Taking Physics 5A with Lancaster during Covid has been one of the most unnecessarily stressful experiences I've had at ucla. First of all, the weekly homework assignments barely match up with what is on the test with lab existing almost like its own class. The first test was about as open-ended as you could get, we had to make our own assumptions, values, and decide what "difficulty" we wanted to take the test on. The harder the difficulty (aka the more complex you make your test question), the closer you could (possibly) get to 100% which is only even attainable if you were to absolutely ace every single one of the extra complex steps since one slip up with something like the sign of a value or sig figs would result in points being taken off. I guess he's not the worst professor out there, but instead of making things less stressful/difficult because of Covid, he made his test super vague and the overall grading of the class harsher, but at least he offers 0.3 points of extra credit.

While I think I did well in this class, it was just unnecessarily stressful. Weekly homework on mastering physics does help you learn the material, but it takes a very long time, with a huge penalty for every time you answer a question wrong. But despite the amount of time spent doing it, it is not representative of the tests whatsoever and only counts for a very small percentage of your grade. There is also a weekly problem that is more representative of your test and graded mostly for effort, but honestly I could never figure these out on my own without going to my TA's office hours. I am SO grateful that these lectures were asynchronous so I could watch them on double speed (Professor talks very slowly), but his replacement for a live class was his office hours 3x a week... and these were a disaster in my opinion. The only helpful ones were the ones leading up to the test, as he would work out a practice exam that is almost identical to the actual one. They always seemed insanely rushed, and because of that he would make several errors and change the problem along the way because he realized in that moment the problem didn't work for him. Also, while the asynchronous lectures and discussion would help someone in a different time zone, he is very unaccommodating when it comes to tests and will make you take it at the exact time he wants. Overall, an extremely frustrating class- the only reason I did well is by actually working out the mastering problems myself and basically memorizing the steps to the sample problem.

Do you enjoy listening to someone read off of slides? Do you like having basic and easy to teach concepts shown to you in complex and confusing ways? Do you like when your professor assigns homework so difficult, not even your TA knows how to solve it? Do you like difficult assessments with only a half an hour to finish, during a pandemic? Or needing to use a regrade request on each and every assessment in order to hold the graders accountable for arbitrarily subtracting points whenever they feel like it? Look no further! The class content is simple, the way he teaches and assesses is not. This class will suck up an abhorrent amount of your time, and you will get little out of it except for a headache and a permanent resentment of physics. My underfunded public high school teacher was better; pick a different professor or even a different quarter. Or don't, and find out why I loved this class so much.

Do not take this class. Whatever you do, avoid taking this class at all costs. If people try to trick you to switch to this class because it's easy, they're liars and horrible people. This class really screwed me over. Lancaster gave us THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES PLUS A FIFTEEN SUBMISSION PERIOD for both the midterms. Labs can be harshly graded depending on your TA and honestly have jack all to do with the actual material and will not help you on the test. Homework is basically busy work and it's all on Chegg if you want to use that to check your work or clarify concepts. For midterms and the final, he gives a practice test that's close-ish to the actual tests, but are not the exact copy, so you do have to conceptualize. Lancaster seems like a sweet guy, but he was a horrible professor. Not everyone has the internet speed or environment to take high-stress level tests in such a short amount of time. He will literally take of seven points for a goddamn error in negative or positive signs. Students repeatedly asked for fairer test policies throughout the entire quarter, but he shot us down at every single turn. This class was an utter joke. I honest to god would rather chew on broken glass than take this class ever again.

Professor Lancaster is generally a good professor. There is no doubt he was caught in the midst of COVID trying to return to some form of normal while many people were still in difficult situations. From one perspective, his small window for taking the midterms and heavy homework loads were oppressive and unnecessary, while from another he is trying to push his students to a deeper understanding of the concepts. It would have been beneficial to students to have more leniency, but judging by his caring and patient nature when dealing with constant interruptions during his office hours, I would assume Prof. Lancaster will make sensible accommodations in the future.

For the class overall, if you did well in AP Physics C: Mechanics, there are really only two new concepts you learn in the class. One concept is Young's Modulus, an extension on springs, and the other is thermal energy which is just an extension of work. I cannot speak for people who are newly approaching physics, but I can state that if you have a prior understanding of the topics, there is nothing to fear.

RUNNN ... He literally sent me to therapy .. This class will mess you up. He makes you memorize every equation/ constant for the exams. He deducts points for every time you get a mastering question wrong. He said a curve could be applied, hence giving me hope that I could pass the class, but in the end, no curve was applied. For extra credit, you have to post a lot on campuswire for 0.3% max boost. Its not worth it.

IF you have the option to change professors! Do so do not rely on the curve for this class. He was the only professor to give a closed note and no equation sheet. The class was told to be likely to be curved which he did not end up doing. This was unfair as many people dropped the class raising the average in this class. Other people I know taking other professors had a great experience with this class, it was clear, felt well prepared for exams and the professor would show practice problems similar to the exam. In this class, I had to watch hours on youtube to understand the concepts as they were brushed off in lectures. It is much harder to get an A in this class than in other classes. The test exam questions are also less straightforward. I stayed in this class hoping for a curve to average out my scores but he ended up not curving the course.

This class was often frustrating, but I don't agree with a lot of the other reviews on here that this is a bad class. The prof really didn't give out any accommodations due to the pandemic (such as a 24-hour final or no harm tests) but the exams were honestly pretty easy. He gives a "practice exam" the week before every exam and it's basically just a rough draft or variation of the actual exam. I got a 100% on both midterms which as a 3rd year stem major has NEVER happened to me before in any classes. The class average was a B+/A-.

However, Lancaster is frustrating, boring, and a confusing prof, but as long as you find a good TA's OH's and know how to use the internet you should be fine. His lectures are all prerecorded from the summer and he has the most monotone voice EVER, like zero inflections. I sped up his lectures 2X but still found it too slow (which depending on how you look at it makes lectures really short). The discussion are also "pre-recorder"/nonexistent depending on the TA, so if you can't make OH's you basically don't have any human interaction.

All in all, I will probably forget about this class, but I walked away with an A. If you are looking for a structured, compassionate, and engaging prof don't take this class. If you are okay with a hot mess but relatively easy class Lancaster is your guy. Just try not to scream if you lose 7% on an exam for forgetting a sign.

Side note: if you have a loud or distracting work/home environment I might take a 5A with another prof that gives take-home/24-hour finals because for Lancaster's exams time is definitely not your friend.

First midterm was too easy, second midterm was too hard, and the final was what was expected. Since he is a first time professor, he had trouble gauging how hard to make the test questions, and he didn't seem to take into account the amount of time we had (50 minutes for 3 problems with multiple parts). I was quite nervous after the second midterm since I didn't do well on that, and our tests were worth 20% of our grade. I ended up doing well on the final though (and so did the majority of the class, the median was ~90%). The best part of this course was my discussion TA, Collin Roberts. He went above and beyond, and I learned a lot more from him than Lancaster. He had extra office hours before exams, and even came up with more practice questions for us. Try to get him as your TA, he's the only reason I got an A in this course. As far as lectures, I stopped going to them after the second midterm cause I decided they weren't very helpful. Lancaster goes over a bunch of random stuff that doesn't show up on the test, such as things like burning calories. I started studying for each of the exams about 2 days before them. I would spend a day reading through all the slides, and then spend a day doing all the discussion problems and some mastering physics homework problems. I guess for the amount of work I put into this course, I can't complain. The lab for this course was more tedious and annoying than anything else, but all 5A students have to take it. The mastering physics problems were challenging, especially since I like to complete homework early but sometimes Lancaster doesn't cover the material until Friday lecture. I would say don' t rely too much on these Fall '19 reviews, since Lancaster would probably change a lot, given that we were sort of his guinea pigs.

I know a lot of these other reviews make this class seem like the worst but honestly overall it was not that bad. Sure the professor implemented a new way giving exams this quarter but after taking the first midterm it wasn't as scary as it seemed. The professor gives practice exams before the midterms and final that are very similar to the actual exam, so if you knew how to do the practice you would more than likely be fine on the actual exam as long as you made sure to be mindful of the time. All lectures are prerecorded, which consist of the professor reading off slides but I would just watch them at 2x speed. The discussions worksheet were often difficult but as long as you tried to solve it you would most likely get full points, also professor Lancaster always went over how to do the discussion worksheets during office hours. We also had homework assignments every week on mastering physics which were about 25 or so questions. I usually tried to spread out the homework throughout the week and I never felt like it was too much work. For the labs they were pretty annoying to be honest but I think most TA's are lenient graders, I got full points on all of them, but they aren't extremely difficult either and I found using the lab campus wire to be helpful whenever I didn't understand something. One major complaint I do have is that the professor could be a bit disorganized, often with the practice midterms and practice final he would find mistakes or didn't make the question clear enough to solve so he would modify the question during office hours which could be annoying if you could not make it that day. I wish he would go through the problem and work out any errors before releasing it to us, luckily the actual midterms and final were way clearer than his practice exams. I never took physics in high school and I didn't think this class was as unreasonable as others have stated, so if you do end up taking this class I wouldn't be too worried. I'm not saying I loved this class but it was definitely doable.