, try to show up as close to the beginning as possible - his office is super small and fills up quite fast).

I could not recommend him enough, and I honestly really wish he taught other classes just so I can have him as a professor again!

Bro take 5B with Samani and you will actually feel like you got your money's worth coming to UCLA. This guy is the best Professor I've ever had, he might just be one of the best teachers you've come across in your life. Insanely good at teaching really hard concepts and actually finding practical ways to use them in our daily lives, everything made sense, everything was interesting. I also found that because lecture attendance was forced through the reflection sheets, I learned so much more and barely had to study for the final. Also the fact that he makes you discuss questions within lecture with your peers and the mandatory discussion sections makes for a really social experience in an otherwise really STEMmy class, always a bonus to make new friends.

Bottom line: Take Samani
5B and the physics series in general is difficult but Samani makes learning the material very easy to do. His exams are fair. His homework is graded on 90% completion and 10% correction so essentially the lowest you can achieve on a homework assignment is a 90%. He does take attendance for class but the attendance serves as extra credit and you can miss up to three lectures without giving an excuse.

I loved how Dr. Samani taught each lecture and how it was structured. He was always very receptive and wanted to help students. He was a great teacher and was always looking for ways to improve based on student needs. He was a great professor!

Incredible Professor, literally had no trouble grasping any of the concepts in this class, and his exams were pretty fair. Homework was all for a completion grade, and preferred to study with his quiz questions instead for the tests, but his teaching was so good I was able to succeed with not much studying. Attendance is required so just make not of that, however, I would 100% recommend taking this class with Samani, as someone who hates physics this was one of the better classes I've taken just in general.

TLDR: Take this class with him! I have no idea where the bad reviews are coming from. Yes, he doesn't give an equation sheet but I swear you'll memorize them before you know it. I didn't make any flashcards to memorize the equations, but if you solve enough practice questions there's no way you can't memorize the few equations. Also, re-solve the Practice Sets before your exams (they are representative of the exam questions), handwrite your notes on iPad or paper, and take the class with Professor Samani!

The grading is as follows: Lecture response (5%), Dis worksheet (10%), Practice Set (10%), Labs (15%), MT (25%), Final (35%).

- Midterm & Final Exam Tip: STUDY the weekly Practice Sets- the exam questions tend to be very similar! The way I studied to get an A+ in the class was to:
1. Read lecture notes I took for the week to refresh on the topic. My notes were handwritten so one lecture would be usually 1-2 pages.
2. Go to Organic Chemistry Tutor (or other YouTube channels you prefer), type the topic/concept, and watch how to solve that topic through the example problems presented in the video.
3. Open BruinLearn and go to the Practice Sets and solve them ALL again before your exam. Make sure you know how to solve them, if not, post on Campuswire.
4. Re-solve the discussion worksheet (there's only 1 per week so there shouldn't be that many) and, if you have time, re-solve the lecture response sheets. While the Practice Sets are most representative of the exam, some questions were similar from here as well.

- Lectures: He doesn't use a PPT and instead writes on the chalkboard. At first, I was very skeptical that I would do well in this style of lecturing as all my previous professors used PowerPoint slides. However, I found this to be SO much more effective. Since he's writing by hand, I can also take my time to handwrite my notes or add diagrams. Now I wish all professors teach like him!

- Grading: The lecture response sheets (worksheets handed out during in-person lectures), discussion worksheets, and practice sets (weekly BruinLearn quizzes) were all graded based on completion, which was SO helpful. Additionally, the second half of the MT grade was group-based (in-person, immediately after you take your first half individually in the lecture hall), so you get to correct any errors you could have made.

- Participation: Because your lecture response sheets and discussion worksheets need to be turned in by the end of your lecture/discussion, you must attend the lecture/discussion, so make sure you don't have a time conflict! You are given about 3 lectures that you can miss, which is very helpful.

Anyways, take this class with Prof Samani! He's very fair and one of the best professors I've had at UCLA. I have very little background in Physics but he definitely challenged me (in a good way!) to study hard for this class and end with a good grade. Hope this helped :)

Hello, I would like to add a more recent review that accurately reflects Prof Samani compared to the other reviews.

I believe that the class was recently updated regarding how grading works, here is the breakdown.
Lecture response sheets: 5%
Discussion worksheets: 10%
Practice sets: 10%
Labs: 15%
Midterm exam (70% individual, 30% team): 25%
Final exam (100% individual): 35%

Firstly, as a lecturer, Prof Samani is one of the most clear and eloquent speakers that I have had. He is very organized with how he teaches and doesn't just mindlessly go through slides, rather he writes down his thought process on the chalkboard. He structures his units where you learn content, then the following lecture would be the application of the content through a practice problem. The lecture response sheets are short questions (graded on completion), that you answer, nothing serious. 100% without a doubt a great lecturer.

Participation is one thing that is very heavily weighed and most of the grades that are not exams/labs are based on completion/participation. Although I dreaded doing the work, I can confidently say that the practice material (practice set) that Prof Samani provides is reflective of how he will test you. Rather than just plug and chug, Prof Samani likes to test concepts in terms of ratios and manipulation of various equations.

For the midterm, you take an individual test, and then right after you take the same exact test with a group that is preassigned when you go to your first discussion. My group mates were absolute bots, kind of a coinflip, but being able to redo the calculations can be helpful in catching small calculation errors.

Would really recommend Prof Samani.

Hello, I would like to add a more recent review that accurately reflects Prof Samani compared to the other reviews.

I believe that the class was recently updated regarding how grading works, here is the breakdown.
Lecture response sheets: 5%
Discussion worksheets: 10%
Practice sets: 10%
Labs: 15%
Midterm exam (70% individual, 30% team): 25%
Final exam (100% individual): 35%

Firstly, as a lecturer, Prof Samani is one of the most clear and eloquent speakers that I have had. He is very organized with how he teaches and doesn't just mindlessly go through slides, rather he writes down his thought process on the chalkboard. He structures his units where you learn content, then the following lecture would be the application of the content through a practice problem. The lecture response sheets are short questions (graded on completion), that you answer, nothing serious. 100% without a doubt a great lecturer.

Participation is one thing that is very heavily weighed and most of the grades that are not exams/labs are based on completion/participation. Although I dreaded doing the work, I can confidently say that the practice material (practice set) that Prof Samani provides is reflective of how he will test you. Rather than just plug and chug, Prof Samani likes to test concepts in terms of ratios and manipulation of various equations.

For the midterm, you take an individual test, and then right after you take the same exact test with a group that is preassigned when you go to your first discussion. My group mates were absolute bots, kind of a coinflip, but being able to redo the calculations can be helpful in catching small calculation errors.

Would really recommend Prof Samani.

Samani was engaging in lecture and clearly passionate about what he teaches. That being said, this class was the worst class I have taken at UCLA. The weekly quizzes were horrible and unlike what we were taught in class. Seriously, if you have any type of test anxiety at all do not take this class. It ruins every single weekend and starts the week off horribly. If you have a physics brain, you will be fine. But if you struggle with physics, take it with a different professor who will be more thorough and have more resources.

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.