Professor
Vladimir Vassiliev
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - I get why people who like physics are giving him good ratings because Professor Vassiliev is very nice and wants us to understand maths and much more than what is necessary for this course. And I would agree if it wasn't for what he did at the end of the quarter... Vassiliev saw that our median grade was 101.75/100 for our 3rd exam and guess what, my man decided to increase the maximum score to 145 so that our median for this exam is 70% (so that it is equal to the median of the first 2 exams) No matter how well we perform, he just has to curve us to get a grade as bad as the grade we got in the past. I don't think this is reasonable at all.
Winter 2021 - I get why people who like physics are giving him good ratings because Professor Vassiliev is very nice and wants us to understand maths and much more than what is necessary for this course. And I would agree if it wasn't for what he did at the end of the quarter... Vassiliev saw that our median grade was 101.75/100 for our 3rd exam and guess what, my man decided to increase the maximum score to 145 so that our median for this exam is 70% (so that it is equal to the median of the first 2 exams) No matter how well we perform, he just has to curve us to get a grade as bad as the grade we got in the past. I don't think this is reasonable at all.
Most Helpful Review
Professor Vassiliev seems like he's very smart and knowledgeable in physics, but unfortunately that doesn't make him a good teacher. I had him for Physics 1BH, so maybe it's a different story for his upper division courses, but he had a way of making things more confusing and had little patience when students didn't understand what he was teaching (which was pretty often). He also looks and acts a lot like the bad guy from the Professionals, which creeped me out.
Professor Vassiliev seems like he's very smart and knowledgeable in physics, but unfortunately that doesn't make him a good teacher. I had him for Physics 1BH, so maybe it's a different story for his upper division courses, but he had a way of making things more confusing and had little patience when students didn't understand what he was teaching (which was pretty often). He also looks and acts a lot like the bad guy from the Professionals, which creeped me out.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - I had to go to the hospital for heart problems because of this class, no joke. I ended up having heart palpitations from the amount of anxiety and stress I had throughout the quarter. It is definitely the hardest subject I've taken so far, but I think surviving triple V is a rite of passage for many students. I am now confident that I can survive any other physics course, except perhaps another class with Vladimir. However, this class will really reveal who are the strongest and hardest working students. In my personal case I learned where my weaknesses are when it came to studying and I am confident going ahead taking future physics courses. I do not necessarily believe that you need to be super smart to survive this class, you just need to have a EXTREMELY high level of endurance and willpower for this class, especially towards the end of the quarter. His lectures are very good and clear but they are DENSE and move VERY fast. After two years of experience in UCLA, I found that silent lectures generally mean students are lost, and this occurred nearly every day in his class because he moves quickly. He covers nearly every word of the chapters he is supposed to cover and goes above and beyond that, especially when you get to special theory of relativity. The book is absolutely essential. He covered Marion/Thornton VERY closely, although he would occasionally use Taylor since it is very similar. He mentions Landau/Lifshitz in the beginning and he does utilize them here there and it is a beautiful book if you managed to learn how to work through it, although it is a graduate level text. You can find that one for free online. WHEN YOU GET TO SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY, HE ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY USES LANDAU. The book is called"The Classical Theory of Fields", it is volume two in the course. Here is how to survive this man. Seriously attempt every single extra credit question on the homework. This is quintessential to survive, so much so that if you had to do only one question it should be the extra credit question. When you get to later problem sets the amount of extra credit you can get is absolutely ridiculous. On one problem set I managed to get a 21/12 on it and throughout the course there was always at least one student that managed to get 200%'s on the sets. Mathematica can be up to 5%, so in my experience I managed to get about a full 10%+ extra credit to survive and jump up an entire letter grade based on his scheme. The problem sets are fucking brutal. The first problem set is "easy" if you already know tensor calculus, but almost everyone certainly did not, so make sure to get help ASAP if you don't know summation notation yet. The next 8 problem sets are excruciatingly brutal and required significant help from the TA and classmates. We got lucky this quarter with Andrea who was a brilliant TA, but ideally you start working on them ASAP and work through the book. I would stay up till 4 AM probably twice a week working on the problem sets and then proceed to go to lecture and it did not do good things to my health. Make sure to check every book if the question is there. He pulls from Marion a lot but he also pulled a couple from Taylor and some questions were similar to Landau. His tests are wild. He does not expect you to finish, you do not have time to think and he grades heavily on the curve, so on the exams you are actively competing against the rest of your classmates to be on top. He will tell you what is on the exams but to even get ONE question you need to REALLY understand the topic. I hope you got really good at practicing Lagrangian mechanics from 105A because those were the only questions I managed to get on the first two midterms. If he tells you "it will be similar to something on the problem set" it will be extremely similar and study the shit out of it. For the love of god, make sure to go to the final review session that he gives you at the end of the quarter. Our final exam was very similar to the stuff he was doing in that review session, although it didn't stop us from getting massacred on that test. I can't even be mad at the guy because he is so nice. His grading scheme is ridiculously generous and he's always willing to try and make time to talk to you. I ended up meeting him outside of OH and class after doing extremely poorly on the first midterm and he was super helpful. I think my main problem with him is that he didn't make enough time for us outside of class and he is extremely busy. He only had 1 office hour a week and traveled frequently. Don't be discouraged, I did poorly in the beginning but still pulled through with an A+.
Spring 2018 - I had to go to the hospital for heart problems because of this class, no joke. I ended up having heart palpitations from the amount of anxiety and stress I had throughout the quarter. It is definitely the hardest subject I've taken so far, but I think surviving triple V is a rite of passage for many students. I am now confident that I can survive any other physics course, except perhaps another class with Vladimir. However, this class will really reveal who are the strongest and hardest working students. In my personal case I learned where my weaknesses are when it came to studying and I am confident going ahead taking future physics courses. I do not necessarily believe that you need to be super smart to survive this class, you just need to have a EXTREMELY high level of endurance and willpower for this class, especially towards the end of the quarter. His lectures are very good and clear but they are DENSE and move VERY fast. After two years of experience in UCLA, I found that silent lectures generally mean students are lost, and this occurred nearly every day in his class because he moves quickly. He covers nearly every word of the chapters he is supposed to cover and goes above and beyond that, especially when you get to special theory of relativity. The book is absolutely essential. He covered Marion/Thornton VERY closely, although he would occasionally use Taylor since it is very similar. He mentions Landau/Lifshitz in the beginning and he does utilize them here there and it is a beautiful book if you managed to learn how to work through it, although it is a graduate level text. You can find that one for free online. WHEN YOU GET TO SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY, HE ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY USES LANDAU. The book is called"The Classical Theory of Fields", it is volume two in the course. Here is how to survive this man. Seriously attempt every single extra credit question on the homework. This is quintessential to survive, so much so that if you had to do only one question it should be the extra credit question. When you get to later problem sets the amount of extra credit you can get is absolutely ridiculous. On one problem set I managed to get a 21/12 on it and throughout the course there was always at least one student that managed to get 200%'s on the sets. Mathematica can be up to 5%, so in my experience I managed to get about a full 10%+ extra credit to survive and jump up an entire letter grade based on his scheme. The problem sets are fucking brutal. The first problem set is "easy" if you already know tensor calculus, but almost everyone certainly did not, so make sure to get help ASAP if you don't know summation notation yet. The next 8 problem sets are excruciatingly brutal and required significant help from the TA and classmates. We got lucky this quarter with Andrea who was a brilliant TA, but ideally you start working on them ASAP and work through the book. I would stay up till 4 AM probably twice a week working on the problem sets and then proceed to go to lecture and it did not do good things to my health. Make sure to check every book if the question is there. He pulls from Marion a lot but he also pulled a couple from Taylor and some questions were similar to Landau. His tests are wild. He does not expect you to finish, you do not have time to think and he grades heavily on the curve, so on the exams you are actively competing against the rest of your classmates to be on top. He will tell you what is on the exams but to even get ONE question you need to REALLY understand the topic. I hope you got really good at practicing Lagrangian mechanics from 105A because those were the only questions I managed to get on the first two midterms. If he tells you "it will be similar to something on the problem set" it will be extremely similar and study the shit out of it. For the love of god, make sure to go to the final review session that he gives you at the end of the quarter. Our final exam was very similar to the stuff he was doing in that review session, although it didn't stop us from getting massacred on that test. I can't even be mad at the guy because he is so nice. His grading scheme is ridiculously generous and he's always willing to try and make time to talk to you. I ended up meeting him outside of OH and class after doing extremely poorly on the first midterm and he was super helpful. I think my main problem with him is that he didn't make enough time for us outside of class and he is extremely busy. He only had 1 office hour a week and traveled frequently. Don't be discouraged, I did poorly in the beginning but still pulled through with an A+.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - This is the worst class I've taken at UCLA. You are probably considering taking a class with VVV to become better at physics. Well, don't do that. You won't learn anything from his lectures. All he does is point at his lecture notes and mumble. His HOME ASSIGNMENTS (that's right, not homework, but HOME ASSIGNMENTS) are time consuming to say the least and will make you neglect all of your other classes. I know you are thinking that VVV will make you a better physics major, but trust me, you can just learn using the textbook with any other professor. This class truly sucked the living soul out of me, and I can't say I came out of it as a better student. Also, his exams are absolutely horrendous. After each exam, it felt like I was in the wrong class (and the wrong major). The average for the first midterm was ~58, the second ~43 and the third exam (non-cumulative "final" exam) ~40. He even sent us an email explaining how disappointed he was in our averages. It's completely his fault. He can't just mumble through the lectures without picking up a pen and expect people to follow along. Don't take this class, trust me.
Spring 2021 - This is the worst class I've taken at UCLA. You are probably considering taking a class with VVV to become better at physics. Well, don't do that. You won't learn anything from his lectures. All he does is point at his lecture notes and mumble. His HOME ASSIGNMENTS (that's right, not homework, but HOME ASSIGNMENTS) are time consuming to say the least and will make you neglect all of your other classes. I know you are thinking that VVV will make you a better physics major, but trust me, you can just learn using the textbook with any other professor. This class truly sucked the living soul out of me, and I can't say I came out of it as a better student. Also, his exams are absolutely horrendous. After each exam, it felt like I was in the wrong class (and the wrong major). The average for the first midterm was ~58, the second ~43 and the third exam (non-cumulative "final" exam) ~40. He even sent us an email explaining how disappointed he was in our averages. It's completely his fault. He can't just mumble through the lectures without picking up a pen and expect people to follow along. Don't take this class, trust me.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - The professor introduced a lot of concepts in class, however, none can be found directly on the textbooks and he tends to skip around class materials a lot. In addition, he gave out a lot of extra credits on hw and test (although none of us have time to do them). I will say the class is really hard and he didn't explain all concept thoroughly. The exercises he gave out during discussions are also not that relatable to class material either.
Winter 2019 - The professor introduced a lot of concepts in class, however, none can be found directly on the textbooks and he tends to skip around class materials a lot. In addition, he gave out a lot of extra credits on hw and test (although none of us have time to do them). I will say the class is really hard and he didn't explain all concept thoroughly. The exercises he gave out during discussions are also not that relatable to class material either.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - VVV is I think the best QM professor at UCLA. His tests are tough but fair and with lots of extra credit opportunities. His grading scale is also very generous, so as long as you do the homeworks and score about average on exams you should be fine. The material is also really interesting and useful in any field. Its all just ways to approximate differential equations that can't be easily solved. If you have the chance to take it with vvv you definitely should
Winter 2020 - VVV is I think the best QM professor at UCLA. His tests are tough but fair and with lots of extra credit opportunities. His grading scale is also very generous, so as long as you do the homeworks and score about average on exams you should be fine. The material is also really interesting and useful in any field. Its all just ways to approximate differential equations that can't be easily solved. If you have the chance to take it with vvv you definitely should
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