This is the worst class I've taken at UCLA. You are probably considering taking a class with VVV to become better at physics. Well, don't do that. You won't learn anything from his lectures. All he does is point at his lecture notes and mumble. His HOME ASSIGNMENTS (that's right, not homework, but HOME ASSIGNMENTS) are time consuming to say the least and will make you neglect all of your other classes. I know you are thinking that VVV will make you a better physics major, but trust me, you can just learn using the textbook with any other professor. This class truly sucked the living soul out of me, and I can't say I came out of it as a better student. Also, his exams are absolutely horrendous. After each exam, it felt like I was in the wrong class (and the wrong major). The average for the first midterm was ~58, the second ~43 and the third exam (non-cumulative "final" exam) ~40. He even sent us an email explaining how disappointed he was in our averages. It's completely his fault. He can't just mumble through the lectures without picking up a pen and expect people to follow along. Don't take this class, trust me.

I always find it important to distinguish between the course and the class. 110b, as a course, is incredibly difficult. I found it to be easily the most difficult of any of the courses I have taken at UCLA, and many would argue it is the hardest (or second hardest) undergraduate physics course. One’s greatest tool in studying E&M is Griffith’s excellent textbook, but even this loses the conciseness and clarity that it had in earlier chapters when discussing 110b content. This course is no joke, and it important that the class and professor do the course justice, hopefully easing the burden of such a rigorous course. Prof. Vassiliev’s class does not do this. In fact, it does not do this so well it is almost comical. This class is like a reverse puzzle, where all of the pieces fit perfectly to obfuscate, not display, the grand picture. Lectures are completely unhelpful. They consist of VVV simply reading (not explaining) off of his notes, which themselves are awful. While they are largely based on Griffiths, his notes contain random boxed formulae and are filled pages of jumpy derivations without explaining where they come from or what they are trying to achieve. There are no worked examples in lectures, so while VVV provides you with dozens of equations, it is unclear which are more useful than others, and how and where to use them. Discussion sections are where the "examples" come in, but I found that these were not enough for how much content is included in this course. Home Assignments are at least 2x longer than other comparable classes, and considerably more difficult. The biggest problem I found with the whole class is relevance and time-allocation. Prof. Vassiliev complains about having only a quarter to get through the class, but then squeezes in lectures with little to no relevance on the rest of the course. Discussion sections would occasionally work through questions that weren't relevant to homework or exams, and I would say about half the questions in home assignments weren't relevant to exams, despite these questions individually requiring pages and hours of work to complete. It feels like VVV wants to cover much more than he can, but this simply detracts from the learning of the other, much more important topics. Much of your grade is based on exams, which are completely ridiculous. Each consist of questions on poorly discussed topics, made much too difficult to solve in a 50 minute timeframe. The averages were very low (between 20 and 50% per exam) and VVV's solution is to curve the geometric mean of the top 75% of students to a 55% (a B- on his grading scheme). This means that he drops low outliers, but keeps high outliers, and gives more than half the class a B- (or lower) on every exam. His grading scheme places each grade 10% apart, meaning an A+ is over 100%, an A is over 90%, an A- is over 80%, etc. As such, it is almost impossible to get yourself out of a certain letter grade, because the gaps between them are 10%, instead of a 4 or 5% that you might see in other classes.

In summary I found this class 1. too difficult to the point where i dont learn 2. very time consuming 3. a dent in your gpa. I would strongly recommend taking it a different quarter.

For those that have been patiently awaiting this review, I have come to deliver what was promised. Never in my academic career have I taken part in a course that has left me questioning my sense of self like this one has. I have been blackout drunk a total of 1 time in my life, and it was as a result of the uninterrupted suffering I have endured while participating in this course. The lectures are entirely incomprehensible. You sit there, listening to words that do have a meaning, but it seems to miraculously dissipate before the signal can properly travel from your eardrum to the temporal lobe of your brain. Attempting to learn from the slides is a venture best left alone. By the second exam, I was utterly perplexed as to how to even begin studying. Griffiths becomes less and less helpful as the quarter goes on, and I basically gave up on studying. I was LEARNING during the exams themselves and still managed to score well above average because preparing did absolutely nothing to change one's performance on the exams. "How did you score 'well above average' if you have a B+?" you may ask. The average grade was a B-. Most people received a B- grade. A grand total of 3 people received an A/A+, and an additional 2 received an A-. Mind you, this is after the behemoth of a curved grading scheme worked into the syllabus and a curve being applied to each exam in addition to the built-in curve. There is no such thing as doing well on a Vassiliev exam. There is survival and there is nothing else. There is no method of effective studying. For every of the FOUR total exams, you will watch Vassiliev descend the lecture hall stairs, carrying the exams in his arms as if he is Abraham holding his son Isaac, ready to sacrifice you all at the altar of a ruthless deity. You simply exist in the liminal space that is the lecture hall for 50 minutes as you stare at the exam, mustering up every inch of focus to comprehend what that strange combination of symbols that looks like words and numbers means. I can only be grateful that I have climbed out of the pit of Tartarus. I will never have my liver devoured by an eagle again. I will no longer have to push a boulder up a never-ending slope. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS.