This is one of the worst classes ever. It is a complete and utter waste of time. You learn absolutely nothing meaningful. Perhaps this class should be called a typing lesson or something because all you do it type for pages and pages about some principle of physics that is obviously true. (Why else would they make you do it)? The "experiments" are not as much experiments as they are UCLA's desperate attempt at creating "laboratory" experiences for their undergraduates. However, this class is a complete failure in that sense, since you only need to spend about 10 minutes to collect the data, and the rest is busywork that you do on your own. The professor never shows up, instead it's just a TA that does everything. I can't believe that a professor would actually get paid for "teaching" this class, since they seriously don't do anything. This class could be easily removed from the curriculum and it wouldn't affect any student's understanding of physics.

This is the worst class I've taken so far in my entire life. TAs tend to return your last lab report after you have submitted your newest one, which even seems ideal since mine gave us feedback even two weeks later for the last few experiments. So if you ever make a mistake, you usually make at least twice. This number could be larger when your TA suddenly decides that he would start take points off for some details. This class is basically destroying your quarter from beginning to the end.

Okay this class flat out sucks-and if you are an engineer you basically have to take it. So here is what you do: take it during the summer if you can, work with friends (trust me it wont kill the curve), and learn from your mistakes early on in the class.

First some words on Campbell-he will never be in the class it is taught by you TA 100% Campbell is the one responsible for the sadistic grading scale. It is a strict curve against your OWN section so 1/3 of the 20 students will get A/A- etc. As a student who scored a high grade my advice is that you get older labs to model yours off of and learn from. Lol don't even try to copy, you have to put it through Turn it in. Work with friends in your section and out of your section-compile your lab reports don't make the same mistake you made last week and don't make the same ones your friends did. Keep in mind they grade every single small detail...from commas to tick marks and even printing errors! DO all the extra credit-remember it is a curved class so you kind of have to do it.

Also the work load for this class was insane 10th week I had to write up a 30 page report that too about 30+ hours to do (this happens basically every week if you want a good grade) Usually reports are 15 pages long and take 15-20 hours to do.

If you work with friends then you guys will all set the curve and that is what you need to get a good grade or else be prepared for a really rough time.

Campbell if you ever read this seriously remove the curve there is no need for it and try to listen to the 100's of student who have probably tried to tell you this.

Coming from a guy who got an A+, this class is absolutely terrible. Read any of the below reviews to understand why.

trash class honestly, they're trying to make it better (and I appreciate that) but seriously for 2 units I spend so much time writing up annoying lab reports and trying to get a god damn laser to shine on a god damn string for 2 hours. fuck I'm still angry about how tedious the labs are.

Anyway, pro-tip: a great TA goes a long way in making this class not a total nightmare. Kiera Fuller was my TA, and she's great, really helpful, describes things that weren't clear in the lab manual, and is overall a wonderful human being. She's also pretty lenient with late submissions (as long as you don't take advantage and submit stuff like super late all the time) and always helpful in office hours.

PHYSICS 4AL has been one of the most frustrating classes I have ever taken. The workload was HUGE even with the help of softwares like MATLAB and LaTeX (did learnt a lot of these tho). The worst thing of all is that my TA held a very strict standard, while the instructions of the report were LOOSE and UNCLEAR. I got a shit tone of points deducted from places I never expected!

Overall, the class tends to punish you for what you miss, instead of encouraging you to improve your work. That is just HIDEOUS.

Run completely by TAs -- never saw the professor. Unreal amount of time for lab reports. Labs themselves are pretty basic, but take longer than they should because the TA is useless. All grading is completely subjective, so most points taken off reports are for font/size/diagram placement not meeting the grader's preference rather than actual report content. BEST ADVICE: find someone who has taken the course and look at their graded lab reports to get a sense of how to format and the types of things you'll get docked for.

This class is awful. I'm required to take it to complete my physics series, and it's hands down the worst class I've ever taken. For it only being a two unit class, I spent at least 10 hours a week doing the lab reports (which are due every week). The grading scheme for this class is insane. It's graded on a strict bell curve, and you're only compared to the 20 or so kids in your lab section. My section was about 80% international students so I was screwed for the entire quarter. I also had an awful TA who had no idea what was going on in the class and could barely speak english so that didn't help either. If you don't procrastinate on doing the reports it won't be as awful, but plan on spending more time for this class than a normal two unit class.

Everything said before me is true; this class absolutely blows. Every engineering major has to suck it up and take this course, which is horrible, but there are some pros. First, there’s no new material, and the labs are really easy, even fun at times. You’ll become a pro at Excel! However, it still sucks. Curving a 20 person class is horrible, and the lab reports take an excruciating amount of time. Points are deducted seemingly at random! However, they’re not random, as they’re almost all for good reason, even if they’re nitpicky, such as not centering an image completely. However, they’re good tips for making really nice lab reports by the time you’re done. I wrote 75 pages for my reports for this class (single spaced), with the last lab coming in at 20 pages, and almost every one coming in at 10+ pages. I hope you like formatting really easy, tedious work in a beautiful manner!

As for my personal experience, this class wasn't THAT bad. I mean, sure the reports sucked, but they're not difficult, they're just time consuming. Plus, I really liked my TA. He was pretty cool, and would basically just tell us what to do in labs whenever we got stuck. He just seemed like a cool dude, and luckily, I was in one of his favorite groups, so he seemed to go a little easier on grading with my group (or my group just tried really hard). Did I really learn something? No, not really, but lab classes are supposed to be applications of material you already learned, so I had no problem with that. Plus, as long as you read the text before hand, the labs are really quick, probably an hour tops (the last labs take the full 3 hours though). So yeah, it sucks considering it's 2 units and you put so much work into it, but like a lot of classes at UCLA, it's very TA dependent. So just hope you get a good TA, that's really it. Is my perspective skewed because I got an A+ in the class? Yes, absolutely. But all of these reviews are skewed accordingly. So take everything with a grain of salt, and listen to all of these really long reviews from people who really want to give a full impression, like me! Thanks!

TIPS FOR SUCCESS!
Go to office hours and become friends with your TA. Grading is subjective, and if your TA likes you, then sometimes they let some of these small things slip by, which is good, because these small points differentiate your grade from your classmates’. Take this class at an absolute horrible time, either really late at night or at an odd quarter. Basically, think of the section that won’t have all of the try hards. Also, only take this class with one of your friends so that you can compare lab reports and have someone to do the horrible labs with, but don’t have too many friends because you want the curve to be in your favor (OR stack the class with your slacker friends lol). It’s also a lot easier to do this class in the summer when you have less commitments, and even though there’s a three day deadline for each lab report, I always finished in one or two days, and there was almost always an extension. TLDR suck up to your TA so they grade you nicely and hope you get a lab full of students who don’t care and will have their points deducted. Best of luck! Sorry you have to go through this! Also, I don’t know if this is right or not, but get a TA with the most sections. That way, you won’t be competing against 20 people, but 40 or 60 people. It’s a lot easier to do well when you have more people to bump you up in percentile. I’m not sure if this affects the overall grading distribution, but try anything that works in your favor!

4AL made my quarter miserable. The labs are usually simple but frustrating, and the lab reports take FOREVER. The labs have been changed from past years so that you start off with a simple homework assignment, and a new element of the lab report is added each week until you write a hellish full lab report in week 10. We also had to write a random research report for the second lab.

You start the quarter by spending ~5-10 hours writing a lab, and ramp it up every week until you spend 20 hours on a 5,000+ word lab report. The lab manual isn't clear about what you're supposed to write either. The grading is completely arbitrary.