Professor

Nathan Tung

AD
3.9
Overall Ratings
Based on 141 Users
Easiness 3.0 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 3.5 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 3.9 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 3.9 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (141)

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PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 3, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A+

Definitely take him for any class available. Homework and midterms are very straightforward, and he is a great lecturer. Also a genuinely good person.

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PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Feb. 17, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: N/A

Love his class, one of the best professors in UCLA!

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5 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
June 12, 2023
Quarter: Spring 2023
Grade: P

bruinwalk keeps failing me. tung was HORRIBLE this quarter. i would not recommend this class one bit.

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4 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 2, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: N/A

Tung is a great professor, and one I could easily recommend. He seems genuinely interested in engaging his students, and cracks good jokes. He gives plenty of opportunity for extra credit. His tests are medium difficulty, and are 24 hour. He streams lectures on YouTube and often uses cool demonstrations done by him!

Definitely is a great professor that I would recommend in a heartbeat.

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4 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
July 3, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

Dr. Tung was one of the best professors I've had at UCLA! I had a very poor experience with physics in high school and was very nervous coming into 5A, but Tung broke down the material in a way that was really easy to understand. He mostly goes over concepts in lecture with little emphasis on "plugging and chugging." He really cares about his students and was very accommodating for the current situation. He did his lectures via YouTube for spring quarter (COVID).

You need to be able to solve problems on exams without numbers, which can be slightly confusing, but after the first midterm it becomes a little easier. The best advice I can give you is to GO TO HIS REVIEW SESSIONS! They really make the exams a lot easier and help you with the reasoning behind a lot of the questions. Make sure you understand how things are derived instead of just memorizing them.

I'd say the biggest pain in this class was Mastering Physics, but he only required us to do 65% of the problems and the rest was extra credit. Extra credit was also provided through TopHat, typically with 1 point for attempting the question and 1 point for getting it right.

Don't be worried by reviews from his other classes, overall I'd say this was a great class and Tung is a very clear instructor.

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Dec. 26, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: N/A

In my opinion the bad reviews are unwarranted. Although it was Professor Tung's first quarter teaching, he definitely deserves credit for the effort and dedication he put into teaching this class to the best of his ability. My advice for passing this class is simple : LISTEN in lecture, take detailed NOTES, attend DISCUSSION, and review CONCEPTS. I never had a problem with the way he utilized lecture time. If people actually bothered to pay attention and listen to what he was saying, then his lab demonstrations made sense and the concepts were easier to grasp. Some reviews argue that he spent too much time deriving formulas, but I have to disagree. He skipped over tedious calculus that was used to derive the formulas, and instead used the formulas to show the relationships between parameters (i.e. proportional, inversely proportional). This was actually very useful in multiple choice problems in his exams. I did put in effort to take notes during class, but even if I hadn't, on CCLE he posts NATHAN'S NOTES which are his own written notes that covers everything he says during lecture. Moreover, I found discussion to be extremely helpful. I think many people struggled with this class because we did not see many problems during lecture and mainly focused on concepts. However, discussion is where we actually got to see problems relating to the concepts. With this said, out of the 38 enrolled spots in discussion, only about 10 people actually bothered to show up weekly. I think this lack of attendance definitely contributed to negative reviews for this class. Anyways, my discussion TA reviewed important problems that were reflected on midterm multiple choice problems and helped me grasp concepts even better. In regards to the midterms for this class, I was also blindsided by the first midterm. Nevertheless, just writing down everything you know scores you points. Even if it was a hard test, if you truly understood concepts, then you should be able to score 1 or 2 points above average. As for the second midterm and final, they were completely fair. Professor Tung held review sessions that covered everything he expected. All in all, this class wasn't terrible and I feel like anyone can pass this class if they bother to listen in class and spend time understanding concepts. (Make sure to sit up front to see the board).

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 22, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

I was kind of apprehensive before taking this class because this professor didn't have the best reviews. However, I think he was great! He was very clear about his expectations, good at explaining, and his exams were very fair. No complaints.

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PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 12, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A-

Professor Tung was by far my favorite teacher this quarter, and he made this class super interesting and fun, which is something I thought I'd ever say about a physics course. He showed us lots of physics demonstrations (great for visual learners), took time to go over concepts, and carefully explained the thought process/steps behind solving certain types of physics problems. The tests were reasonable as well as the homework (the homework takes a really long time but you don't need to complete all of it for full credit). I liked being able to participate through tophat, especially in an online environment. I would highly recommend you take Professor Tung for this class, and I would take it again. You won't regret it! He even had a fun YouTube intro for his lectures lol

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 19, 2020
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A-

Tung is a really nice guy but his exams almost made me cry. Even having taken a few years of physics in high school, paid attention to Tung's classes, watched review sessions (which as the other reviews describe cover problems very similar to those on the exams) and all the good stuff, I couldn't fully understand the written response sections in his exams (the multiple choice questions were very reasonable though). Tung is a super passionate teacher who obviously cares about his students but he really needs to re-level his exams, because I spent hours and hours on what were supposed to be short exams, so I can't imagine what students who'd never studied physics before must've felt like during the midterms. My other critique is that Tung was a bit too flexible with his schedule because it was flip flopping every other week; yes COVID is an unprecedented situation and the professor was just trying to accommodate as much as possible, but not sticking to schedule sometimes made things stressful.
That being said I wanna say how cool Tung is. He brings in awesome video demonstrations to explain concepts, is a big nerd like myself, absolutely loves teaching and gives a bunch of extra credit, so I think that with improvement he can become the best 5A professor.

Helpful?

2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 17, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A+

Professor Tung is a genuinely nice guy who cares about his students and wants them to succeed. Unfortunately, the class can feel a bit unstructured at times. Additionally, it’s hard to feel prepared for the exams because he really doesn’t give any supplementary materials or any past exams to review. He is really good at explaining the concepts but I wish he would do a better job at preparing us directly for his tests.

The class is divided up in four categories, 20% comes from homework, 5% comes from discussion section, 15% comes from labs, and 60% of your grade comes from four midterms spaced out throughout the quarter. The homework is pretty easy to complete and you get unlimited tries and it’s not due until the end of the quarter! I found it to be quite useful since he doesn’t give any practice materials. The discussion worksheets were pretty ambiguous and I don’t know if it was just my TA but I felt that sometimes what we were being graded on it was not very fair because we had not yet given it in class. The labs are just glorified busywork, they’re not hard to do but they take a ridiculous amount of time and you have to use this software called tracker...it sucks. They’re not fun to film and they’re not fun to do but they’re pretty easy to complete and since we’re doing this at home the TA’s are quite lenient with the grading. Finally, the midterms, they are not particularly hard and he does give a 24 hour window to complete them which is very useful! However I do feel that they are very tricky in the sense that they do not use numbers and they do require you to go slightly above what we gave in class. My recommendation is to try and do all the related homework problems before the test because that’s basically your only source of practice. Additionally, I would recommend asking him to do his review sessions because he does give out very similar problems to what he would expect on the test and they’re very useful in understanding what he is expecting of you. Overall he is a good teacher that genuinely cares about his students and his video demonstrations are amazing, I just wish we would’ve had a little bit more of material given by him so that the concepts and ideas he worked so hard and explaining would better stick in terms of problem solving! He does however give a lot of extra credit which is very very useful. You’re only required to do 65% of the homework which means that anything you do above that is extra credit, he also uses this app called top hat which is kind of like assistance and participation which also counts for extra credit. In the end I believe the extra credit comes out to be around 5% of your grade which is amazing.

Overall would recommend if he is available to give this class just be willing to put in the work on your own time. It honestly is not a difficult class to do well in.

Selling past labs and exam materials that could be helpful for this class!
If interested text: **********

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2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A+
March 3, 2021

Definitely take him for any class available. Homework and midterms are very straightforward, and he is a great lecturer. Also a genuinely good person.

Helpful?

6 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: N/A
Feb. 17, 2021

Love his class, one of the best professors in UCLA!

Helpful?

5 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1C
Quarter: Spring 2023
Grade: P
June 12, 2023

bruinwalk keeps failing me. tung was HORRIBLE this quarter. i would not recommend this class one bit.

Helpful?

4 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: N/A
March 2, 2021

Tung is a great professor, and one I could easily recommend. He seems genuinely interested in engaging his students, and cracks good jokes. He gives plenty of opportunity for extra credit. His tests are medium difficulty, and are 24 hour. He streams lectures on YouTube and often uses cool demonstrations done by him!

Definitely is a great professor that I would recommend in a heartbeat.

Helpful?

4 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
July 3, 2020

Dr. Tung was one of the best professors I've had at UCLA! I had a very poor experience with physics in high school and was very nervous coming into 5A, but Tung broke down the material in a way that was really easy to understand. He mostly goes over concepts in lecture with little emphasis on "plugging and chugging." He really cares about his students and was very accommodating for the current situation. He did his lectures via YouTube for spring quarter (COVID).

You need to be able to solve problems on exams without numbers, which can be slightly confusing, but after the first midterm it becomes a little easier. The best advice I can give you is to GO TO HIS REVIEW SESSIONS! They really make the exams a lot easier and help you with the reasoning behind a lot of the questions. Make sure you understand how things are derived instead of just memorizing them.

I'd say the biggest pain in this class was Mastering Physics, but he only required us to do 65% of the problems and the rest was extra credit. Extra credit was also provided through TopHat, typically with 1 point for attempting the question and 1 point for getting it right.

Don't be worried by reviews from his other classes, overall I'd say this was a great class and Tung is a very clear instructor.

Helpful?

3 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: N/A
Dec. 26, 2019

In my opinion the bad reviews are unwarranted. Although it was Professor Tung's first quarter teaching, he definitely deserves credit for the effort and dedication he put into teaching this class to the best of his ability. My advice for passing this class is simple : LISTEN in lecture, take detailed NOTES, attend DISCUSSION, and review CONCEPTS. I never had a problem with the way he utilized lecture time. If people actually bothered to pay attention and listen to what he was saying, then his lab demonstrations made sense and the concepts were easier to grasp. Some reviews argue that he spent too much time deriving formulas, but I have to disagree. He skipped over tedious calculus that was used to derive the formulas, and instead used the formulas to show the relationships between parameters (i.e. proportional, inversely proportional). This was actually very useful in multiple choice problems in his exams. I did put in effort to take notes during class, but even if I hadn't, on CCLE he posts NATHAN'S NOTES which are his own written notes that covers everything he says during lecture. Moreover, I found discussion to be extremely helpful. I think many people struggled with this class because we did not see many problems during lecture and mainly focused on concepts. However, discussion is where we actually got to see problems relating to the concepts. With this said, out of the 38 enrolled spots in discussion, only about 10 people actually bothered to show up weekly. I think this lack of attendance definitely contributed to negative reviews for this class. Anyways, my discussion TA reviewed important problems that were reflected on midterm multiple choice problems and helped me grasp concepts even better. In regards to the midterms for this class, I was also blindsided by the first midterm. Nevertheless, just writing down everything you know scores you points. Even if it was a hard test, if you truly understood concepts, then you should be able to score 1 or 2 points above average. As for the second midterm and final, they were completely fair. Professor Tung held review sessions that covered everything he expected. All in all, this class wasn't terrible and I feel like anyone can pass this class if they bother to listen in class and spend time understanding concepts. (Make sure to sit up front to see the board).

Helpful?

8 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
June 22, 2020

I was kind of apprehensive before taking this class because this professor didn't have the best reviews. However, I think he was great! He was very clear about his expectations, good at explaining, and his exams were very fair. No complaints.

Helpful?

2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A-
March 12, 2021

Professor Tung was by far my favorite teacher this quarter, and he made this class super interesting and fun, which is something I thought I'd ever say about a physics course. He showed us lots of physics demonstrations (great for visual learners), took time to go over concepts, and carefully explained the thought process/steps behind solving certain types of physics problems. The tests were reasonable as well as the homework (the homework takes a really long time but you don't need to complete all of it for full credit). I liked being able to participate through tophat, especially in an online environment. I would highly recommend you take Professor Tung for this class, and I would take it again. You won't regret it! He even had a fun YouTube intro for his lectures lol

Helpful?

2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A-
Dec. 19, 2020

Tung is a really nice guy but his exams almost made me cry. Even having taken a few years of physics in high school, paid attention to Tung's classes, watched review sessions (which as the other reviews describe cover problems very similar to those on the exams) and all the good stuff, I couldn't fully understand the written response sections in his exams (the multiple choice questions were very reasonable though). Tung is a super passionate teacher who obviously cares about his students but he really needs to re-level his exams, because I spent hours and hours on what were supposed to be short exams, so I can't imagine what students who'd never studied physics before must've felt like during the midterms. My other critique is that Tung was a bit too flexible with his schedule because it was flip flopping every other week; yes COVID is an unprecedented situation and the professor was just trying to accommodate as much as possible, but not sticking to schedule sometimes made things stressful.
That being said I wanna say how cool Tung is. He brings in awesome video demonstrations to explain concepts, is a big nerd like myself, absolutely loves teaching and gives a bunch of extra credit, so I think that with improvement he can become the best 5A professor.

Helpful?

2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A+
March 17, 2021

Professor Tung is a genuinely nice guy who cares about his students and wants them to succeed. Unfortunately, the class can feel a bit unstructured at times. Additionally, it’s hard to feel prepared for the exams because he really doesn’t give any supplementary materials or any past exams to review. He is really good at explaining the concepts but I wish he would do a better job at preparing us directly for his tests.

The class is divided up in four categories, 20% comes from homework, 5% comes from discussion section, 15% comes from labs, and 60% of your grade comes from four midterms spaced out throughout the quarter. The homework is pretty easy to complete and you get unlimited tries and it’s not due until the end of the quarter! I found it to be quite useful since he doesn’t give any practice materials. The discussion worksheets were pretty ambiguous and I don’t know if it was just my TA but I felt that sometimes what we were being graded on it was not very fair because we had not yet given it in class. The labs are just glorified busywork, they’re not hard to do but they take a ridiculous amount of time and you have to use this software called tracker...it sucks. They’re not fun to film and they’re not fun to do but they’re pretty easy to complete and since we’re doing this at home the TA’s are quite lenient with the grading. Finally, the midterms, they are not particularly hard and he does give a 24 hour window to complete them which is very useful! However I do feel that they are very tricky in the sense that they do not use numbers and they do require you to go slightly above what we gave in class. My recommendation is to try and do all the related homework problems before the test because that’s basically your only source of practice. Additionally, I would recommend asking him to do his review sessions because he does give out very similar problems to what he would expect on the test and they’re very useful in understanding what he is expecting of you. Overall he is a good teacher that genuinely cares about his students and his video demonstrations are amazing, I just wish we would’ve had a little bit more of material given by him so that the concepts and ideas he worked so hard and explaining would better stick in terms of problem solving! He does however give a lot of extra credit which is very very useful. You’re only required to do 65% of the homework which means that anything you do above that is extra credit, he also uses this app called top hat which is kind of like assistance and participation which also counts for extra credit. In the end I believe the extra credit comes out to be around 5% of your grade which is amazing.

Overall would recommend if he is available to give this class just be willing to put in the work on your own time. It honestly is not a difficult class to do well in.

Selling past labs and exam materials that could be helpful for this class!
If interested text: **********

Helpful?

2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
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