I took this class online during summer session A and I felt this class was harder than expected. The exams were timed and closed note and I felt very rushed during them. All of the lectures were pre-recorded which was nice but it definitely went very fast. The labs were time consuming and tedious but that seems to be a trend with the physics 5 series online labs. There is no curve for grades above a C and a 95 was an A. He says that generally 20% of people get an A but he doesn't curve down. First midterm avg was an 88 and second was a 92. I didn't love Professor Waung but his class wasn't terrible.

Professor Waung is a sweet person and a professor who tries to make the lecture engaging by putting some jokes here and there. However, he does not use slides and instead uploads an outline of the notes he will be doing on the black board. The uploaded notes only show the main equations you will use, and not really how he derives the equation. The latter came out twice on two of the three exams, which asked to show how you get to/derived a certain equation. Basically, even though attendance is not graded, he does not upload the work and examples he does on the blackboard. He also tends to go over lecture time by 10 minutes on a regular basis.

He assigns about 12 to 13 homework problems every week, which is due a week later. The homework grade is based on only two out of the total questions assigned from that homework set. However. He does give answers to the even preoblems, and the book gives the answers to the odd problems. There is no need to pay for textbooks.

There were two midterm exams and one final. The midterms were 4 questions with multiple parts, and you must finish it within an hour. The final exam was 8 questions with multiple parts (with one of the questions having up to 5), and you must finish it within 3 hours. The first midterm was harder than the second, having an average of 60%. The second midterm had an average of 80%. I am unsure of the curve or average for the midterm. That said, he curves depending on the grade distribution, of which the first midterm was curved much more generously, where a 30% could warrant you a C. The final was the hardest of the exams and was cumulative. The midterms were not cumulative. He allows one 3"x5" index card for each midterm, and three 3"x5" index cards for the final. They were all in person, unless you had a reason to take a remotely. Regardless, everyone uploads to gradescope (meaning you can take the exam on your tablet if you wish in person).

The lab portion is not graded by the professor, and is separate to the class. The labs and prelabs to me were not as tedious as 5a, and my TA (Hau) seemed pretty chill on grading. Some labs are more extensive than others, but overall were not the worst, and you can leave if you finish early. The prelabs are due an hour before lab, and the labs due 48 hours before the next lab.

The grading breakdown is as follows:
Midterm 1: 20%
Midterm 2: 20%
Homework: 10%
Lab: 15%
Final: 35%

Overall, he's not the worst professor, but also wasn't the best. His exams seem to be a bit harder than other professors and the curve was the only saving grace for the exams. Although the material was soul sucking, the labs and homework work as a buffer if you do the work and the TA isn't a harsh grader.

I love Professor Waung! He's an incredibly kind, genuine, and hardworking individual. Also wanted to give a shoutout to my TA Charlie Hultgreen-Mena — his passion for the subject radiates when he lectures and he's truly a joy to be around. Even though the course content was condensed down to 6 weeks, I felt it was manageable even though I was taking another class alongside Waung's. His lecture notes are easy to follow and creating notecards for his exams a whole lot easier, and if you aren't able to attend lecture you can ask him for his past lecture recordings. As long as you listen attentively during lecture, attend discussion and office hours as much as your schedule allows, and do as much practice as you can (I would recommend in descending order of priority: practice exam problems, TA's recommended problems from discussion, homework problems, recommended textbook review problems), you'll be just fine. I personally found office hours to be a great place to get homework problems started, as Professor Waung takes problem requests from students and then outlines how to set them up — it's also good practice for problem setups on the actual exams. Professor Waung has put a lot of effort and time into this course, and if you're able to take Physics 5C with him I would highly recommend doing so ☺︎ Best of luck!

Waung uses a blackboard to teach and posts no slides. I went to lecture twice, gave up on that, and read the textbook and used online resources. I got an A on every assignment and exam, so this class is very doable. Waung also curves his tests very heavily.

One issue I had is with Waung's approach to loop rule problems; his exams give you specific instructions about which direction to apply the loop rule and what to call the current in each wire. This made these problems much more difficult than they needed to be; I learned a much easier method from Khan academy and got marked off for using the wrong method. Though I am salty about that, Waung's homework assignments and labs were so low-stress that this class is worth taking if you can study on your own.

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I agree with the reviews on here. The class content is fairly straight forward and Dr. Waung does a good job of conveying concepts. I liked the fact that the lectures were recorded and the lecture notes were pre-written. Dr. Waung also posts practice midterms and finals which are fairly accurate with the difficulty of his actual exams. He holds extra office hours before his exams which is very helpful!

This is a review for the summer session during COVID-19. I think this professor is on the stricter side compared to other professors like Bauer, Niemann, or Schriver where 35%-50% of the class gets an A. Be aware that he grades on a bell curve, and we had to get over 95% in order to receive an A in this class. So even though his midterms might seem quite fair, there are really no rooms for any mistakes. For midterms, I suggest you study his notes, those are the things that will be on the exams!! Practice problems (from the textbook) were not that helpful. So focus on just his notes and practice exams. Although I barely got an A, I honestly don't think it was fair for him to grade like that without stating anything on the syllabus. It was quite stressful. The labs were also very time consuming as well.

Disclaimer: I took this online during Covid.

Honestly, I feel like this is one of my favorite classes I've taken at UCLA, which shocks me to say because I'm a life science major and this is a physics class... But I think that speaks volumes of how great Professor Waung is. This is one of those rare classes that was pretty easy but I also feel like I learned a lot. The tests were very straightforward and pretty similar to examples he did in class. One thing that I loved is that Dr. Waung posted photos of all of the textbook problems on CCLE and gave the answers for the even homework problems, so you didn't really need to opt into the online physics textbook and could save money.

Do not take this class. He never mentioned anything about the grading scale on the syllabus (and during class) and just made an A cutoff 94%. I mean usually, an A is 93%, so what would he do that without letting the students know? No extra credits, no room for mistakes. He said the final was 8 problems but he made one problem consisting of 5 conceptual multiple-choice questions, so it was really 12 problems. And of course, not to mention that each question had part (a), (b), and (c)..so expecting us to complete this in 3 hours was a big JOKE. His lecture recordings often went over 50 minutes of the designated class time. Also, he tends to talk a little fast during the lecture, so I was unable to hear his pronunciation at times, which was annoying. Overall, I was clearly able to see that he was NOT accomodating at all in these hard times. I just filed a complaint to the department about his unfair behavior so let's see how it goes.

This class is a lot of work, but it's doable. Professor Waung curves his exams (from most to least difficult final>midterm 1>midterm 2) and I was honestly rushed for time during all of them. Midterms are 65 minutes (4 questions with multiple parts) and the final is 3 hours (8 questions with multiple parts, half on material up to/including the second midterm and half on material after the second midterm).

You're allowed one 3" x 5" notecard for each of the midterms and 3 3" x 5" notecards for the final (which should be enough). I was lazy and for the final I just used my first two notecards from the midterms and made a third notecard for the material after the second midterm, which btw is a LOT easier than the material for the midterms, probably to boost your grade on the final.

Professor Waung is a clear lecturer but not the best at explaining things if you're still confused (he tends to repeat things the exact same way). However, you just need to do a ton of problems and learn how to do them fast, like every Physics 5C course.

I personally found the textbook confusing, so I watched a LOT of Khan Academy (before then reading the textbook. RIP). The biggest tip I can give you is to look ahead and learn things early. There's an exam every two weeks as befitting a summer session course, so at the end of each week BEFORE the exam, I would look ahead at the material we would be learning exam week (for example, our lectures were MWF, so he would teach new material on M and maybe a little bit of W exam week before the exam on F. However, the week before that, I would try to look ahead at that M and W material so I wasn't just learning it two days before the exam).

Grading breakdown:
Homework 10%
Lab 15%
Midterm 1 20% (average was a 73.6%)
Midterm 2 20% (average was an 82.9%)
Final 35%

When studying for the exams, I would prioritize practice tests>examples from lecture>homework problems>suggested problems=discussion problems, although the exam problems were usually even more difficult/had more parts than the practice tests. (The homework and recommended problems were selected "Problems" from the Knight chapters.) Of everything, the recommended problems were the least helpful, even though there's the most of them. They're too easy for the level of the exams and really only good for getting familiar with the equations.

I was extremely rushed for time during the midterms, so especially for midterm 1, make sure you know how to solve difficult problems REALLY fast. Professor Waung saw us struggling and gave us 4 extra minutes.

Homework and lab were obviously not the biggest components of the course, but make sure you get full credit on these in case you need a buffer for the exams. Professor Waung assigned a homework set of ~12 questions from the "Problems" at the end of the Knight chapters due every week beginning week 2 (no Mastering Physics homework). You'll always know the right answers because the Knight textbook has an answer key for the odd problems and he'll give you the answers to the even problems. The labs for the class were pretty standard for 5C courses and not applicable to the exams.

There is an optional (non-graded) discussion twice a week. We had two TAs this quarter and you could go to either one. Charlie was phenomenal (funny, engaging, nice, and very, very helpful). If you do not like Waung's teaching style, you will like Charlie's, who is very willing to break things down and explain things in different ways. He would also do a little content review at the beginning of each of his discussions. However, the discussion problems themselves were a bit hit-or-miss (sometimes they were things we definitely wouldn't be asked on the exams or they were just homework problems we were supposed to do anyway).

Professor Waung is very old-fashioned. He writes on the blackboard, doesn't use a mic (I would recommend getting there early so you can sit in the front), and prints hard copies of the notes (though you can also just download them online). His notes are like an "outline" of what he'll talk about during lecture with blank spaces for the example problems.

During his office hours he'll take questions on general concepts first and then requests for homework/suggested problems (btw, "Fun Friday" is just a regular office hour on Friday). Don't ask him about discussion problems because he doesn't look at the worksheets. However, he usually only helps you set problems up conceptually and leaves the algebra to you.

ONE PET PEEVE OF MINE was that there were a LOT of typos in the Knight answer keys (for the homework and recommended problems). Even though Professor Waung knew about them (he assigns the same problems from the textbook every year to the point where he can recite the answers without looking), he never sent out an announcement. If I was just doing them by myself and didn't got to office hours, I would have thought I got the wrong answer. So maybe be prepared to either email him or go to office hours.

Finally, Professor Waung only teaches during the summer, and this quarter he also taught a class at CalPoly beginning about week 3. This didn't really affect things except that his review sessions on Zoom before the exams ended up being really late on Thursday.

Finally, good luck! You got this! Congrats on finishing the 5 series!