Dude sucks at teaching. I only went to one lecture all wuarter at which im sure he taught tipsy since he was stumbling all over our lecture hall. All he does is demos. Doesnt teach doesnt explain doesnt help doesnt reply to emails. My advice would be going to aap and self learning through the book. He changed his stuff up for spring 2012. He didnt give any extra credit for midterm 1 and only gave 20 points for midterm 2. He mentioned a 50 point extra credit assignment of essays during office hours but im sure hel forget. 80 is an A and its pretty achievable if u overstufy and memorize EVERY problem in the book. He also pulls problems outta the old physics editions and off old tests from sac. Hes hella lazy but i did those things and am acing the class. Lets hope the final doesnt kill me and lets hope he gives the 50 points of extra credit padding but he definitely isnt giving as much as credit as he did before so be prepared to work for an A and dont take it lightly as other past reviews have stated.

Holczer's exams were extremely easy. I don't think I learned very much by attending lectures, but I just read the book on my own and did the problems and that's how I did well. Lectures weren't boring though so I went to pretty much all the lectures. He is an extremely hard guy to get a hold of and he still hasn't answered my email...

Take this course if you can teach yourself physics. I stopped going to lecture after the first midterm when I realized that absolutely nothing from lecture is on his tests. He spends lecture putting light bulbs in microwaves and talking about cell phones and MRI machines but fails to teach the concepts behind all of these things. All he does is talk about how awesome physics is, which would be fine if his tests simply asked if physics was awesome; instead his tests require memorization of dozens of equations and the ability to actually solve problems. I did pretty poorly on all of his tests (between 60 and 75%) but ended up with an A- because he offered a ton of extra credit. Basically, if you are willing to teach yourself physics and don't mind being confronted with problems that make you feel like a complete idiot in exchange for an A, then this is your guy.

Holczer is completely useless. I stopped going to class after the first midterm. He spends the whole class going, "have you ever heard of (insert physics concept here)?....well have you heard of an ipod?" and then proceeds to explain how some technology we use everyday is related to some topic he's supposed to (but not) be teaching us. His diagrams and explanations are poor at best, and not to mention he is impossible to understand. He seems nice enough in class, but fails to understand that though he doesn't think it's important, he actually does need to teach us the equations and their applications at some point. My biggest issue with him is his lack of communication. For a guy who talks about ipods and ipads etc. during class, he is incompetent with email. I did VERY well on the first two midterms and not so great on the final, to the point that I knew I'd be able to argue for a few more points or at least check the grading if I saw the final. After grades came out I wanted to see my final, so I emailed him over winter break to set up a time during first week. No response. Tried several more times emailing him during 1-2 week, still no response. Finally, after maybe my 4th email, he emailed me back on a Friday afternoon telling me to come to his office hours, which were conveniently scheduled about 3 hours after he sent the email. Obviously, I didn't get the email in time (not that students should have to be on call to fit into professors' schedules) and couldn't make it. I emailed him back explaining this and asking to reschedule, and surprise surprise, no response. This continued after a few more emails. I went to his office a few times trying to hunt him down with no luck, eventually leaving a note under his door asking him to email/call me or SOMETHING to schedule an appt. No luck. I've given up at this point, which is complete crap but I'm at a dead end I feel. For his salary, he needs to fulfill his duties as a professor and be willing to meet with students. It's his JOB.

I got a surprising A+ in this class. I completely stopped going to lecture after the first midterm, when I realized it was a complete waste of time. I started to really hate the class (I like my professors to TEACH and maybe even kind of inspire us to learn the math and physical concepts behind everything, which Holczer failed to do) and neglected studying for it. I would tune in and out during lecture and just watch him walking back and forth and chat with the front row students. I begrudgingly prepared for exams while watching old clips of Conan O'Brien on YouTube or listening to Howard Stern and wound up doing all right; I got something like a 123/100 on one of the midterms because of the extra credit he puts into the tests, and I got 50 points extra credit (10 points for each of my 5 essays) which definitely helped. I still would have liked to take Corbin just to actually get the learning experience, though... grade-wise, I'm now glad I stuck with Holczer but I really did have moments where I deeply regretted the class. It's hard to give a specific formula for success, but I'm sure a lot of students ended up getting a grade better than one they had expected. If there's someone who has better teaching skills, go with that person instead of this professor. He was pretty nice the couple of times I went to his OH, but it was mostly Scott the TA's responsibility to go over examples. Poor guy.

I don't even know where to start in terms of evaluating this course and professor. First of all, the professor is pretty nice when you talk to him. But he's more interested in teaching the application of physics than hard core mathematical physics everyone is used to. I got a very high grade. But how much did I learn? Close to nothing. His exams contain end of the chapter problems of which he doesn't teach how to do. So, if you are good at reading the book and understanding it yourself, then you won't have a problem in this class. I can count with one hand how many lectures I've actually been to. His lecturers are completely pointless. I skimmed the chapters and wrote down as many formulas as I can. I never tried to memorize the book problems (even tho they are exam problems) cuz I feel its impossible to memorize every problem. There're over 60 per chapter and normally 4 chapters per exam. I simply memorized the formulas I wrote down the night before the exam and thats it. There are a ton of formulas, but memorizing them isn't too bad. Most of the time, I don't even know what the symbols in the formulas stand for. I simply pray that I can put it all together on the test which isn't too hard since he choses easy problems. I can honestly say that I bsed majority of his final. I have never bsed so much in my life. But his extra credit makes up for alot of the points. We can earn up to 50 points writing 5 essays and I wrote a couple. I don't know if he actually read them. If he did, then he graded really easily cuz I wrote those essays on the car ride to the airport. If you want to learn hard core physics, this is not a right professor. If you just want your grade, then he's the guy. If you want to learn how to apply physics then take him. The hardest and scariest part about this class is not knowing how hes going to curve (if hes going to curve), whats on exams and stuff... You're always in the dark. But overall, I would recommend him.

best. professor. ever. Professor Holczer is the only professor i've had at UCLA that recognizes that learning and knowledge means so much more than just a letter grade. Given that UCLA likes to convince you that you're all very smart as a freshmen but then rape you in the ass for 4 long years, Holczer's class was a breath of fresh air. You people should really stop bitching about how he doesn't hand you everything in a nice sealed envelope beforehand although he DID tell us on the first day that the midterms and final were going to be exactly like the textbook problems. 80% is an A in the class and Holczer told me in office hours that he doesn't care how many As he gives out. He said he only cared if people understood at least 80% of the material he presented and how it related to real life. There's PLENTY of extra credit available so do yourself a favor. Take Holczer for 6C whenever possible. Learn to think outside the textbook, outside podcasts, outside calculations and really see how physics works in a way to connect everything you encounter. By the way, I'm a MIMG major with a 2.7 GPA (science GPA of 2.3) and I'm proud to say I got a solid A in this class with a 88%. Trust me, it's very doable (almost laughable too).

This is a professor who teaches with the goal of inspiring students to love physics rather than actually measuring their abilities with a letter grade. Lectures are thoroughly entertaining due to his enthusiasm and sense of humor, but just as useless in terms of learning material. However, it's extremely difficult to do badly on his tests because he not only writes simple problems, but also offers a ridiculous amount of extra credit. His class is painless and stress-free, but if you truly want to learn some physics, you have to learn it from the book.

This class came down to memorizing as many problems from the book as possible (which were put straight onto the tests) and then being tested on material with homework problems from sections not even assigned. Half of the second midterm (out of 130 points) was from sections not assigned, while 1 of the 3 problems on the first midterm (out of 100 points) was from the only section in that chapter not assigned. Prof Holczer is very unresponsive to emails, nor did he send out a single email the entire quarter. That made it very difficult to know what was on the tests (each test was on 4 chapters) since the homework problems assigned, often just one from a chapter, had NOTHING to do with the material that was on the tests or what he did in lecture. At the end of the class, he did offer a 50 point extra credit assignment to make up for lack of extra credit on the first midterm which probably boosted everybody's grade by 50 points and just made for less of a curve. The final was a little more predictable in terms of the types of problems assigned but had some random conceptual questions (the ones at the beginning of the questions at the end of each chapter). It took 2 weeks after each midterm for the grades to be put up on myUcla, and the final grades have yet to be posted, but it will be interesting to see what the final distribution will be.

I thought this class would be really easy because according to bruinwalk it is, I guess if you send all of your time reading the book and teching yourself the material that might be true, but the material isn't so easy to teach yourself. His lectures do not help at all. Most of the class stopped going by week 2 because his lectures did NOT help, if you could even understand what he was saying. He constantly got off topic and his chicken scratch for writing doesn't help, he also writes over what he already has on the board so if you look down at your notes for a second you have no idea what he just wrote. He doesn't collect the HW. The first midterm was questions practically straight from the HW. But the average was incredibly low. The second midterm was so easy it was hard because most people studied the harder things based on the difficulty of the first midterm. He gave 30 pts extra credit possible for the second midterm which really raised the average. The final was half problems and half concept questions. The syllabus said the class only covered up to Ch 29, the HW had no problems from Ch 29 but one from Ch 30, and the professor said we were responsible for the whole book (up to Ch 31). So no one, not even the TA, could tell us what we needed to study and the prof was no help at all. The concept questions on the final were from Ch 29-31. Honestly, I would have much rather taken Corbin who was offered at the same time, because even though his tests are insane he is consistent and knows how to teach. Overall he was a horrible professor and I would NOT recommend him. PS i have not gotten my grade back yet and this is not a rant because did/didn't get a bad grade. Its simply the truth.