Professor

Nathan Tung

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3.7
Overall Ratings
Based on 178 Users
Easiness 2.9 / 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 3.7 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 3.6 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (178)

6 of 14
6 of 14
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PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 22, 2022
Quarter: Winter 2022
Grade: A-

The best professor at UCLA so far in my experience! As someone who miserably failed AP Physics back in high school, I dreaded having to take this class. However, Tung was able to teach us everything so clearly and his resources are great. He also knows how to use technology well, making it very neat and convenient. The workload could be a bit heavy, but it's definitely something you want to complete since they are a great study tool for the exams. Overall the class is super organized and Tung is super reasonable with everything. I truly learned a lot and actually started liking physics after this class.

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March 17, 2020
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: NR

Nathan is a fantastic lecturer. He is funny and engaging and when he explains things it feels like a science documentary (in a good way). Homework was on mastering physics and he worked with us to make it a manageable amount which we all really appreciated. Tests are average difficulty as far as the physics series goes here and he puts a lot of effort into getting us prepared through review sessions. I recommend taking 1C with him.

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March 14, 2020
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: A

Hands down the best professor I've had through the Physics 1 series. Tung is an engaging, interesting, and humorous lecturer. I genuinely enjoyed and made an effort to show up to his class.

Helpful?

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Jan. 17, 2020
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: A-

Still easier than Bondarenko to be honest. Tung's lectures were really interesting and charismatic, and his demos were pretty fun. He always kind of ignored my questions though when I raised my hand even though he spent half the lectures answering other people. Didn't really get what the deal with that was. I'd say find someone easier if you can but Tung's not a bad choice if you do all the homework and study, etc.

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0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Jan. 29, 2020
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: B+

Tung is very knowledgeable about physics. You can tell that he is very fascinated on the subject and he does his best to demonstrate how cool physics is by using a lot of demonstrations in class. The problem with using a lot of demonstrations is that he just taught a lot of concepts and then wasted 10 minutes at the end of class to do those demonstrations. This means that he never did any practice problems during class. Also the Mastering Physics wasn't mandatory, but the practice problems still wasn't similar to what was on the exams, so it did not help much.

During the first midterm, almost no one did well because we only knew how to answer the conceptual questions. During the second midterm, he did a better job of showing us what will be on the exam, but you would only be able to truly know how to do those problems if you went to the REVIEW SESSION. or else everyone would've definitely failed. same thing goes for the final exam.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Feb. 10, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A+

Nathan Tung is my TA for physics 1C in Spring 2019. He is absolutely the best TA I've ever had at UCLA. He just has the magic to make the most difficult physical concepts simple, clear and interesting. I always walked out of his discussion feeling that I had much deeper understanding of the material. It's a pure enjoyment to attend his discussion and I would 10/10 recommend him. If you're not convinced, just check out his physics 1C reviews: https://www.bruinwalk.com/professors/david-bauer/physics-1c/
I'm really shocked to see that he got such low rating at Physics 5C. It could be that he made the exams too hard or wrongly estimated his students' physics background. I believe that he will do better next time teaching because he is so enthusiastic about teaching. I'd still recommend him for he is such an amazing lecturer.

Helpful?

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April 1, 2020
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: A

Tung was the best prof. I could have asked for. You won't regret taking him

Helpful?

0 3 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Aug. 15, 2020
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A

Nathan is an absolute god. His exams are straightforward and he offers SO MUCH extra credit. I would 100% recommend.

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0 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 5, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

Not sure if this review would be any different if the class was offered in person instead of online but overall the assigned work was not justified and the exams were fine as long as you paid attention during lecture.

Tung assigned a lot of homework through MasteringPhysics and was lenient about due dates (everything due at the end of the quarter) and completion for grading (initially needed 75% completed for full credit which then changed to 65%), however the homework was just busywork instead of actual help with learning about class concepts or exams.

In addition, labs also felt like busywork. Pre-labs are due prior to the start of lab and my TA set post-lab due dates 48 hours after lab. We worked with an infuriating program called Tracker (incredibly slow at times and outdated ugly looking UI) which allowed us to analyze our recorded videos of experiments we performed at home. It's not the lab's fault that the software was difficult and annoying to work with, however I feel like most of the grief could have been avoided if we had pre-recorded sample videos to work with instead of recording our own.

This quarter exams were open for 24 hours and open book + open note and Tung had review sessions which were actually pretty useful and practically outlined how to work out the written portion of the exams. He also gave out extra credit for those purchased a Tophat subscription and answered questions during live lecture.

So overall not the best, not the worst. If you can, I suggest you try to find a more engaging professor to take 5A with.

Helpful?

0 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 10, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

Doctor Tung is an amazing professor. He was very caring and thoughtful toward his students in what was a really tough quarter for a bunch of us. This was Doctor Tung's first time teaching Physics 5A and he was amazing. I would definitely recommend taking this course with him. He used Mastering Physics, which was a lot of work, but set the deadline for all assignments at the end of the quarter and did not have a penalty for incorrect answers. He also only required students complete 75% of the questions, which was later lowered due to the nature of this quarter. Doctor Tung created his own slides and his own notes (like a mini-textbook) on the content of this course. This was especially useful, since Doctor Tung's tests did not have numbers and required more conceptual (rather than quantitative) thinking. He also created a bunch of demonstrations and showed us them. You could always tell he was very passionate about teaching us well. He also was a cool, relatable professor who told us once that he had a good weekend because he finished playing Final Fantasy. :) He was super accommodating throughout this course and the midterms and final were 24 hour exams. My only complaint is that labs were a lot of work and sometimes frustrating because we had to set up the experimental apparatuses ourselves. However, this is standard throughout Physics 5 and was not the decision of Doctor Tung. Additionally, it was an accommodation for this quarter, specifically. Labs were also graded on effort, which was nice. I do not have the specific rubric, but grades in this class depended on exams, Mastering Physics, and labs. Doing Top Hat questions in lecture and extra Mastering Physics problems resulted in extra credit. I would totally recommend anyone to take this course with Doctor Tung.

Helpful?

0 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 2022
Grade: A-
June 22, 2022

The best professor at UCLA so far in my experience! As someone who miserably failed AP Physics back in high school, I dreaded having to take this class. However, Tung was able to teach us everything so clearly and his resources are great. He also knows how to use technology well, making it very neat and convenient. The workload could be a bit heavy, but it's definitely something you want to complete since they are a great study tool for the exams. Overall the class is super organized and Tung is super reasonable with everything. I truly learned a lot and actually started liking physics after this class.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1C
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: NR
March 17, 2020

Nathan is a fantastic lecturer. He is funny and engaging and when he explains things it feels like a science documentary (in a good way). Homework was on mastering physics and he worked with us to make it a manageable amount which we all really appreciated. Tests are average difficulty as far as the physics series goes here and he puts a lot of effort into getting us prepared through review sessions. I recommend taking 1C with him.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1C
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: A
March 14, 2020

Hands down the best professor I've had through the Physics 1 series. Tung is an engaging, interesting, and humorous lecturer. I genuinely enjoyed and made an effort to show up to his class.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: A-
Jan. 17, 2020

Still easier than Bondarenko to be honest. Tung's lectures were really interesting and charismatic, and his demos were pretty fun. He always kind of ignored my questions though when I raised my hand even though he spent half the lectures answering other people. Didn't really get what the deal with that was. I'd say find someone easier if you can but Tung's not a bad choice if you do all the homework and study, etc.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: B+
Jan. 29, 2020

Tung is very knowledgeable about physics. You can tell that he is very fascinated on the subject and he does his best to demonstrate how cool physics is by using a lot of demonstrations in class. The problem with using a lot of demonstrations is that he just taught a lot of concepts and then wasted 10 minutes at the end of class to do those demonstrations. This means that he never did any practice problems during class. Also the Mastering Physics wasn't mandatory, but the practice problems still wasn't similar to what was on the exams, so it did not help much.

During the first midterm, almost no one did well because we only knew how to answer the conceptual questions. During the second midterm, he did a better job of showing us what will be on the exam, but you would only be able to truly know how to do those problems if you went to the REVIEW SESSION. or else everyone would've definitely failed. same thing goes for the final exam.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1C
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A+
Feb. 10, 2020

Nathan Tung is my TA for physics 1C in Spring 2019. He is absolutely the best TA I've ever had at UCLA. He just has the magic to make the most difficult physical concepts simple, clear and interesting. I always walked out of his discussion feeling that I had much deeper understanding of the material. It's a pure enjoyment to attend his discussion and I would 10/10 recommend him. If you're not convinced, just check out his physics 1C reviews: https://www.bruinwalk.com/professors/david-bauer/physics-1c/
I'm really shocked to see that he got such low rating at Physics 5C. It could be that he made the exams too hard or wrongly estimated his students' physics background. I believe that he will do better next time teaching because he is so enthusiastic about teaching. I'd still recommend him for he is such an amazing lecturer.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1C
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: A
April 1, 2020

Tung was the best prof. I could have asked for. You won't regret taking him

Helpful?

0 3 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A
Aug. 15, 2020

Nathan is an absolute god. His exams are straightforward and he offers SO MUCH extra credit. I would 100% recommend.

Helpful?

0 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 5, 2020

Not sure if this review would be any different if the class was offered in person instead of online but overall the assigned work was not justified and the exams were fine as long as you paid attention during lecture.

Tung assigned a lot of homework through MasteringPhysics and was lenient about due dates (everything due at the end of the quarter) and completion for grading (initially needed 75% completed for full credit which then changed to 65%), however the homework was just busywork instead of actual help with learning about class concepts or exams.

In addition, labs also felt like busywork. Pre-labs are due prior to the start of lab and my TA set post-lab due dates 48 hours after lab. We worked with an infuriating program called Tracker (incredibly slow at times and outdated ugly looking UI) which allowed us to analyze our recorded videos of experiments we performed at home. It's not the lab's fault that the software was difficult and annoying to work with, however I feel like most of the grief could have been avoided if we had pre-recorded sample videos to work with instead of recording our own.

This quarter exams were open for 24 hours and open book + open note and Tung had review sessions which were actually pretty useful and practically outlined how to work out the written portion of the exams. He also gave out extra credit for those purchased a Tophat subscription and answered questions during live lecture.

So overall not the best, not the worst. If you can, I suggest you try to find a more engaging professor to take 5A with.

Helpful?

0 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 10, 2020

Doctor Tung is an amazing professor. He was very caring and thoughtful toward his students in what was a really tough quarter for a bunch of us. This was Doctor Tung's first time teaching Physics 5A and he was amazing. I would definitely recommend taking this course with him. He used Mastering Physics, which was a lot of work, but set the deadline for all assignments at the end of the quarter and did not have a penalty for incorrect answers. He also only required students complete 75% of the questions, which was later lowered due to the nature of this quarter. Doctor Tung created his own slides and his own notes (like a mini-textbook) on the content of this course. This was especially useful, since Doctor Tung's tests did not have numbers and required more conceptual (rather than quantitative) thinking. He also created a bunch of demonstrations and showed us them. You could always tell he was very passionate about teaching us well. He also was a cool, relatable professor who told us once that he had a good weekend because he finished playing Final Fantasy. :) He was super accommodating throughout this course and the midterms and final were 24 hour exams. My only complaint is that labs were a lot of work and sometimes frustrating because we had to set up the experimental apparatuses ourselves. However, this is standard throughout Physics 5 and was not the decision of Doctor Tung. Additionally, it was an accommodation for this quarter, specifically. Labs were also graded on effort, which was nice. I do not have the specific rubric, but grades in this class depended on exams, Mastering Physics, and labs. Doing Top Hat questions in lecture and extra Mastering Physics problems resulted in extra credit. I would totally recommend anyone to take this course with Doctor Tung.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
6 of 14
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