I really loved 5A with Professor Sakai. I came in with no physics experience in High school, thinking I was going to struggle and fail. But instead, I really enjoyed the subject, Professor Sakai was very very sweet and clearly cared for the students. She answered questions throughout and after lecture, and how office hours specifically for students who had no physics experience. In my quarter she structured it as 4 exams, bi-weekly, the lowest score of which was dropped, so it helped relieve pressure because you didn't have one giant accumulative exam. I will say that the class overall is a lotttt of work. There are mastering physics homework and prelecture problems, discussion worksheets, and pre-lab and lab writeups on top of the tests. BUT if you try to do all the work sincerely, then it will really boost your scores on the tests because you'll have to understand the material. Also, pre-lab and discussion are completion based, and mastering physics gives you three tries on everything so its super easy to get 100s on those. I would say you should do a lot of conceptual prep, and use variables as much as possible while practicing, because often on tests she doesn't give you numbers, so practicing with variables means you won't be thrown off by this on exams. I think Sakai is a great professor who really helped me understand a subject I had no prior knowledge of and was quite intimidated by!

Professor Sakai graded our class on a straight scale, where an 85% is an A-, 80% is B+, and so on. Grades were made up of labs (15%), midterm 1/participation grade (25%), midterm 2/participation grade (25%), final exam (50%). One midterm grade can be replaced with your participation grade which is made up of pre-lecture assignments, homework, clickers, and discussion sections. It's not too hard to get full points on the participation grade, but if you are confident in physics you could just gamble on doing well on the midterms and avoid doing a lot of busy work.

The two midterms are free response, 50 mins long, and in class. I found them to be very straight forward, and Prof Sakai's practice problems and the LA's review worksheets were helpful for the exams. The final was harder in my opinion. It was about twice as long as the midterms, with a multiple choice section and free response questions. The multiple choice questions wasn't too bad, but I found the free response to be a lot more challenging and had questions I had no idea how to solve.

Prof Sakai is a pretty bad lecturer since she gets confused in class and would often ask the students if she was doing a problem correctly. She's a nice person and easygoing, but sooo disorganized. I didn't take physics in high school and I got really frustrated bc of how confusing she is. However, I did well in the class by doing a lot of practice problems and going over lecture slides. If you are confident in your ability to learn material without much guidance from a professor, I would recommend taking Sakai since her tests and grading scheme are reasonable.

Contrary to what most people here are saying, Sakai was excellent as an instructor. Yes, the tests can be hard but the quality of instruction matches up to the expected level of performance. I got an A plus on this class.
It helps to have past papers and other materials which I'm selling for $20.
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DO NOT TAKE ASTRO 3 WITH PROFESSOR SAKAI! She makes even the most simple concepts seem difficult, and she attempted to teach this Astro GE like it was for all undergraduate astrophysics majors. I don't know whether it is because she's new to UCLA, but she attempted to fit 3 years of astrophysics study into a one quarter course; furthermore, she is difficult to understand and awful at making questions for her multiple choice exams. If you want a good Astro 3 experience, and not one fraught with the difficulties of a new professor who doesn't know what INTRO to Interstellar Astronomy means, take one of the other tenured professors.

She is the WORST professor I've had at UCLA. She seemed like she had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I find it hard to believe she knows anything more about Astronomy than what is on her slides. I was very interested in Astronomy until I took her class. The labs take forever and are only worth 10% of your grade. There is no point in going to class because she doesn't articulate anything on the slides and they are posted online. The tests are very poorly worded and hard to understand, so it doesn't make it a particularly easy class either. 2 midterms and a final. Terrible teacher, don't take her.

She does't use enough examples in class. This class covers hard concepts, but be prepared to have to teach yourself and pray that you get a good TA. Her tests are similar to the practice questions she sends out, so make sure to do them.

Okay here's the deal.
She's such a nice person. If you go into office hours, she will help you.
But this quarter, the tests were exceptionally harder than expected for a science GE.
The average on the first midterm was a 70% then the second midterm was a 75% and the final was about a 70% as well. But luckily, she curves the class.
Overall, she wasn't the most clear on specific information and was super broad in lecture about material. I'd recommend reading the textbook over going to lecture, as lecture did not help me learn very much.
I felt overwhelming stress taking this class because I never felt like I was learning anything, and the tests were pretty tricky in regards to the wording of specific questions.
Also, she never goes over certain math that appears on the midterms and finals.
But if you are willing to read the textbook and go into office hours, you should gain enough information to pass this class.
If you are looking for an easy GE, this isn't the one you should take with this professor.

Shoko is not a very engaging lecturer, but posts all her slides. I didn't go to class mostly because she posted the slides and the textbook was the most important part. Most of the content on the tests is from the book, and if the book is thoroughly studied you will do well. Not a very hard class, but it does require a lot of book reading.

REVIEW FOR PHYSICS 5A

THIS LADY IS THE BEST PROFESSOR EVER! SHE REALLY CARES ABOUT HER STUDENTS AND WANTS THEM ALL TO DO WELL. SHE REPLIES QUICKLY AND ALWAYS GIVES UP SOME OF HER TIME SO SHE CAN HELP US. She's so smart and can make the toughest topics seem easy when she works out the problems. Physics was hard I must admit but she gives really good studying advice and was clear when she taught.

It's true that Sakai gets flustered when answering questions and is not super clear in lecture, but the lecture is exactly like the reading, so if you do the reading, lecture is barely even necessary. I didn't think this class was hard at all, I studied for a couple days before each midterm and I aced both. I completely disagree with previous reviews that said she made the class too hard and expected too much, the lecture exactly matches the book, and is just basic concepts. I am a humanities major and I find this class to be very easy and do-able. Sakai is very approachable and eager to help with problems, although she isn't all that good at explaining things.