Professor
David Bauer
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2021 - Dr. Bauer was a pretty good professor. I felt that his lectures and notes were pretty solid overall. Unlike other phyics professors who just scribble jargon down, Dr. Bauer's notes were actually pretty organized and easy to follow, albeit he wrote all of his notes using OneNote which made it a pain to go back to review his notes later. Class was on a straight scale, but the cutoffs were pretty lenient, 60% for a C- and 75% for a B- The class had no midterms but instead had a weekly quiz and a final, each timed, 40 minutes for the quizzes, and 3 hours for the final, so as we move back to in person classes, your experience will probably stay relatively the same. I felt that the quizzes were a bit on the difficult side, but Dr. Bauer seemed to account for this and made the final much easier. (He did mention that he had to do the opposite in another quarter: where he made the quizzes way too easy and had to adjust by making the final much harder, so if you feel that the quizzes are too hard or too easy, expect the final to be the opposite) My only gripe with the class was that Dr. Bauer barely gave any example problems in lecture, if at all. This made studying for the quizzes a pain because it truly felt impossible to know exactly what we would be tested on. All it felt like you can do to prepare was do all of the practice and challenge problems he assigned to get the overall idea and hope for the best. Overall I enjoyed the class and I managed to pull off a better grade than I expected thanks to the easier final. I didn't do very well in 1A and I was nervous moving on to 1B, but Dr. Bauer manages to teach the course in a very clear manner and I actually felt like I understood what was going on for the most part.
Summer 2021 - Dr. Bauer was a pretty good professor. I felt that his lectures and notes were pretty solid overall. Unlike other phyics professors who just scribble jargon down, Dr. Bauer's notes were actually pretty organized and easy to follow, albeit he wrote all of his notes using OneNote which made it a pain to go back to review his notes later. Class was on a straight scale, but the cutoffs were pretty lenient, 60% for a C- and 75% for a B- The class had no midterms but instead had a weekly quiz and a final, each timed, 40 minutes for the quizzes, and 3 hours for the final, so as we move back to in person classes, your experience will probably stay relatively the same. I felt that the quizzes were a bit on the difficult side, but Dr. Bauer seemed to account for this and made the final much easier. (He did mention that he had to do the opposite in another quarter: where he made the quizzes way too easy and had to adjust by making the final much harder, so if you feel that the quizzes are too hard or too easy, expect the final to be the opposite) My only gripe with the class was that Dr. Bauer barely gave any example problems in lecture, if at all. This made studying for the quizzes a pain because it truly felt impossible to know exactly what we would be tested on. All it felt like you can do to prepare was do all of the practice and challenge problems he assigned to get the overall idea and hope for the best. Overall I enjoyed the class and I managed to pull off a better grade than I expected thanks to the easier final. I didn't do very well in 1A and I was nervous moving on to 1B, but Dr. Bauer manages to teach the course in a very clear manner and I actually felt like I understood what was going on for the most part.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2019 - I took this class Spring '19 and it was very well organised. The tests weren't too hard (MT1 mean was ~70%, MT2 ~79%, Final TBA). He is very clear and uploads his super helpful, typed out lecture notes on CCLE. Also, shoutout to possibly the best TA in the physics department, Nathan Tung - I learnt more in his two pre-final review sessions than I did with weeks of self-studying. A couple days before the final, he emailed all the enrolled students the 150-page notes that he had written up for his discussions with elaborate explanations of all the concepts. Absolute legend.
Spring 2019 - I took this class Spring '19 and it was very well organised. The tests weren't too hard (MT1 mean was ~70%, MT2 ~79%, Final TBA). He is very clear and uploads his super helpful, typed out lecture notes on CCLE. Also, shoutout to possibly the best TA in the physics department, Nathan Tung - I learnt more in his two pre-final review sessions than I did with weeks of self-studying. A couple days before the final, he emailed all the enrolled students the 150-page notes that he had written up for his discussions with elaborate explanations of all the concepts. Absolute legend.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2017 - I actually had Physics 4BL with David Bauer, but he is by far the best TA I've had for any physics class. Most of the time I sent him an email, he replied within the same day, sometimes within an hour. Also, his grading is actually fair and reasonable. For 4AL, I had Eric Kramer, who was nice enough but his grading was absurd. If you want a good grade on your lab with Kramer, you HAVE to finish it early, go to his office hours, and let him correct it for you. I had a conflict with his office hours, so I missed out on this one-on-one correction. I was only marked down on the actual content of my lab maybe once or twice; a majority of what I was marked down for was "incorrect line spacing" or "not enough tick marks on the graph". I ended up with a B- because Kramer didn't like the style of my reports. This is why Bauer is MUCH better. For one, he provided us with a style guide to follow, thus avoiding these issues in the first place. Also, whenever I asked him about the formatting issues, he response was typically "___ is what you should do, but I won't mark you down for something minor." Long story short, 4AL and 4BL are difficult classes, expect to spend about 8 hours a week on your lab report, but if you have a chance to take it with Bauer, do it.
Fall 2017 - I actually had Physics 4BL with David Bauer, but he is by far the best TA I've had for any physics class. Most of the time I sent him an email, he replied within the same day, sometimes within an hour. Also, his grading is actually fair and reasonable. For 4AL, I had Eric Kramer, who was nice enough but his grading was absurd. If you want a good grade on your lab with Kramer, you HAVE to finish it early, go to his office hours, and let him correct it for you. I had a conflict with his office hours, so I missed out on this one-on-one correction. I was only marked down on the actual content of my lab maybe once or twice; a majority of what I was marked down for was "incorrect line spacing" or "not enough tick marks on the graph". I ended up with a B- because Kramer didn't like the style of my reports. This is why Bauer is MUCH better. For one, he provided us with a style guide to follow, thus avoiding these issues in the first place. Also, whenever I asked him about the formatting issues, he response was typically "___ is what you should do, but I won't mark you down for something minor." Long story short, 4AL and 4BL are difficult classes, expect to spend about 8 hours a week on your lab report, but if you have a chance to take it with Bauer, do it.
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2020 - I’ve never taken physics before, but Bauer definitely made the class as manageable as possible. He is very clear during lecture and gives many examples to solidify topics. He is also pretty active on campus wire to answer questions if you have any. We had weekly quizzes, and the difficulty varied tbh. Some were easy and some were hard, it just depends on the week, but he does give partial credit so its not all bad. He also posts practice exams that are pretty representative of the quizzes. There are no midterms, only 5 quizzes and a final exam, and he drops the lowest quiz. We had FRQs, but he removed them for 5B during session C because they took too long to grade, so I don’t think he’ll add those again. The only extra credit is through campuswire.
Summer 2020 - I’ve never taken physics before, but Bauer definitely made the class as manageable as possible. He is very clear during lecture and gives many examples to solidify topics. He is also pretty active on campus wire to answer questions if you have any. We had weekly quizzes, and the difficulty varied tbh. Some were easy and some were hard, it just depends on the week, but he does give partial credit so its not all bad. He also posts practice exams that are pretty representative of the quizzes. There are no midterms, only 5 quizzes and a final exam, and he drops the lowest quiz. We had FRQs, but he removed them for 5B during session C because they took too long to grade, so I don’t think he’ll add those again. The only extra credit is through campuswire.
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Fall 2020 - I'm going to be honest with y'all. Taking Bauer during fall quarter absolutely sucked. I heard from all my friends who took him in the past that he was a pretty chill dude so I was excited to take the class. However, I guess after doing spring and summer online and having kids receive a shit ton of As that made him become a bit jaded and make the class a bit more annoying to complete. Initially, the class seems like your average physics class with discussions (10%), labs (15%), and homework (10%), and quizzes (40%). However, he attempted to mix up the class a paper that counted as a midterm (2.5%) and a final paper that was worth (12.5%). For the first paper, I'll give him a pass because it didn't really matter since it was worth so little and was supposed to be a litmus test for what he was looking for in the final paper. But the problem was that he didn't even give proper feedback to the first paper so we couldn't even learn from our mistakes coupled with the fact that we had a final and final paper in the class due just made the whole process so stressful. Not even to mention he originally had the basis of an A increased that a solid A was a 95 as well. I just feel overall he really seemed like he wanted to reduce the number of As in the class but I just felt like the addition of the papers as well as his stubbornness regarding grading as well just left a sour taste in my mouth. I'm sure in person he's a decent person to take but as for online I say just avoid him all together unless you absolutely have to.
Fall 2020 - I'm going to be honest with y'all. Taking Bauer during fall quarter absolutely sucked. I heard from all my friends who took him in the past that he was a pretty chill dude so I was excited to take the class. However, I guess after doing spring and summer online and having kids receive a shit ton of As that made him become a bit jaded and make the class a bit more annoying to complete. Initially, the class seems like your average physics class with discussions (10%), labs (15%), and homework (10%), and quizzes (40%). However, he attempted to mix up the class a paper that counted as a midterm (2.5%) and a final paper that was worth (12.5%). For the first paper, I'll give him a pass because it didn't really matter since it was worth so little and was supposed to be a litmus test for what he was looking for in the final paper. But the problem was that he didn't even give proper feedback to the first paper so we couldn't even learn from our mistakes coupled with the fact that we had a final and final paper in the class due just made the whole process so stressful. Not even to mention he originally had the basis of an A increased that a solid A was a 95 as well. I just feel overall he really seemed like he wanted to reduce the number of As in the class but I just felt like the addition of the papers as well as his stubbornness regarding grading as well just left a sour taste in my mouth. I'm sure in person he's a decent person to take but as for online I say just avoid him all together unless you absolutely have to.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Physics 5C is all about electrical circuits and currents. It uses some knowledge from 5A, but has much new material. I took this class online during the COVID-19 and the quizzes and exams were uploaded on GradeScope and you had a timer to write out your answers and submit a pdf. There were 4 quizzes with one being dropped and a midterm and final. There was weekly homework on Mastering Assignments (easily found on the internet). The lectures were recorded so there was no requirement of attendance in lecture. Lab was mandatory and did take the full 2 Hours. The discussion was not mandatory. I would recommend reading the textbook as it clarifies what the professor teaches. This professor is patient and very communicative.
Spring 2020 - Physics 5C is all about electrical circuits and currents. It uses some knowledge from 5A, but has much new material. I took this class online during the COVID-19 and the quizzes and exams were uploaded on GradeScope and you had a timer to write out your answers and submit a pdf. There were 4 quizzes with one being dropped and a midterm and final. There was weekly homework on Mastering Assignments (easily found on the internet). The lectures were recorded so there was no requirement of attendance in lecture. Lab was mandatory and did take the full 2 Hours. The discussion was not mandatory. I would recommend reading the textbook as it clarifies what the professor teaches. This professor is patient and very communicative.
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