Samani has really engaging lectures and the concepts seem easy in class..but the tests are absolutely horrendous. The first midterm is not bad, but the second, and the final are pretty much impossible unless you are already amazing at physics. He expects problems to be addressed in discussion...which you do worksheets on your own and in groups...so no one really teaches you and you have to figure out the concepts on your own. The class has to be curved an incredible amount because he literally designs his test for most students to get a majority of the questions wrong. The extra packets, discussion worksheets, and online homework are all things you do on your own and have no guidance on, again having to teach yourself the material. If you go to his office hours, he wants you to work it out on your own, which is fine, but he gives actually no help at all.
I do not recommend taking his class unless you have a physics background.

I've never really met Samani in office hours because I heard he wants you to figure it out yourself even if you go to him. I can say without a doubt that you'll probably end up with some sort of A coming out of this class. If you go to every discussion, submit all the problem sets on time (they don't even need to be correct), go to lecture to earn extra credit, score average on his midterms, and 8 points above the average on the final, that's an A. He lets you correct your midterm for 1/3 of the points back, and it's really helpful to go back and see what you messed up on. I came out of the class knowing physics more than I thought I would've.

Samani perhaps the clearest professor you can get. He is very capable of explaining new concepts in simple ways and emphasizes intuition rather than brute-force math in his physics problems. It's been said that Samani's exams are harder than other physics professors, but I've never really had an issue with them. If you managed to get past the AP Physics 1 exam, you should be able to get past his exams just fine. Which is convenient, because Physics 5A is just regurgitating AP Physics 1 material and nothing more. If you've taken AP Physics 1 before, you literally will not learn anything new.

Professor Samani offers extra credit for hard work, so it's very easy to pad your grades even when you perform poorly on homework and exams. He also grades a lot of the homework on effort and completion rather than accuracy, so grades (other than from exams) should not be a big issue.

One thing to watch out for, though, is that he wants you to check a multitude of websites for announcements and homework, so things tend to get lost in the clutter.

Overall, Samani is a fantastic professor and I would highly encourage you to take his class over other physics professors' classes.

Samani is the best! His tests are really hard but with test corrections and the team portion of the midterm and final, you end up getting some points back. Lectures are always really interesting and there are many opportunities for extra credit in the form of practice exams which are super helpful. Be sure to read the textbook if you don't have a background in physics!

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THIS WAS ONE OF THE HARDEST CLASSES I HAVE EVER TAKEN! I really hated physics with a passion when I was in this class. I felt like I ended up liking 5B, which is supposedly more dreadful than 5A and 5C was even better. If you have no physics background, you will struggle in this class unless you can figure out how to perform well on his ridiculous exams. My performance on the midterms was average but the final wrecked me. Also, I tried to adopt his strategies for problem solving and even worked with others, however, I still didn't see a "drastic" improvement in my performance. I feel like the amount of work I put into this class is not reflective of my grade and all the frustration I experienced during the process.

Samani's lectures are good for explaining the base concepts of physics, but then on exams and homework he expects us to apply this simple concepts on a much deeper, more complicated level with little to no guidance. Also, the workload for this class is just too much- especially the inclusion of the Mastering which is essentially useless to me. My entire weekends were always physics because of the discussion worksheet, online homework, and exam practice (not to mention extra credit) due EVERY WEEK. We have to use a calculator for these problems, which we can't do in any other aspect of the course, and the problems are never like anything we are asked on an exam. He also always seems apologetic about how hard the class and tests are, but he is the one in control of this and can change it. Overall, Samani is a decent lecturer but the class is much more pain than gain.

I felt very mislead by the other bruinwalk reviews for his other courses. Samani's class was the most difficult and unclear class I have ever taken. There is a lot of homework every week, his lectures seem to barely cover any content and the practice exams that he gives are 10x harder than problems covered in lecture. He says he gives a lot of extra credit but the class is not curved and the total amount of extra credit adds up to about 4%. He is a very nice guy but I did not enjoy this class at all.

If you can take 5A with Samani, do it. He works hard to make lectures engaging and he goes through the concepts pretty slowly and thoroughly. That said, he teaches the class in a pretty conceptual way, so its important to do problems outside of class in order to do well on the tests, which were pretty difficult. But even if the tests don't go well for you, you can get points back by doing a reflection and he offers a TON of extra credit (about 4 - 5% added to your final grade). The class is also curved, so you have a very good chance of finishing the class with an A. The class is hard, but Samani wants you to succeed and if you take advantage of the resources you'll do great.