I kind of don’t see the point in this class…? I’d rather they just have a separate python class for us instead… anyways this class is doable but really boring. I blame the course structure for contributing to this boredom. The slides are very disorganized, and everything (due dates etc) are all still from the Spring quarter! Our lab notebook still says 2023-2024, although we’re in the 2024-2025 school year already!

This class is also heavily dependent on your TA; my TA was nice enough but also not really interested in teaching our class, so we’d often get later due dates on the assignments because he forgot to open them before it was due. Some TAs I’ve heard are really strict on attendance and lab reports. Switch around sections if you feel like your TA is strict on the first few labs. Your lab group also contributes to your experience in the class; if everyone in your group knows what’s going on, you can easily finish the lab 30 minutes early. Some times post labs are due as a group, and the unit 2/3 reports are also done as a group. I’ve figured some people cannot write scientific reports… but I’ll refrain from complaining too much.

tl;dr, switch sections if TA isn’t lenient, switch groups if group members are unhelpful (unless you wanna carry), be prepared for confusion on the instructions, and be prepared for some work.

This class was fine. This lab is essentially an extension of Elegant Mind Club from Arisaka's lab. We spend the first 5 weeks working on microscopy and then the rest on a final project. Arisaka expects you to invest more than allotted for in the class schedule (aka out of class time). This lab was scheduled for Tues/Thurs for one hour but he would often expect groups to meet outside for multiple hours to do lab work, which would have been fine if communicated beforehand as expectations for the course. Additionally, he will email you last minute about a paper/presentation due either the next day or so. For example, one time he emailed us at 9:30pm that we needed to present the next day during class. He does not have any sort of rubric or clear cut expectations of what you specifically need to do. My group had a presentation where he got extremely irritated and criticized our presentation when he did not clearly tell us what the presentation needed to cover.

With all that being said, the TAs are in charge of the grading and you will be fine grade-wise as long as you put in a decent amount of effort. The TAs can see that you're trying and they will grade you based on that so don't get too stressed about all of the mishaps because you will be fine.

ON EVERYTHING DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH ROBERT KAO. Everyone BUT the people who took him basically got an A, and many who took it with Kao got an A-. He grades EXPONENTIALLY harder than the other TAs, and even with the "curve" they talk about, you cannot fight that. People would be getting high 90s on their report and Robert Kao would dish out high Cs and low Bs on it, even coming up with things off the rubric to take points off from you. He also has some sort of speech issue, so he will basically not be able to explain anything to you, and you will not understand him, and he will yell at you anyways. Even then, he is extremely unwilling to help out, so even if you do ask for help, he will not really answer your question. DON'T TAKE IT WITH HIM.
Other than that, it is just a lot of busy work. GET A GOOD TEAM and make sure everyone does their cut, unlike my group. Easy A with any other TA, just do the work.

Professor Arisaka is def a smart guy but he isnt good at explaining his topics. I didnt understand anything from this class and he has a really heavy accent so sometimes it is hard to listen to the things he is saying. There is def some weekly reading and homework to do. The final project is a presentation. He lets you use Chat GPT though, so that saved me.

The material was difficult to understand (basically the professor's research), but was really interesting and novel. Definitely gave me a new perspective on AI and consciousness. Professor Arisaka is really smart. The workload is relatively heavy for a Fiat Lux, with 2-3 chapters of reading, a brief review, and answering some questions from the professor every week. There was also a final presentation. However, the professor understands that this is a one unit class and is relatively lenient.

This class is an improvement on 4AL in structure, but not work. Slides feel much more coherent and helpful. The lab computers are actually usable which means the issue of having a Mac is mostly alleviated. However, note that this class is a lot more work than 4AL. Entire reports and a much faster pace. Likewise, the Arduino familiarity required for the final project is extremely high as you will be building a device rather than testing a theory. Make sure you have someone in your group comfortable with Arduino code or else you will suffer.

This class is abysmal. This is not a physics class, this is a computer science class. Arduino IDE is impossible to deal with on an Apple product. You will be coding profusely in Python, and likely required to write your own Arduino code for the final project depending on what your group chooses to do. This class is completely guided by slides that are outdated (dates are from previous quarters), poorly structured, and are completely centered around Windows UI, not Mac. I understand that it is an expectation of engineering majors to use Windows and never Mac, but this is a physics class. Likewise, your TA makes or breaks this class. If there is a tech issue...better hope your TA has experience. Need something for your final project...better hope your TA knows where everything is in the lab.

Easily the most miserable class on campus. And it doesn't take much to refine it to make it easy, the professor just refuses to do so.

4AL is just a bunch of busy work. The class is relatively easy as there are no exams and just lab reports and group projects. It's really important to have a good team that fairly splits up the work. Overall, as long as you complete the work and follow the rubric, you should easily end up with an "A."

Professor Arisaka only gives out A and A+, so this class is pretty nice. I enrolled into this class because I did research with him throughout the fall quarter.

I believe 4AL is a great course to experience writing research papers and working with data. My TA (Elias) was super nice and gave us lots of help with programming. I was lucky to have great group members too. The workload was pretty manageable (one post lab and pre lab per week), and three group projects. Most people get A and A+.

However, if you don't have much programming experience, the learning curve for python in this class is pretty steep. Most of the time, you have to rely on the person in the group that has prior programming experience (which was me in my group).