[Do not take this class unless you are prepared to fully teach yourself, receive ChatGPT announcements, and deal with last-minute, poorly communicated decisions.]
I want to start by saying this professor is genuinely a cool guy and clearly passionate about physics. When he was present, he tried to make the class exciting and engaging. Unfortunately, passion alone does not make a functional course, and the lack of communication and structure this quarter was completely unacceptable.
Around weeks 4–5, the professor disappeared from teaching. He was not present for the midterm, which I completely understood at the time due to his wife undergoing surgery. However, what followed was weeks of essentially no instruction. During his absence, we were given a mix of prerecorded YouTube videos some were years old, some were somewhat recent, and some were not even Physics 5A lectures but actually 1A lectures. The course became entirely self-taught and honestly a waste of tuition. Relying on inconsistent videos and external resources that students could have accessed for free.
Communication during this period was extremely poor. Announcements appeared to be written using ChatGPT (he once literally left the Ai notes and suggestions at the top of the announcement), emails from students and even TAs often went unanswered, and there was no clear guidance on expectations or exam preparation. When the professor finally returned in week 10, he taught only two lectures, which felt more showy than instructional. There was lots of flashy demonstrations, but very little actual teaching, almost as if trying to compensate for weeks of absence. He also flew by the last few topics as we were behind... (speaking of being behind. the lectures were ALWAYS behind compared to the labs and because of this students were always a little confused during them. BLESSS UP THE TA AND LAs DURING LAB THEY WERE AMAZING).
The final exam situation was the breaking point. The two lecture sections would take the final exam on different days. One on Wednesday while the other tested on Friday. TA review sessions were released on Monday for both sections (also BLESS UP THE LECTURE TAs BECAUSE THEIR REVIEWS WERE VERY HELPFUL) , already giving the Friday section more prep time. On top of that, the formula sheet was posted late Tuesday night, the night before the Wednesday exam, while Friday test-takers had multiple extra days to study with it. This created a clear and unfair advantage between sections.
Participation credit ended up being 100% for everyone not because of engagement, but because Kudu wasn’t working early in the quarter and later because the professor simply wasn’t there. That alone says a lot about how disorganized this course became.
Overall, this class felt like a waste of tuition. It was largely self-taught through random YouTube videos, with minimal instruction, poor communication, and serious fairness issues in exam administration. A professor can be kind and passionate, but students still deserve consistency, accessibility, and a course that is actually taught.

I'm seeing a lot of reviews bashing Tung, however I think one thing to note was that this quarter was a really special case since he had a family emergency. Like you can't really expect him to be as good of a professor when he's not even present due to the emergency. If the roles were reversed and you had an emergency, you would definitely have your work quality be compromised. That being said, yes, Tung did use old recorded lectures while he was away, but everything in those video lectures ended up being on the midterm/final which I think is pretty fair. And in terms of this quarter, I do think the performance of the students was very reliant on the TA's as they held review sessions that were key to doing good on the tests. Another complaint people seem to have is that he used ChatGPT in his emails, but like c'mon yall, it's just emails. Everyone acting all high and mighty about using Chat when practically everyone uses it so I don't really care about this in my opinion and it doesn't inherently make it "Ai-Slop." Speaking for when Tung was in person, his lectures were always engaging and my only complaint was that he moved too slow among the simple topics like vectors and displacement and really went fast on topics like statics, torque, and circular motion.

The important things are for people taking the class in the future:
-Lectures: optional, recorded,
- Homework: graded on correctness (with unlimited attempts), helpful conceptually, not really great for performing on tests
- Discussions: optional however highly recommended, this is what's gonna help you pass the class. If you went to every discussion and read the lecture slides you can easily come out with an A in the class.
- Labs: Just show up, however, you do not get a skip on the labs.
- There is extra credit!

This was the easiest class I've taken at UCLA so far (easier than my GEs), and I'm no physics genius. However, I did take AP Physics in high school, so that may have somewhat helped, but even if you don't have prior physics experience you should still be able to succeed in this class. Tung is a goofy guy, but he isn't really a good lecturer and his lectures tended to be mediocre at best. I ended up never watching any lectures past the first midterm, but only went to his review sessions where he literally walked through each free response problem (which are worth most of the points) that would be on the exams.

Speaking of exams, there are four midterms and no final. His exam schedule was constantly changing though, so I never really knew when each exam was until about a week before. They consisted of some multiple choice questions, which were pretty easy to answer if you went back in his lecture notes, and a few free response problems which shouldn't be that bad since he goes over them during his review sessions but just changes a few numbers or adds a small detail.

Tung also offers an abundance of extra credit, which is fairly easy to get and is supposed to bump you up a whole letter grade if you do all of it. To get extra credit, you can complete extra mastering physics problems (homework) and answer the clicker questions during lectures. Besides the extra credit, the workload is fair. There are weekly mastering physics problems (he gives you unlimited attempts which was really helpful) and a weekly discussion worksheet, all of which take about 2-3 hours to complete.

Taking everything into consideration, this class should be a breeze, especially with the huge amount of extra credit offered. However, I felt that this class wasted my time. I didn't really learn anything and the fact that he basically solved the exam questions for you beforehand takes away any motivation to study. Additionally, because there was no final, I can't really say I mastered all of the material. This entire course consisted of regurgitating his work from his review sessions onto the midterm. If you want an easy A, take Tung, but if you actually want to learn something try taking someone else.

Professor Tung is wonderful! As someone who had zero physics experience prior to this course, Professor Tung did a great job of easing into the material and making concepts feel as intuitive as possible. This quarter he offered up to 5% extra credit on our final grade (!!) which could be earned by completing extra homework problems and in class participation. The amount of effort he puts into making class engaging shows how much he really cares about his students-- even though he has no idea what any of us look like, as he likes to joke. 10/10 recommend!!!

Tung changed the exams from kudu to paper and pencil right before a few days of the first midterm. I did all the kudu homework problems, however, like the others have said, the kudu homework questions are not good preparation for the exams at all. I took Physics 1B with Corbin and got a better grade in that class than in this one. Even though I felt comfortable with the material covered in class and the lectures were fun, the exams were downright horrible. It does not help that they account for 80% of the grade (20% for each midterm and 40% for final). Avoid this class if you care about your GPA.

Professor Tung is one of the best professors I've had at UCLA so far. This is my 3rd time taking a mechanics class, and I wish Professor Tung had been the first person to teach me physics. He makes the subject material intuitive, he really cares about how his class impacts his students, and his enthusiasm makes a typically tough subject totally bearable. If UCLA doesn't hold onto this guy for as long as possible they're out of their minds. In conclusion, if you have the chance to take Professor Tung's class, there is basically no reason why you shouldn't go with him.

I love Professor Tung! Take his class if you have the chance; he's a really great person and super passionate about physics.

I loved Professor Tung. His exams were very fair and his homework he assigned was very helpful. If you pay attention to his lectures you will be prepared for the exams.

Dr Tung is a very clear lecturer, prerecorded so many cool demos for us to watch in class, and gave us extra credit for completing >65% of the homework. No surprises on the midterms, although the free response parts are slightly harder than lecture examples, it's still very reasonable. Definitely recommend his class!

Highly recommend Master Tung. Great lectures, fair exams. We had 4 shorter midterms instead of 2 midterms and a final, which I liked since we finished the last midterm done before finals week. His demos were definitely the highlight of this class though!