PHYSICS 1B
Physics for Scientists and Engineers: Oscillations, Waves, Electric and Magnetic Fields
Description: Lecture/demonstration, four hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisites: course 1A, Mathematics 31B, 32A. Enforced corequisite: Mathematics 32B. Fluid mechanics, oscillation, mechanical waves, and sound. Electric charge, field and potential, capacitors, and dielectrics. Currents and resistance, direct-current circuits. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
3 of 5
Most Helpful Review
Professor Kusenko is by far one of the best professors in the department. His midterms and finals are completely open book and open note. He is willing to comprise with students on various issues related to the course. He is extremely nice and easily approachable. He makes lectures interesting and fun. His grading system is also very easy: splits the class into 3rds and and assigns A's, B's, and C's accordingly, you really have to try hard to not pass the class. Highly recommend this professor, if he is available, take him. All in all he is just a great guy.
Professor Kusenko is by far one of the best professors in the department. His midterms and finals are completely open book and open note. He is willing to comprise with students on various issues related to the course. He is extremely nice and easily approachable. He makes lectures interesting and fun. His grading system is also very easy: splits the class into 3rds and and assigns A's, B's, and C's accordingly, you really have to try hard to not pass the class. Highly recommend this professor, if he is available, take him. All in all he is just a great guy.
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Most Helpful Review
This professor is, quite honestly, the worst professor I've had at UCLA. I'll be very honest in evaluating him. How he "teaches": Malkan does not teach. He simply walks to the front of the class and literally blabs nonsense for about 30 minutes, and then fills up the rest of the class period doing pointless demonstrations. Remember guys, we're no longer in high school, and since you don't have to go to class, I think time-wasting demonstrations are perfectly useless. In terms of the material, I can only say the following; with one of the TAs as my witness, he once spent 40 MINUTES discussing how to calculate electric flux through a surface - about the equivalent of discussing how to calculate force given mass and acceleration. He spends a ridiculous amount of time on very simple concepts, leading many of his students to believe his tests will be just as easy. How he tests: However, if he tested the same as he taught, everyone would get 100%. So he goes and takes tests he hasn't written (typically from Professor Cowley) and then tests you on material which is appropriate to the level that the class SHOULD be taught. Most people had a terribly difficult time with this though, because they learned from the lectures. What to do if you decide to take him: Don't go to class, but learn how to do all the type II problems in the book. I attended most of the lectures prior to the first midterm and did well, attended perhaps 25% of the lectures prior to the second midterm and did very very well, and attended 2 lectures prior to the final. And it worked, simply because I learned from the book (which by the way, he likes to bash for "including everything"). This professor is good for you if: 1) You are good at studying alone. 2) You don't wish to learn more physics than is necessary for just that class.
This professor is, quite honestly, the worst professor I've had at UCLA. I'll be very honest in evaluating him. How he "teaches": Malkan does not teach. He simply walks to the front of the class and literally blabs nonsense for about 30 minutes, and then fills up the rest of the class period doing pointless demonstrations. Remember guys, we're no longer in high school, and since you don't have to go to class, I think time-wasting demonstrations are perfectly useless. In terms of the material, I can only say the following; with one of the TAs as my witness, he once spent 40 MINUTES discussing how to calculate electric flux through a surface - about the equivalent of discussing how to calculate force given mass and acceleration. He spends a ridiculous amount of time on very simple concepts, leading many of his students to believe his tests will be just as easy. How he tests: However, if he tested the same as he taught, everyone would get 100%. So he goes and takes tests he hasn't written (typically from Professor Cowley) and then tests you on material which is appropriate to the level that the class SHOULD be taught. Most people had a terribly difficult time with this though, because they learned from the lectures. What to do if you decide to take him: Don't go to class, but learn how to do all the type II problems in the book. I attended most of the lectures prior to the first midterm and did well, attended perhaps 25% of the lectures prior to the second midterm and did very very well, and attended 2 lectures prior to the final. And it worked, simply because I learned from the book (which by the way, he likes to bash for "including everything"). This professor is good for you if: 1) You are good at studying alone. 2) You don't wish to learn more physics than is necessary for just that class.
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2020 - Really sweet and caring professor. The class was super quick because it was summer session but she did offer a great grading scheme which was predominantly problem sets (2 a week) and added little over 2% as EC opportunity. Additionally, the class was NOT CURVED, so your grade was entirely dependent on your ability to solve physics problems (which were a little ambiguous and confusing at times on the midterms). Still highly recommend for Physics 1B considering how hard the class usually is through the year.
Summer 2020 - Really sweet and caring professor. The class was super quick because it was summer session but she did offer a great grading scheme which was predominantly problem sets (2 a week) and added little over 2% as EC opportunity. Additionally, the class was NOT CURVED, so your grade was entirely dependent on your ability to solve physics problems (which were a little ambiguous and confusing at times on the midterms). Still highly recommend for Physics 1B considering how hard the class usually is through the year.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2016 - Despite getting an A in this class, I feel very unprepared for future classes involving this subject matter. Being an electrical engineering major, I really needed to understand the material. However, Naoz mostly did derivations of physics theory which left me, along with the majority of the class, extremely confused. They were completely unnecessary and did little to help teach us. Because of all the time spent on derivations, she fell behind the other classes in terms of material covered. We only covered SHM, electric field, electric force, electric potential, and capacitance. The other classes covered that as well as resistors and thermodynamics to name a few. These are things we need to know. The tests were pretty easy though. They were basically what the problem sets she posted were. Honestly, you could probably do well by just reading the book and doing the homework. Going to lecture will not help.
Spring 2016 - Despite getting an A in this class, I feel very unprepared for future classes involving this subject matter. Being an electrical engineering major, I really needed to understand the material. However, Naoz mostly did derivations of physics theory which left me, along with the majority of the class, extremely confused. They were completely unnecessary and did little to help teach us. Because of all the time spent on derivations, she fell behind the other classes in terms of material covered. We only covered SHM, electric field, electric force, electric potential, and capacitance. The other classes covered that as well as resistors and thermodynamics to name a few. These are things we need to know. The tests were pretty easy though. They were basically what the problem sets she posted were. Honestly, you could probably do well by just reading the book and doing the homework. Going to lecture will not help.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - (Taken online due to covid) I left the first lecture with low expectations for the quality of the course, but what Prof Naranjo might lack in Zoom lecturing skills was definitely made up for by his helpfulness and understanding. His office hours were IMO better than the actual lectures, and he was receptive to student feedback. The midterms were initially 24-hour exams and were extremely challenging, but when they got posted to Chegg the final was changed to a 3-hour timed format with blessedly easier questions. Instead of failing those that cheated, he offered to drop one or both midterms if they fessed up. He also made the final no-harm due to the protests/riots at the time. Homeworks were a bit on the longer side but for the most part reasonable. Go to the office hours, he goes over the solutions. And ask him about his quails.
Spring 2020 - (Taken online due to covid) I left the first lecture with low expectations for the quality of the course, but what Prof Naranjo might lack in Zoom lecturing skills was definitely made up for by his helpfulness and understanding. His office hours were IMO better than the actual lectures, and he was receptive to student feedback. The midterms were initially 24-hour exams and were extremely challenging, but when they got posted to Chegg the final was changed to a 3-hour timed format with blessedly easier questions. Instead of failing those that cheated, he offered to drop one or both midterms if they fessed up. He also made the final no-harm due to the protests/riots at the time. Homeworks were a bit on the longer side but for the most part reasonable. Go to the office hours, he goes over the solutions. And ask him about his quails.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Professor Ni is one of the most disorganized professors I have had at UCLA. On our midterm, she forgot to include the right answers on the multiple choice and stopped us every 5 minutes to say that there was a typo on her free response. When students say they are confused, she openly doesn't explain it and just moves on and sees no issue. She is a nice person, but a terrible teacher. The TAs often didnt know anything about the class because it wasn't communicated to them and what we did in discussions were completely different than lectures because our TAs said they weren't told what was going on in lecture. Professor Ni is the kind of professor who still gives a midterm even when classes are cancelled due to fire warnings (this happened). She also doesn't post the lecture notes until ~2 days before the exam for you to study. This class is basically "how well can you teach yourself physics". Take another physics professor if you can.
Fall 2019 - Professor Ni is one of the most disorganized professors I have had at UCLA. On our midterm, she forgot to include the right answers on the multiple choice and stopped us every 5 minutes to say that there was a typo on her free response. When students say they are confused, she openly doesn't explain it and just moves on and sees no issue. She is a nice person, but a terrible teacher. The TAs often didnt know anything about the class because it wasn't communicated to them and what we did in discussions were completely different than lectures because our TAs said they weren't told what was going on in lecture. Professor Ni is the kind of professor who still gives a midterm even when classes are cancelled due to fire warnings (this happened). She also doesn't post the lecture notes until ~2 days before the exam for you to study. This class is basically "how well can you teach yourself physics". Take another physics professor if you can.
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3 of 5
