Professor
Joshua Samani
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Picture an ideal professor. One that plays music before lectures and during breaks, one that is understanding of all current situations (especially considering this quarter occurred during a global pandemic and a massive racial movement) and one that delivers engaging lectures filled with analogies that help one grasp a conceptual understanding of the material and clearly understand theories through nicely drawn diagrams and thought experiments. This is precisely what Professor Samani is. A professor of such high caliber that he should be teaching every class at UCLA (no cap). Professor Samani is an extremely down-to-earth professor that hosts useful office hours where he would literally spend as much time as needed to address your concerns and actually try his best to answer his students' diverse set of questions. It is unfortunate he isn't teaching 1C next quarter because this man is a gem. I truly started to like even the gorey calculus bits of 1B because Samani made it fun. His grading scheme is also very reasonable. The class is not curved but rather scaled where 50% of your grade are his problem sets. These problem sets are extremely hard but collaboration is encouraged and the TAs and Professor Samani provide a lot of support via Campuswire. Also, they are graded mostly for accuracy. An A is roughly 93% but very achievable since the midterms and final exams are based off of the problem set content and thus quite doable. I only have one small critique for Professor Samani: he does not do complex enough examples in lectures sometimes (unlike Corbin) which left me lost trying to approach his difficult problem sets and made the class time consuming since I would have to read OpenStax (a free online textbook he follows). Nonetheless, this man is a godsend and I highly recommend all freshmen take him if possible for a lower div class! He really made online classes so enjoyable that I stayed up till 3 am to attend his lectures live (being located outside of the US).
Spring 2020 - Picture an ideal professor. One that plays music before lectures and during breaks, one that is understanding of all current situations (especially considering this quarter occurred during a global pandemic and a massive racial movement) and one that delivers engaging lectures filled with analogies that help one grasp a conceptual understanding of the material and clearly understand theories through nicely drawn diagrams and thought experiments. This is precisely what Professor Samani is. A professor of such high caliber that he should be teaching every class at UCLA (no cap). Professor Samani is an extremely down-to-earth professor that hosts useful office hours where he would literally spend as much time as needed to address your concerns and actually try his best to answer his students' diverse set of questions. It is unfortunate he isn't teaching 1C next quarter because this man is a gem. I truly started to like even the gorey calculus bits of 1B because Samani made it fun. His grading scheme is also very reasonable. The class is not curved but rather scaled where 50% of your grade are his problem sets. These problem sets are extremely hard but collaboration is encouraged and the TAs and Professor Samani provide a lot of support via Campuswire. Also, they are graded mostly for accuracy. An A is roughly 93% but very achievable since the midterms and final exams are based off of the problem set content and thus quite doable. I only have one small critique for Professor Samani: he does not do complex enough examples in lectures sometimes (unlike Corbin) which left me lost trying to approach his difficult problem sets and made the class time consuming since I would have to read OpenStax (a free online textbook he follows). Nonetheless, this man is a godsend and I highly recommend all freshmen take him if possible for a lower div class! He really made online classes so enjoyable that I stayed up till 3 am to attend his lectures live (being located outside of the US).
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Everyone will tell you that Samani is a great professor, and this is true. He is an enthusiastic and engaging lecturer, but his exams are SO difficult. They are not straightforward at all, very conceptual based (kind of reminds me of AP exams). If you're looking for an easy time and simple exams where you can plug in numbers into formulas -- this is not it. Also, he requires you to use a lot of "common sense" during exams and estimate values such as mass, height, velocity etc. of objects. As someone who had never taken physics before, this was a challenging class. Unless you are very confident about your physics understanding, this class will be tough.
Fall 2019 - Everyone will tell you that Samani is a great professor, and this is true. He is an enthusiastic and engaging lecturer, but his exams are SO difficult. They are not straightforward at all, very conceptual based (kind of reminds me of AP exams). If you're looking for an easy time and simple exams where you can plug in numbers into formulas -- this is not it. Also, he requires you to use a lot of "common sense" during exams and estimate values such as mass, height, velocity etc. of objects. As someone who had never taken physics before, this was a challenging class. Unless you are very confident about your physics understanding, this class will be tough.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - I'm not sure where all of the great reviews are coming from, I'm convinced he wrote them himself at this point. I absolutely hated this class, and I would never take this class again with Professor Samani. He has an absolutely absurd hypothesis behind his teaching, namely memorizing with flash cards will give you long term retention. The biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard in any class I have taken thus far at this school. His quizzes were difficult, and unlike literally ANY other phyiscs class you are not allowed to have an equation sheet. His pre-lecture videos are on average 2 hours, which is far too long. He says his in-person lectures are not mandatory, but proceeds to derive equations you will need to do well on the exam. AKA you also have to show up or watch the recordings. This means that signing up for a 3 lecture hour class actually tuns into a 5-6 hour lecture. And this does not include the time you will have to spend outside of class studying and preparing for exams. He provides you practice packets, and then gives you quizzes that are NOTHING like the packet you completed. Oh, you also won't get credit for completing that packet either. If you take this class which I highly suggest you reconsider, for quizzes be prepared to connect concepts on your own on a time exam, derive equations, feel absolutley unprepared by any of the material that he has given you, and be unable to answer a majority of the quiz if you are unable to recall one equation. Professor Samani makes absolutely no effort to connect weekly concepts with past content, but then expects you to be able to make connections on your own on timed exams. So if you don't like teaching yourself, I'd choose someone else. He will tell you that he wants you to understand the concepts and the theory, and then asks you to memorize equations and asks you solely math based questions (which you don't get prepared for). Having qeekly quizzes is awful. It gets to be a lot during mid-term season, and they are mentally draining. The questions are not like what you practice with, and the practice questons you receive are nothing like what you are taught. Therefore, you get thrown into an ocean and are expected to swim. If being given insufficient learning tools is your jive, then this is the class for you! He has some make-believe world in his head where he thinks that life-science majors actually give a shit about physics, when in reality most of us are trying to get by and pass this class. If you want a manageable and understandable physics class, find another professor. Some of you might look at the grade distribution and think this class will be fine. I'd rethink that, it is NOT worth it in any shape or form. The stress, the workload, the 6 hour lecture, NOT worth it.
Winter 2022 - I'm not sure where all of the great reviews are coming from, I'm convinced he wrote them himself at this point. I absolutely hated this class, and I would never take this class again with Professor Samani. He has an absolutely absurd hypothesis behind his teaching, namely memorizing with flash cards will give you long term retention. The biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard in any class I have taken thus far at this school. His quizzes were difficult, and unlike literally ANY other phyiscs class you are not allowed to have an equation sheet. His pre-lecture videos are on average 2 hours, which is far too long. He says his in-person lectures are not mandatory, but proceeds to derive equations you will need to do well on the exam. AKA you also have to show up or watch the recordings. This means that signing up for a 3 lecture hour class actually tuns into a 5-6 hour lecture. And this does not include the time you will have to spend outside of class studying and preparing for exams. He provides you practice packets, and then gives you quizzes that are NOTHING like the packet you completed. Oh, you also won't get credit for completing that packet either. If you take this class which I highly suggest you reconsider, for quizzes be prepared to connect concepts on your own on a time exam, derive equations, feel absolutley unprepared by any of the material that he has given you, and be unable to answer a majority of the quiz if you are unable to recall one equation. Professor Samani makes absolutely no effort to connect weekly concepts with past content, but then expects you to be able to make connections on your own on timed exams. So if you don't like teaching yourself, I'd choose someone else. He will tell you that he wants you to understand the concepts and the theory, and then asks you to memorize equations and asks you solely math based questions (which you don't get prepared for). Having qeekly quizzes is awful. It gets to be a lot during mid-term season, and they are mentally draining. The questions are not like what you practice with, and the practice questons you receive are nothing like what you are taught. Therefore, you get thrown into an ocean and are expected to swim. If being given insufficient learning tools is your jive, then this is the class for you! He has some make-believe world in his head where he thinks that life-science majors actually give a shit about physics, when in reality most of us are trying to get by and pass this class. If you want a manageable and understandable physics class, find another professor. Some of you might look at the grade distribution and think this class will be fine. I'd rethink that, it is NOT worth it in any shape or form. The stress, the workload, the 6 hour lecture, NOT worth it.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2016 - Samani is a really good lecturer and teacher. His lectures are interesting and he stays on topic in class. He also wrote his own lecture notes for this class which replaced the need for a textbook. His notes are actually pretty short, but very concise and basically everything you need to know for the tests. With that said, his tests are still pretty hard. Great professor overall.
Fall 2016 - Samani is a really good lecturer and teacher. His lectures are interesting and he stays on topic in class. He also wrote his own lecture notes for this class which replaced the need for a textbook. His notes are actually pretty short, but very concise and basically everything you need to know for the tests. With that said, his tests are still pretty hard. Great professor overall.
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