Professor Kusenko was an excellent teacher. Very considered, very interesting, very supportive. I highly recommend him. I was one who never had physics in high school and this subject was extremely challenging for me. Prof. Kusenko's presentations motivated me to want to learn about physics. He really helped me to understand the basics. I am very happy to have had the experience of his skills.

I skipped out 1A thinking I will not do well in 1B but in actuality I did pretty well. Professor Kusenko does an extraordinary job in teaching the material: I felt lost coming in midterm 1 and scored below the mean (82%) and did better over time as he continued to explain concepts clearly.

His demos are very engaging, so snag a front seat and if you're late, just sit at the very bottom on the floor and watch the demos!

He allows us a cheat sheet so utilize that effectively; like the previous reviews mention, it is a great way to study and could save you if you put enough example problems.

The final was super tough but I did relatively well from my peers so that may be the reason why my grade was saved.

Kudu was a super effective tool as I can read the sections while I eat at BPlate or any of the dining halls, or if I am on Uber and have down time then I will just pull up Kudu and read ahead. The homework questions are semi challenging and it does help to master those questions going into the midterms. For the final, just try and get a hold of past finals if you can and practice Wolfenstein. Honestly; I didn't use it much but as long as you understand the material well, find other sample problems online if you prefer.

In class quizzes were really awesome since it's not an actual quiz per se, in the fact that you cannot talk or share answers; for these quizzes, you get a lot of time and you get to discuss answers with your friends and peers!!! It's only participation though, so if you are borderline he will factor that and the last HW assignment into whether or not you get bumped to the next letter grade.

If you have any background in physics at all or even just math and problem solving, this class is a piece of cake. Kusenko is entertaining and the class basically consists of some cool experiments during lecture, and the midterm and final are based entirely off the homeworks. This makes going to class seem rather pointless because he doesn't test you on much anything he lectures about (the theoretical stuff). That said, definitely attend discussion section (although not mandatory) and know how to do all the homework problems. The curve was very generous in the end, also. I say take him!

I'm sorry, but please don't believe everything you read on BruinWalk. I had the choice to either take this class or Chem14A as a pre-req for my major and decided to take physics since everyone ranted about how easy it was, despite me being a chemistry person and understanding that more easily. If I could, I would take it back. Kusenko is a terrible professor, I could barely understand him, and the lessons he taught in class were never connected to what we were tested on for the midterm or finals - the book also had nearly nothing to do with what the class was concerned with. The book was labeled 'Conceptual Physics', which it IS NOT. Although only 4 units, this was the most difficult class I have taken (even over several 6 unit courses) and I am not bad at math. His class was disorganized, the lectures never went over how to apply the equations to the type of questions he would even remotely ask on tests, nor was the weekly homework. The weekly homework was a breeze, sometimes requiring you to use two equations to get the answer. The midterms and finals? Sometimes up to five. DO NOT take this class if you dislike physics but are scared of 14A -- take 14A instead, you will not regret it whatsoever. Also, be warned that this class (at least mine was) was manipulated by a large group of physical science majors trying to boost their grade and GPA and to get more credits. They got PTE's and set the curve, putting everyone else in a terrible position who was new to physics. Don't believe it? Ask several of the kids who heard a group laughing about setting the curve for the 'idiots' after class. Maybe other quarters were a different climate from what I'm reading on BruinWalk, but this quarter was a joke to those who actually were trying to learn the basics of physics and didn't know it like the back of their hand already. A huge group of us studied for over 50 hours for this midterm and no one got a higher final grade than a B-. So, just beware. Check out who your classmates are on MyUCLA and see if they have their majors listed -- if it is inundated by physical science majors, drop it and wait for a quarter where you're competing with kids that are starting with a clean slate like yourself so you don't slam your GPA like some of us did.

Professor Kusenko is perhaps the most difficult Physics 10 professor you can take at UCLA. He usually teaches higher difficulty physics classes and therefore teaches his CONCEPTUAL physics class as if we're all well versed in physics already. This was particularly frustrating for me because I had NO background in physics going into this class and struggled because he insisted on making his tests completely math based and exceptionally tricky. My other big issue with him is that he spent every lecture showing us experiments, talking about his research, or going off on pointless tangents about a physics topic that was WAY beyond our understanding. Granted, lecture was generally amusing and fun because of the experiments but we were taught NOTHING and when it came to the midterms we were COMPLETELY lost. The TA is literally the only person who teaches you the equations and how to solve the problems, which isn't too helpful since you only meet with the TA once a week. Also, his practice midterms and final are an absolute joke when compared to the ACTUAL midterms and final. I have no idea why he does this, and he insists that they are no easier than the actual tests, but unfortunately for him his students are not that gullible. He is extremely unhelpful when you ask him questions and refuses to give any sort of extra help to students who are struggling. All in all, it really seems like he doesn't care.

Long story short: DO NOT take him unless you have an extensive background in physics already, because he makes this class much more difficult than he needs to.

I was gonne give this class and the professor a horrible rating but i waited to get my grade just because that makes a difference in the difficulty rating of the course. I totally agree w. the person b4 me that this guy's difficulty rating should be much higher bcuz his tests are hard and he does not teach anything. ok so i failed both midters (each 20% of grade), the first one along with the rest of the class (average was 53%), i didn't do all of the hwk assignments (10% of grade) and i studied my ASS off for the final (50%) and did fairly well on that and got a B in the course...so as far as grading goes..i'd say he's lenient...it is very easy to get an A if u already have a solid knowledge of physics because he gives the top1/3 of class As, 2nd 1/3 Bs, and so on. but HE DOES NOT TEACH!!!! honestly, i was feeling so dumb until i studied with another friend who'd taken several physics courses and she was astonished at the notes he'dgiven us and gave me vital equations that HE'D LEFT OUT!! It's supposed to be a conceptual course, but he does not test on any concepts, it's all problems...I would recommend the class if ur willing to work hard and learn the material on your own bcuz his lectures are no help at all, oh and GO TO DISCUSSION...on the 2nd midterm there was a 50 POINT problem (on a test worth 150 points mind you) that was only covered in discussion (which i missed), also they go over the hwk b4 it's due so u don't have to do much work. Definitly memorize the formulas and know what sort of problems they're used for, that will help a lot. The only reason I halfheartedly recommend him is bcuz of his grading style, but u have to learn everything on your own. Great class if u already have knowledge of physics and need a ge.

I had Corbin for Physics 1A and I have to say, Kusenko is pretty comparable to his caliber in my opinion. Corbin has tougher tests and goes into the mechanics of physics really in depth, building up foundation, while Kusenko gives more demos for us to understand the concepts better and connect to the real world. As an engineer, this does help a lot. His style of clothing is on point, and I never dread lectures despite the class being 10am which is quite early for my sleep schedule.

I actually did not expect the grade I received, looking at Kusenko's grade distribution in the past, but probably it is because of so many people doing so well that he's more generous in giving out A's. For example, midterm 1 has a 90% average and midterm 2 has 77% average, and the final is 67% average which is significantly higher than previous years. I have to say I am humbled by the presence of so many intelligent people in the class of 2020 engineers. I personally know 7 people who also got an A+ so that is definitely more than 4% of the people who received that grade, and hence proved that this year's grade distribution is much much more generous.

This time around, unlike what the upperclassmen said about reusing questions from past midterms, almost all the questions are new. But do try out the past midterm questions if you want more practice; just don't be surprised about them not being on your midterm. However, don't worry because the midterm consists of questions that he usually covers in class as well as some topics covered in the questions on the homework, so study up on those.

If you truly have time, solve textbook problems and Wolfenstein, the book he recommends and has a PDF sent to us near the beginning of the quarter. I unfortunately did not so for those with busy schedules, this might work: study the lecture notes, pay attention to demos, do the homework ahead of time, ask questions to the professor and TA, attend discussion and pay attention there, ask for any clarifications, understand the quizzes. I personally did not solve extra problems but prepared the cheat sheet really well, since how do you have free time (let alone social life) if you also have CS35L, CS33, and Physics 4AL on your plate? Haha.

I came into Kusenko's 1B after taking Corbin's 1A, and naturally found Kusenko's lectures to be less engaging, and the tests to be much more straightforward. Nevertheless, his demonstrations are interesting and he genuinely cares about his student's learning. Instead of an iClicker, he uses a software called Kudu which acts as both an online textbook, a tool to measure in-class participation through quizzes, and a homework portal.

The policy for the quizzes is as follows:
- If the student is on the border of two grade levels, he will look at the quizzes as extra credit. Otherwise, they don't count for anything.

The policy for homework is also nice:
- If a student scores above 50%, it counts as 100% on that homework, and below 50% rounds up to 50%.

As for the tests, the midterms are very doable, and have very high averages/medians. In Spring 2017, the stats were as follows:
Median = 85%, Standard deviation 14%.

However, the final was quite tough and had a substantially lower average. I wouldn't say it was not doable, but surprising given how easy the midterms were. The stats for the final were as follows: Median = 68%, Mean = 69%.

The breakdown of the final grade is
40% Midterms, 40% Final, 20% Homework.

Given that it is easy to score 100% on the homework, the final grade basically depends only on the final and the midterms. Personally, I scored 97% cumulative on the midterms, and 80% on the final and ended up with an A. My advice in doing well in this class would be to do the Kudu homework problems and the textbook problems that Kusenko provides.

Kusenko does a lot of fun demonstrations in class and works really hard to make the lectures fun and engaging. That said, he doesn't present the material as clearly and deeply as Prof Corbin does. We had an online textbook and homework through Kudu.com. That textbook and homework was pretty bad. Physical textbooks are much better. The homework wasn't too similar to the tests.

I'd say overall he's a good teacher but make sure you practice the in-class examples and do more practice problems from a good textbook to supplement the homework.

After taking 1A with Corbin this class was a walk in the park. Except the TA who graded two problems on the first midterm messed a lot of us off by taking points off for the "work" when we had the correct answer messing up final scores. Tough to get below the average when you get every answer right but oh well. Kusenko himself is funny and clear. He doesn't use complex math like Corbin does. The kudu online textbook is cheap and convienent since it is always on your laptop. Overall would take again.