Professor
Giovanni Zocchi
1 of 2
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - So the reviews for this class are super outdated, but during Spring 2020 Zocchi's class was unorganized to say the least. He gave us barely any time for the midterms, even after NUMEROUS emails asking him to accommodate people during a tough time. The worst part was he wouldn't even respond to the emails which left much of the class in confusion (it also lead to 25% of the class dropping by week 10) Midterm averages were also super low, midterm 1 was like a 68% and midterm 2 was about a 58%. He doesn't curve the tests but uses his own wack grading scale (I think??) where >80 is an A, 65-80 is a B, and so on. I'm not entirely sure if that's accurate because when I emailed him to confirm he ghosted me :/ I think the final average may have been higher cause most people I know scored much higher than previous midterms. But he also gave us 48 hours (finally!) for this test. His lectures were reaaaaally hard to learn from, he has a very thick accent and just covers a bunch of examples like a machine. He definitely knows his material, but I couldn't really get anything from the lectures and stopped attending by like Week 2. I just grinded the material from the textbook and worked through the homework and prayed I'd get lucky on the midterms/finals. Overall, if this is your first physics class since high school (like me), I would NOT recommend as I definitely feel like I have a half-ass command of the knowledge compared to my friends who took 1A with other professors. If you do have a strong physics foundation, I would still hesitantly recommend cause you're probably gonna have to rely on previous knowledge and do a bit of reading to do well in the class.
Spring 2020 - So the reviews for this class are super outdated, but during Spring 2020 Zocchi's class was unorganized to say the least. He gave us barely any time for the midterms, even after NUMEROUS emails asking him to accommodate people during a tough time. The worst part was he wouldn't even respond to the emails which left much of the class in confusion (it also lead to 25% of the class dropping by week 10) Midterm averages were also super low, midterm 1 was like a 68% and midterm 2 was about a 58%. He doesn't curve the tests but uses his own wack grading scale (I think??) where >80 is an A, 65-80 is a B, and so on. I'm not entirely sure if that's accurate because when I emailed him to confirm he ghosted me :/ I think the final average may have been higher cause most people I know scored much higher than previous midterms. But he also gave us 48 hours (finally!) for this test. His lectures were reaaaaally hard to learn from, he has a very thick accent and just covers a bunch of examples like a machine. He definitely knows his material, but I couldn't really get anything from the lectures and stopped attending by like Week 2. I just grinded the material from the textbook and worked through the homework and prayed I'd get lucky on the midterms/finals. Overall, if this is your first physics class since high school (like me), I would NOT recommend as I definitely feel like I have a half-ass command of the knowledge compared to my friends who took 1A with other professors. If you do have a strong physics foundation, I would still hesitantly recommend cause you're probably gonna have to rely on previous knowledge and do a bit of reading to do well in the class.
AD
Most Helpful Review
I feel that previous evaluations slightly differ from the Zocchi I had for Fall 09. Zocchi did have an authentic concern for us. One time during class, he told us he received a lot of questions about surface integrals, volume integrals, etc. so he devoted an entire lecture to it. After the 1st midterm he said that if you have been going to class and you just received a low grade, come to his office hours because he will teach you how to properly study for physics. After the second midterm, he seemed kind of pissed because the scores were kinda low and he suspected a lack of effort on our part. The main problem with this quarter's class and Zocchi was this: Zocchi's accent is strong and understanding EXACTLY what he said was difficult. He loved physics too and would kinda go off in lecture. So kids substituted going to lecture by staying home, doing the HW and reading the book. Now this is fine; this works 95% of the time. However, the MAIN ISSUE was this: the classwork and tests were different from the book, mainly with something called LRC Circuits. The book had this noob treatment of it but Zocchi did the full-frontal, pure-physics-mathematical treatment of it. So this set the class off-balance, caught us off guard, and there was alienation/dissatisfaction/anger/etc... What should you do? 1) Find an Italian model wife, date, marry her, and learn Italian or get used to her accent so you can understand Zocchi. Have kids, get a nice house in suburbia, look at pictures from her golden days in Vogue... 2)Take this class with Math 33B. Solving LRC circuit problems makes more sense with 33B's knowledge. Go to office hours. I didn't. You should. Seriously, there's only one beast in this class and it's LRC circuit problems. The rest is easy shit. But nonetheless, there's more calculus here than 1B. I got an A-. I was well above average both midterms (midterm 1: average 27/40 midterm 2: avg. 21/40). I THOUGHT I raped the final (with respect to the class that is, average on final was 44.4/80 ) but I guess not. I just beat it up a little. Pushed it around a bit. It fought back a little. But I subdued it. And it gave up. And it turned itself in and got graded.
I feel that previous evaluations slightly differ from the Zocchi I had for Fall 09. Zocchi did have an authentic concern for us. One time during class, he told us he received a lot of questions about surface integrals, volume integrals, etc. so he devoted an entire lecture to it. After the 1st midterm he said that if you have been going to class and you just received a low grade, come to his office hours because he will teach you how to properly study for physics. After the second midterm, he seemed kind of pissed because the scores were kinda low and he suspected a lack of effort on our part. The main problem with this quarter's class and Zocchi was this: Zocchi's accent is strong and understanding EXACTLY what he said was difficult. He loved physics too and would kinda go off in lecture. So kids substituted going to lecture by staying home, doing the HW and reading the book. Now this is fine; this works 95% of the time. However, the MAIN ISSUE was this: the classwork and tests were different from the book, mainly with something called LRC Circuits. The book had this noob treatment of it but Zocchi did the full-frontal, pure-physics-mathematical treatment of it. So this set the class off-balance, caught us off guard, and there was alienation/dissatisfaction/anger/etc... What should you do? 1) Find an Italian model wife, date, marry her, and learn Italian or get used to her accent so you can understand Zocchi. Have kids, get a nice house in suburbia, look at pictures from her golden days in Vogue... 2)Take this class with Math 33B. Solving LRC circuit problems makes more sense with 33B's knowledge. Go to office hours. I didn't. You should. Seriously, there's only one beast in this class and it's LRC circuit problems. The rest is easy shit. But nonetheless, there's more calculus here than 1B. I got an A-. I was well above average both midterms (midterm 1: average 27/40 midterm 2: avg. 21/40). I THOUGHT I raped the final (with respect to the class that is, average on final was 44.4/80 ) but I guess not. I just beat it up a little. Pushed it around a bit. It fought back a little. But I subdued it. And it gave up. And it turned itself in and got graded.
Most Helpful Review
Professor Zocchi is a really genuine and sincere teacher. He doesn't make it seem like you're in lecture to reinforce and embed concepts, but rather to introduce you to concepts that you should go and practice later. The readers for these classes do a really good job of explaining the concepts. Don't be fooled by the H suffix at the end of these classes. If Zocchi's teaching they stand for (H)ella Easy.
Professor Zocchi is a really genuine and sincere teacher. He doesn't make it seem like you're in lecture to reinforce and embed concepts, but rather to introduce you to concepts that you should go and practice later. The readers for these classes do a really good job of explaining the concepts. Don't be fooled by the H suffix at the end of these classes. If Zocchi's teaching they stand for (H)ella Easy.
Most Helpful Review
Professor Zocchi is one of the worst teachers I have had. I'm sure he loves physics, but he is not effective in teaching the material: lack of articulation and very diffuse organization. I cannot say there was more than 1 or 2 days in which I actually got something out of his lectures. Upon looking back at my notes, it's hard to make any sense because all he does is write equations without sufficient explaination. One upside is that his tests are pretty straightforward and people do pretty well.
Professor Zocchi is one of the worst teachers I have had. I'm sure he loves physics, but he is not effective in teaching the material: lack of articulation and very diffuse organization. I cannot say there was more than 1 or 2 days in which I actually got something out of his lectures. Upon looking back at my notes, it's hard to make any sense because all he does is write equations without sufficient explaination. One upside is that his tests are pretty straightforward and people do pretty well.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Zocchi's 105A is like what you would expect for a university physics class. His lectures are clear and he's really a nice guy. The key of this class is the formulation of Lagrangian, and that's something you have to do a lot of practice on. Homework problems are hard and really needs some time, but they are really helpful for me to know the course materials. Sometimes there are some problems that requires a bunch of calculation, but they will not appear on the tests. Tests are somewhat difficult. They mainly focus on the ideas and concepts, so once you've figured out what you should do, the calculation would not torture you. And tests are curved so seems like we will be alright.
Fall 2019 - Zocchi's 105A is like what you would expect for a university physics class. His lectures are clear and he's really a nice guy. The key of this class is the formulation of Lagrangian, and that's something you have to do a lot of practice on. Homework problems are hard and really needs some time, but they are really helpful for me to know the course materials. Sometimes there are some problems that requires a bunch of calculation, but they will not appear on the tests. Tests are somewhat difficult. They mainly focus on the ideas and concepts, so once you've figured out what you should do, the calculation would not torture you. And tests are curved so seems like we will be alright.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2019 - This professor sucks. He starts on a topic and gets easily flustered by a mistake he makes on the board which derails the entire lecture. He MOSTLY follows Griffiths but copied the occasional Feynman lecture or 2 so make sure to reference that. Some lectures he actually provided derivations that were not in either resource which were appreciated. I basically gave up on attending lecture at all and used Griffiths and Feynman which was sufficient. Homework is almost always out of the book and exams are super fucking easy. Make sure to go carefully through the derivations on some stuff. I distinctly remember on the final you basically had to derive the radiation for a charged particle.
Spring 2019 - This professor sucks. He starts on a topic and gets easily flustered by a mistake he makes on the board which derails the entire lecture. He MOSTLY follows Griffiths but copied the occasional Feynman lecture or 2 so make sure to reference that. Some lectures he actually provided derivations that were not in either resource which were appreciated. I basically gave up on attending lecture at all and used Griffiths and Feynman which was sufficient. Homework is almost always out of the book and exams are super fucking easy. Make sure to go carefully through the derivations on some stuff. I distinctly remember on the final you basically had to derive the radiation for a charged particle.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - Considering how well you understand the basic formalism of qm determines how well you do in the following chapters, there isn't a better professor than Professor Zocchi to take this class with (he does an excellent job teaching physics 131). He sometimes likes to apply material from later chapters to earlier ones (e.g. using spin as an example in formalism), so it's important to attend every lecture.
Winter 2020 - Considering how well you understand the basic formalism of qm determines how well you do in the following chapters, there isn't a better professor than Professor Zocchi to take this class with (he does an excellent job teaching physics 131). He sometimes likes to apply material from later chapters to earlier ones (e.g. using spin as an example in formalism), so it's important to attend every lecture.
AD
1 of 2
