Prof Tung's lectures are very conceptual. They're fun because of his demonstrations, but they won't prepare you for the exams at all. You either get it or you don't. He's also not very nice in office hours. I would take Bauer over Tung.

Nothing against the TA, but how Dr. Tung handled class with the on going events was disappointing and disrespectful. he never addressed any campus events other than saying that "things were happening" and after my peers had been victim to police brutality, he made us take a midterm without even addressing it or making it a low stakes exam. It was upsetting because I have heard so many good things about this professor, but honestly not ok with the campus events going on, and he is honestly very inconsiderate. He really only cares about physics and thats it. nothing else, not physical well being of students and not the mental well being of students. It was hard to go through physics like this. something that is already hard made even harder through inconsiderate professors with no lack of empathy or compassion. The class itself was honestly pretty straight forward content wise, but be wear of the midterms (two questions each worth 45 points & 5 multiple choice each worth 2 points). If you don't know how to do the problems ur screwed but you can also write down every equation known to man and still get at least a 50 percent lol. I just don't understand how this is a good way of assesing learning if you give students two problems worth 45 points each....

I have not looked at physics since it was entirely online in high school and I didn't remember anything so I was very afraid of taking physics in college, but Professor Tung was awesome. His exams were mostly fair and even when one was particularly hard he was very accommodating and receptive to student feedback which I really appreciated.

Tung's class was an interesting experience for me, as it broke my 4.0, however, I can't say that it was a bad class by any stretch of my imagination. He's a solid lecturer who kept me engaged, and he provides a littany of resources for you to study. That being said, his exams are brutal. The first one was no sweat and realistically its all basic algebra, but from the second exam on, it gets crazy. His questions are super in depth, and we were given nothing like it to practice for the class. He's also the only professor that doesn't use Mastering Physics in the 5 series, and instead uses Kudu, which has no problems that will accurately prep you come exam time. He still was a caring professor though, so I can't say too much bad about him

By far the hardest class I've taken at UCLA yet. Coming in with zero background knowledge in physics made for an extremely tough time in this class, which was likely exacerbated by my lack of proactivity (not doing discussion worksheets and not going to office hours when I probably needed to). If you put in consistent work from the beginning to the end though, you'll have a much easier time than I did.

Lectures: Tung will introduce the concept and the theory, derive the equation, do a couple of simple practice problems, and tie it all up neatly with a demonstration at the end of class. However, you need to put in much more work beyond the lecture to actually understand the material at the level you need for exams. Lectures provide the intro, the rest of the work is up to you. Not mandatory but he very occasionally (maybe 4 times) does in-class extra credit questions on Kudu
Discussions: TAs would assign worksheets and go over select problems from those worksheets during discussion. Shoutout to Andrew, who was a wonderful TA. Not mandatory but definitely recommended.
Homework: Tung would assign Kudu questions as homework that had an official due date at the end of the quarter. 6ish units with 25 - 30 questions per unit. The questions were pretty straightforward but it was very easy to get stuck working on your own. Do not wait until the last minute to do them.
Exams: I heard from others that Tung uses his past exam questions very frequently, so for people with access to an organization's test bank, the tests might not be so bad, but the level of knowledge required for the exam was so deep that it was insane. Exam questions far surpassed the difficulty of practice questions gone over in lecture and Kudu questions. The ones that were the closest were the discussion worksheets from the TAs, so the best form of preparation is to do those worksheets before going to discussions.
Grading Scheme (what I remember of it): 15% for each of the two midterms, 30% for the final, and 3% extra credit to the OVERALL GRADE if you complete all the Kudu homework questions

I would never take this class with Tung again, but if you've got a background in physics or are prepared to put the work in, you won't have a hard time getting an A.

I LOST MY 4.0 TO TUNG.

Overall, two midterms are easy enough to get partial credit in / do well. There's 3% worth extra credit as well. BUT, the professor gives no practice problems in class and lectures are just deriving stuff, so it's hard to actually learn if you're never taken good physics in high school.

The final was the worst exam I've ever taken. I got lulled into a false sense of security by how easy the midterms were, but the final was really difficult. Bro's a known GPA killer. Good luck out there.

Tung is a great conceptual lecturer who utilizes engaging in-class demonstrations that helped me understand the principles of physics as someone who had never taken a physics course before this one. However, I felt like this was then completely lost on the exams, where the magnitude and depth of the questions went far beyond any of the supplementary materials covered in class or on Kudu (which he is aware of and states in the syllabus). I would say his exam questions most closely mimic the ones covered in discussion, but I felt the lecture did not adequately prepare me to approach that level of physics problem solving. He allows a cheat sheet for both midterms and the final, which I relied on heavily to be successful in this course. I think Tung is a solid choice of professor if you have prior experience with physics and can focus on the more complex problem solving, but I felt I was constantly juggling new fundamental concepts with applications and a demand for a deeper understanding of the material.

Tung is an okay physics professor. His lectures are very conceptual which is helpful to learning physics for people who have never taken physics before but he doesn't focus much on advanced problem-solving review during lectures nor does he give out any practice exams. I would say that going to the lecture was kind of useless but he gave us extra credit randomly through Kudu questions (kind of like clicker questions). TBH, his Nathan's Notes was a LIFESAVER for this class. You basically do not have to go to lecture and just read his Nathan's Notes which were most of the time an exact transcript of his lectures or just abridged versions. Use the Nathan's Notes as a study guide! His exams were multiple choice and short answer. I would say his exams are pretty difficult compared to the homework and problems in lecture/notes but there are a lot of similarities so it was not entirely too bad. The only thing that was difficult was that he would oftentimes give us problems where we had to come up with a symbolic answer without numbers so it is really important to understand the concepts and algebra behind things. As a person who has never taken physics before, this class is definitely doable but you need to study, review, and make sure to stay on top of things! I would say compared to the other physics professors here Tung is not a bad choice at all!

NOTE: I took AP Physics 1 in high school, which covers the material in Physics 5A (and goes a bit beyond 5A material). Thus, your mileage may vary, especially if you've never taken a physics class harder than high school physics before.

Overall, I'd say Dr. Tung did a pretty good job at teaching 5A. The lectures in class were somewhat helpful, and the physical demonstrations played a large part in anchoring my understanding of the material. However, I'd say that the biggest source of help is going to come from your TA's- they're the ones that make the practice problems that will save you on the MT's and finals, and they're the ones you're going to be requesting help from (I'm of the opinion that Dr. Tung is generally somewhat cold when it comes to student interaction, based on my limited attempts to converse with him about course material- again, YMMV).

Oh, and the extra credit- he gives extra credit for participation in lecture via Kudu, and he gives you EC for homework if you do more than 65% of the assigned problems (according to him, the EC roughly equates to 2-3% if you max it out). It is annoying that you have to buy software to do the HW and whatnot, but at least you're getting some extra credit out of it.

I will say that the lab portion is rather... poorly organized. It really isn't the lab TA's fault-I think my lab TA (at least) did well with what he had. Rather, the main problem was that the lab was often ahead of the lecture by a lecture or two- that meant that we had to spend extra time reading in order to finish the prelabs (which could get real annoying if we had no idea what to do).

This is BY FAR the WORST class I have taken at UCLA. I took AP physics in high school and it was a breeze but Tung managed to suck all the life out of physics. He is hands down the worst professor at UCLA! His test are completely unreasonable, the lecture don’t cover ANYTHING, you literally learn NEGATIVE F-ING information by going to class.