- For this class, you really do have to have a strong foundation in physics to have traction in this class. The prerequisites are the 1-series or the 6-series, but even with that foundation, I struggled for the most part. I had heard from Professor Ong surveying the students that they took other classes like 17 and 18, as well as concurrently taking another upper division physics class, and they were the ones who did better in 105A, so I would suggest doing that as well first to get better footing for this class.

- As for 105A, Professor Ong teaches this class with the assumption that you have a solid foundation in the lower-division courses because he goes right into the topics and does a few examples in that manner. In the 50-minute period, those are done fairly quickly, which was another factor that made it difficult for me (before using an audio recorder).

- There are 9 weekly homework assignments (15%), 2 midterms (20% each), the final (35%), and a recently-added series of 6 Mathematica homeworks (10%).

- In the case of Mathematica, another professor, Brent Corbin, is the professor to go to for questions, to turn in those homeworks, and anything Mathematica-related.

- Workshops were provided twice a week to get help, though from Winter 2012, the hours were questionable because it was Tuesday and Thursday at the same time, which didn’t work for everybody. Mathematica proved to be more a hindrance than anything because of the time it took along with the regular homework, but hopefully, the kinks get worked out to where it benefits instead of hinders.

- Discussion section was also based on the fact of having a strong physics background, so for me, I didn’t see it very useful.

- Overall, though Professor Ong is willing to help as much as possible, putting in the time and having a strong physics foundation is vital to success in this class.