Professor

Nathan Tung

AD
3.8
Overall Ratings
Based on 165 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 3.8 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 3.7 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (165)

6 of 13
6 of 13
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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.

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
July 23, 2020
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A+

He is the best physics professor you can have here at UCLA. He's super nice, chill, even gets philosophical about physics! Attendance and participation is all extra credit, there is no final, instead 4 small midterms. Also-- doing just 60% of the homework problems will get you full credit under the homework category -- everything over is MORE EXTRA CREDIT!!
Take it! You will not regret it :))

also -- he has really fun visuals and demonstrations!

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
July 29, 2020
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A

I made an account just so that I could gas up Nathan. BY FAR the best professor I have had at UCLA. He is funny, kind, and sweet, and truly cares about his students. He explains lecture material very clearly, and prepares you well for exams (little studying needed). I really hope that I can take a class with him again.

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Aug. 9, 2020
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A

Dr. Tung is straight up fire. I wish he teaches 5B and 5C in the future because he's killing it with 5A. I came in with zero background in physics and this professor made the concepts easy to understand. He offers a lot of extra credit so people can score really well in his class. He is also super accommodating. The lecture portion of the class is fun and enjoyable. HOWEVER, the labs suck. They are not hard just very tedious, it usually took us more time to do the lab than study for the midterms.
In terms of workload, it is heavy but easily manageable. In summer session, we had 4 midterms instead of having 1 midterm and 1 final. The 4 midterms were like long quizzes in my opinion, they were not bad and totally fair in respect to the content he taught in the class. This professor is not trying to trick you, the questions are simple.
The mastering homework was all due at the end of the session, so we had a lot of flexibility. Additionally, we only had to complete 60% of the homework to get full points.
So, if Dr Tung is available TAKE HIM, YOU WILL BE THANKFUL

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Aug. 11, 2020
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A

Taking this class is daunting since I have no physics background at all. However, Professor Tung made this class understandable with his fun demonstrations and clear lectures. Honestly, one of the best Physics professor.

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

Professor Tung is by far one of the most engaging lecturers I've ever had. He streamed his lectures on YouTube during the quarter that I had him (remote learning due to COVID 19), had an awesome intro, and made super cool physics demonstration videos. Despite his lectures being so entertaining, easy-to-follow, and engaging, Professor Tung also maintains such a high level of professionalism, and it's clear that he puts a lot of thought and preparation into the content that he puts out for his students. Overall, I HIGHLY recommend taking his course if you're planning on taking Physics 1A.

Also, one piece of advice that I have is to make sure you don't wait till the last minute to do the Mastering Physics homework (if Professor Tung still continues to use Mastering Physics), which is mainly the reason why I didn't earn an A in this course. It's helpful practice but it's incredibly time-consuming.

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April 8, 2025
Quarter: Winter 2025
Grade: C+

To preface: If you have never taken an AP Physics class, or something along the lines, be ready to put in double the work that your peers are doing. Everyone is relearning concepts from their high school classes. Physics taught at UCLA is tough with any professor.
Tung is honestly overrated. Everyone praises him for being a great professor, but in all honesty, he is just like any other Physics 1 series professor. His format is deriving equations and doing practice problems at lecture, then doing practice problems at home.

Any physics class here is heavy self-studying.

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Sept. 9, 2020
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A+

I took both Physics 1 and 2 in high school and I think that if you did well in those, you will do well in this class. As such, the quality of teaching didn't really matter so much for me, but in my opinion, Professor Tung is a fantastic teacher and person whose lectures are both clear and engaging. I appreciate his way of approaching physics and I liked the way he structured his class by having four midterms (all non-cumulative) and no final.

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Oct. 28, 2020
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A

I would recommend taking this with him!

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 12, 2020
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: P

Professor Tung is a really lovable person and his video demonstrations are very helpful and enjoyable. That being said, he is not the best professor. Having 4 midterms over a 10 week quarter is way too many and despite the sentiment that it would help relieve the stress of finals by not having one, many of us would have rather had a final than 4 difficult midterms back to back, literally one being week 9 and one being week 10 which are already extremely stressful weeks for most of us as we wrap up the quarter. Despite the review sessions, the problems that we were tested on in exams did not reflect what was reviewed. So we spent almost 2 hour long sessions going over problems that were only vaguely similar to what we were expected to know how to do on the midterms. Tung offers a lot of extra credit, but it is barely enough to make up for scoring bad on his difficult midterms. If you're good at test taking and want the extra credit to boost your grade, I would recommend Tung. If you're not good at tests and physics already isn't your strong suit, maybe try a different Professor. Overall, Tung has lectures that are very enjoyable and he breaks the material down really well, however his exams are way too difficult and ended up being the reason I had to change to P/NP.

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.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Summer 2020
Grade: A+
July 23, 2020

He is the best physics professor you can have here at UCLA. He's super nice, chill, even gets philosophical about physics! Attendance and participation is all extra credit, there is no final, instead 4 small midterms. Also-- doing just 60% of the homework problems will get you full credit under the homework category -- everything over is MORE EXTRA CREDIT!!
Take it! You will not regret it :))

also -- he has really fun visuals and demonstrations!

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: Summer 2020
Grade: A
July 29, 2020

I made an account just so that I could gas up Nathan. BY FAR the best professor I have had at UCLA. He is funny, kind, and sweet, and truly cares about his students. He explains lecture material very clearly, and prepares you well for exams (little studying needed). I really hope that I can take a class with him again.

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: Summer 2020
Grade: A
Aug. 9, 2020

Dr. Tung is straight up fire. I wish he teaches 5B and 5C in the future because he's killing it with 5A. I came in with zero background in physics and this professor made the concepts easy to understand. He offers a lot of extra credit so people can score really well in his class. He is also super accommodating. The lecture portion of the class is fun and enjoyable. HOWEVER, the labs suck. They are not hard just very tedious, it usually took us more time to do the lab than study for the midterms.
In terms of workload, it is heavy but easily manageable. In summer session, we had 4 midterms instead of having 1 midterm and 1 final. The 4 midterms were like long quizzes in my opinion, they were not bad and totally fair in respect to the content he taught in the class. This professor is not trying to trick you, the questions are simple.
The mastering homework was all due at the end of the session, so we had a lot of flexibility. Additionally, we only had to complete 60% of the homework to get full points.
So, if Dr Tung is available TAKE HIM, YOU WILL BE THANKFUL

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: Summer 2020
Grade: A
Aug. 11, 2020

Taking this class is daunting since I have no physics background at all. However, Professor Tung made this class understandable with his fun demonstrations and clear lectures. Honestly, one of the best Physics professor.

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 2021
Grade: B+
April 1, 2021

Professor Tung is by far one of the most engaging lecturers I've ever had. He streamed his lectures on YouTube during the quarter that I had him (remote learning due to COVID 19), had an awesome intro, and made super cool physics demonstration videos. Despite his lectures being so entertaining, easy-to-follow, and engaging, Professor Tung also maintains such a high level of professionalism, and it's clear that he puts a lot of thought and preparation into the content that he puts out for his students. Overall, I HIGHLY recommend taking his course if you're planning on taking Physics 1A.

Also, one piece of advice that I have is to make sure you don't wait till the last minute to do the Mastering Physics homework (if Professor Tung still continues to use Mastering Physics), which is mainly the reason why I didn't earn an A in this course. It's helpful practice but it's incredibly time-consuming.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
Quarter: Winter 2025
Grade: C+
April 8, 2025

To preface: If you have never taken an AP Physics class, or something along the lines, be ready to put in double the work that your peers are doing. Everyone is relearning concepts from their high school classes. Physics taught at UCLA is tough with any professor.
Tung is honestly overrated. Everyone praises him for being a great professor, but in all honesty, he is just like any other Physics 1 series professor. His format is deriving equations and doing practice problems at lecture, then doing practice problems at home.

Any physics class here is heavy self-studying.

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: Summer 2020
Grade: A+
Sept. 9, 2020

I took both Physics 1 and 2 in high school and I think that if you did well in those, you will do well in this class. As such, the quality of teaching didn't really matter so much for me, but in my opinion, Professor Tung is a fantastic teacher and person whose lectures are both clear and engaging. I appreciate his way of approaching physics and I liked the way he structured his class by having four midterms (all non-cumulative) and no final.

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: Summer 2020
Grade: A
Oct. 28, 2020

I would recommend taking this with him!

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: Fall 2020
Grade: P
Dec. 12, 2020

Professor Tung is a really lovable person and his video demonstrations are very helpful and enjoyable. That being said, he is not the best professor. Having 4 midterms over a 10 week quarter is way too many and despite the sentiment that it would help relieve the stress of finals by not having one, many of us would have rather had a final than 4 difficult midterms back to back, literally one being week 9 and one being week 10 which are already extremely stressful weeks for most of us as we wrap up the quarter. Despite the review sessions, the problems that we were tested on in exams did not reflect what was reviewed. So we spent almost 2 hour long sessions going over problems that were only vaguely similar to what we were expected to know how to do on the midterms. Tung offers a lot of extra credit, but it is barely enough to make up for scoring bad on his difficult midterms. If you're good at test taking and want the extra credit to boost your grade, I would recommend Tung. If you're not good at tests and physics already isn't your strong suit, maybe try a different Professor. Overall, Tung has lectures that are very enjoyable and he breaks the material down really well, however his exams are way too difficult and ended up being the reason I had to change to P/NP.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
6 of 13
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