Dr. Bauer is amazing and extremely helpful. I highly recommend taking any/all physics courses with him!

Bauer is a great lecturer, and he's always open to student feedback; I had him for 5A during the summer, obv had him for 5B bc of this review, and taking him again for 5C. I can tell he genuinely makes an effort in wanting to improve his class structure, but with that being said 5B was rough due to all the papers. The midterm paper he assigned took forever to grade bc he overestimated how much time he'd take to give individual feedback, and overall didn't really prepare us for the final paper that ended up weighing 5 times more lol. Since I just went to his 5c lecture, he's since gotten rid of these papers, so I can say with certainty he does indeed listen to student feedback, and will probably not bring these papers back if he decides to teach 5b again.
other reviews may say that he doesn't listen, but also there were so many anon comments and posts on campuswire that quarter begging him to change the grading scale each and every week and being rude when he replies that he just wants grades to be worth something. from a student standpoint, I agree that the grading scale was rough (my grade might fool you but I barely made that adjusted grade cutoff), but there was no need for bitterness. show some respect.

material wise, 5b is easier to understand than 5a, bc it's a lot easier to conceptualize. labs are also less frustrating bc we no longer deal with tracker (instead, get ready for your new best friends phyphox and imageJ, which aren't that bad honestly).

bauer does prerecorded lecture vids that he plays during the lecture time, so attendance for that isn't necessary. he explains things very simply yet concisely. I've never taken physics before in my life but have so far been doing well in the series bc it's easy to understand him
(or maybe bc it's also online lol)

even under a sh/tty grading scale, i'd still choose bauer over any other prof. he lectures well, and if you genuinely want to learn something, you can trust that he'll deliver. he recommends reading the book for supplement, but honestly his lectures are enough for understanding material and formulas if you'd rather apply that time elsewhere (such as doing practice problems). the book is great review for looking at problems and examples though, since he doesn't incorporate a lot of those in his videos due to time constraints. also, do all the practice problems he suggests so that you actually understand how to apply the formulas (and this means actually doing them, not looking at solutions unless checking your work, so that you're actively applying what you learned). having a cheat sheet alone will not prep you enough for his exams, which tend to be on the harder side since topics are often interconnected.

This class was rough! I expected it from a physics class yes but I was not prepared for the written midterm paper that took 4 weeks to grade, and the similar final research paper alongside an actual final exam. Ontop of that we had weekly quizzes every Wednesday at 9am, and we were not allowed to drop any of them. This made it hard to get your grade up again once a little mistake was made. Discussion was easy, graded on completion, and we used Pearson for HW. Overall I wouldn’t take it again with this prof, considering how much more lenient the other physics professor was this quarter, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world considering my lighter workload in other classes

One of the best professors all around! He was super flexible, gave fair exams, and his lectures were really great. 10/10 recommend.

Dr. Bauer is a legend. He is extremely considerate and understanding. He really cares about student learning (and it shows). His exams are very straightforward (but not easy), and try to test only a student's practical application of knowledge. He doesn't give weird or convoluted exams just to trip the students up, like some other professors do. He responds to emails quickly and stays on top of campuswire posts. His lectures are all podcasted so it's easy even for internationals to keep up with the class. He also spends a decent chunk of time explaining concepts that he anticipates will be difficult to understand. Take Bauer if you want a straightforward course that offers marvelous concept clarity!

Summer Sessions always go by faster, so it does make it harder, but Dr. Bauer really made the class manageable . My only prior physics experience was 5A, and I felt like 5B was easier than that tbh. Lectures were pre recorded and he played them during the lecture time and answered any questions asked while the recording plays though he will occasionally pause it. We had weekly homework on mastering physics, and weekly quizzes through gradescope. There were five quizzes and he dropped the lowest score. There was also a final exam. All of the assessments were synchronous. You didn’t have to be on zoom or anything, but you did have to take it at a set time. I personally found the quizzes to be much harder than the final, but also not impossible. Overall though, I would still take the course with Bauer again!

Physics is really hard for me but Bauer was a good professor to take it with, everything was straightforward in his class and his quizzes and tests were appropriately difficult. I felt challenged but not stressed and I learned a lot more about physics.

Dr. Bauer is a good professor, BUT I feel like most of his quizzes and exams this summer have been unnecessarily challenging. I don't consider myself to be a smart person, and this class has definitely stolen the very TINY bit of confidence in myself that I did have. I worked my ass off , studying for quizzes and still managed to fail them. Overall, I would say this is a tough class.

I actually took him for 5A summer 2020 session A (taking him for 5B rn as well) I thought he was amazing. He made physics clear. I absolutely hated physics from high school, and I attempted to take this class with another prof the quarter before for a week but that prof was ridiculously confusing. I'm so glad I dropped then and took it with Dr. Bauer. Not only did he make things super simple and clear, he was also extremely understanding given it was a pandemic. He always considered students request, and he did his best to accommodate. All you really had to do was put effort in and you could easily get an A with no problem.

Break down:

5 quizzes (lowest dropped) 20% (I found them super easy and similar to hw and textbook problems (literally if you just did the problems you were fine idk why other people always were tripping over his quizzes))
3 Free Responses 20% (lowest dropped) as long as you put effort in, you were given a 90% for sure, and if you got it correct then you would get 100
Mastering Physics HW 15% due every week the day before the quiz at 11:59pm (pretty easy not too bad max 2 hours a week)
Discussion 10% (you can miss 2 discussions) attendance is mandatory, worksheet graded on completion
Lab 15% lab is completely separate from dr. bauer, but shout out to JOSH!!! Best Ta ever, hella chill, hella understanding
Final Exam 20%, was definitely tougher than his quizzes, but still pretty decent, did take me the whole three hours tho

Thanks to COVID I never had to see Nick in person, because trust me I would not get near a 6ft radius of this man (not even just because of the social distancing guidelines). This man is rude. He grades unfairly and honestly lets hope he never ends up being your TA because he will just count you off points for absolutely nothing. I hope he does not intend on being any sort of teacher in the future because not only can he not teach, but hes not approachable. He was my TA and honestly made discussion sections far more confusing than they are supposed to be. How, oh how, did UCLA allow you to be a TA. BUT:Do take Dr. Bauer, he was one of the kindest and most responsive professors I've ever had. Legend.