This class was unbelievably disorganised. The class is over, and our homework from week one has yet to be graded. The TAs did not seem to know what was happening in the class any more than the students did.

In the first week, Mehta mentioned that he "doesn't like teaching" 5B because it "crams too many topics into one course"; Mehta's disdain for this class caused problems for everyone involved, as he sped through slides and skipped over sample problems during lectures.

There was a lot of miscommunication between the TAs, Mehta, and the students regarding exams; we would receive contradictory emails from Mehta and each of the TAs telling us "no equation sheet" followed by "print out an equation sheet" followed by "here is a PDF of an equation sheet, but don't bring it to the exam." Our first two midterm exams were ridiculously easy, our final was ridiculously hard due to missing information and confusingly-worded exam questions.

Overall it just felt like nobody knew what was happening, which topics were on exams, and Mehta's disorganisation made this class deceptive. I would highly recommend other professors after taking the final for this class, what the f$#@ was that???

TAKE THIS CLASS WITH MEHTA!

Easily one of the most accommodating professors I had during Physics 5B. Grading scheme is as follows:

Quizzes: 85% of grade, 5 quizzes + lowest quiz dropped
Lab: 15% of grade

Quizzes are easy as long as you listen to the lectures, which were recorded, and take good notes on them. I did, however, take this course during COVID so if he teaches again during the school year I don't know how different it would be.

Let me start by saying, if there has ever been a professor more deserving of a review, it’s Mehta. Much like the other comments from this quarter, this class was a complete disaster. I have never had a professor who so blatantly cared less about the well-being of his students and the organization of a class. Despite only having three instructors—Mehta and two TAs—there was effectively ZERO communication between them ever, and there was never a clear answer as to what would be on a test. Concerning the lectures themselves, he frequently ended the lectures early, as if he just wanted to leave asap; he only ever read from pre-made slides, clearly never putting extra effort into making the material even remotely interesting.

While the midterms were not too bad, the final was an actual joke. Not only incredibly difficult, but it was unproctored for portions of the test and we were given (supposedly) 4 hrs to take the exam— both of which are completely against university policy regarding a final. Additionally, and perhaps most insane, students went outside after the test proctoring was over, still with tests in hand, and collaborated on the tests together.

Despite all of this chaos and disorganization, the TAs essentially didn’t even read the finals and curves most people’s grades really highly.

TLDR

hear me now, listen to me later: do NOT take this class w Mehta. I have never had a professor so undoubtedly unfit to teach students at this university. Ripp all y’all fouls that end up taking him ha.

I took it because I need it as a STEM major. The TAs literally carried the class on their back. Lectures were not helpful. I would recommend going to the TAs, their office hours, and just working on problems in the textbook, discussion, and exam examples. It is nice that the class is not based off of calculus, but the professor was not helpful at all. The professor tried to explain concepts to us, but would not follow the same train of thought and would not go over how to break down a question (which I feel like is important in understanding how to apply formulas). I went to every lecture, but they were not helpful at all for me (go to a few to see if it helps if you enrolled). Try to find another professor, but if you can't, build study groups, lock in with your TA, review questions, and you should be good.

Do not take this class oh my god I'm begging you. Unless you love the excitement of gambling with your learning and gpa with inconsistent communication, poor lecture-test-homework connection, and constantly changing grade policies, do not take this class. This is my lowest grade at UCLA, but what's crazy is that the content is definitely not the hardest content I've had to learn. I felt like I actually understood things as I put a lot of time and work into this class (and thanks to the singular TA Andrew), but once it came time to complete 10 hard problems in the midterms in 50 minutes, I ended up getting well below 70% on them. This class and Mehta unnecessarily drove students away from having excitement about learning physics, and it unnecessarily had such extreme disorganization.

There is nothing else I can say that all of these other reviews before me have not covered yet. Mehta has to be one of the most careless professors I have ever learned under, and how he is still able to teach at the #1 Public University is seriously beyond my comprehension. I stopped going to lecture after the FIRST one and opted to just watch the videos he would upload (especially because that is what he forced us to do amidst the wildfires during week 2 instead of doing zoom meetings). Best of all, we had a midterm the week upon our return from evacuation! Average was a 70, so not terrible, but come on man.

He is also never clear in his lectures. He simply reads the slides, does not explain why the example problems use specific formulas or reasoning, and verbatim always says "If you don't know why xyz is happening, I encourage you to look at the past slides or watch the past videos" you can LITERALLY just tell us, why make things so time-consuming and more difficult than they have to be? Also, the average on the 2nd midterm was a 66. He had first told us our lowest midterm would be dropped, simply changed that course policy halfway through the quarter, and then ended up dropping our lowest after basically being forced to by the department because his averages were so terrible and because of the wildfires.

If it wasn't for our TA Andrew, I would have dropped the class after the first midterm. He explained everything clearly during discussion, extended his office hours for us, constantly told us not to worry, and literally was the actual professor as he would be the only one there during midterm and final days (Mehta did not show up to a single in-person exam, nor did he make them, nor did he grade them. It's been 2 weeks since Finals Week and our grade JUST got uploaded because I assume that poor Andrew has to grade all of it on his own). Not to mention, Mehta assured everyone the grade would be curved and it seems like he didn’t curve anything? We also didn’t get our final grades back.

TLDR; terrible, terrible professor. content is doable, but if your TA isnt goated then genuinely good luck. do not take him unless you have to declare your major, it's better to wait another quarter and try to shoot for a better enrollment time.

If you do not want to kill yourself by the first midterm, run!! I do not recommend taking this class with this professor. We had our first midterm in week 3 after the chaos of remote learning caused by the LA fires. We had 50 minutes to complete a couple of MCQs and SAQs. The second midterm was sooo much harder than the first, with four MCQ's and six very hard SAQs. I honestly do not think all students could finish all SAQs with the insufficient time we had and the difficulty of the questions.

After the second midterm, after seeing how poorly his students did, we were told that our best midterm score would be used for both midterms; all else would stay the same. This shows how poorly the exam went. I do not know what will happen (I am writing this before the final). Students have not heard anything regarding how the grading is going to work. His rating has decreased since starting the winter quarter from 2.4 to 1.6, and it probably will continue to decrease.

Mind you, there is only one TA for this class, and he's a champ. There was a lot of miscommunication throughout this quarter. I didn't know where the final would be located because his announcements did not mention them. You wouldn't know where the location would be unless you asked the TA. (I was about to pull up to a different location until my friend told me).

Please save yourself and not take this class, even if it's the only one available.