He prefaced this class by telling us it was the hardest physics lab offered for undergraduates. While I don't know how necessarily true this statement is, I personally found this class very, very, time consuming and difficult. What is nice is the collaborative atmosphere with fellow classmates because its so small (6 of us this quarter), so make friends quickly!

It's hard because you're learning brand new skills every week which are the utter basics of optical design (AMO, physical chemistry, imaging science) , including polarizers, waveplates, lasers, optical cavities, etc. I personally don't have an immediate gift for experimental science and struggled quite a bit as I kept learning new things. The actual quantum part is the final experiment which is an experimental verification of Bell's Inequality (an optional Hong-Ou-Mandel). That being said, this class is so cool and more importantly, immediately useful. I thought optics from lower div was god awful boring until we started looking at the more advanced EM topics that you don't typically learn from 110 series. Plus, you get a stronger intuition for how QM works!

Highly recommend but not for the faint of heart.

Professor Campbell was overall a good professor for Physics 1A (probably better than the overrated Corbin). He was very direct and clear about what physics we needed to know and he explained and derived physics very clearly. The class was built around a 33/33/33 A/B/C and lower curve, but I felt that Campbell was very generous with the grades that he gave out considering that I got below average on all 3 exams. His exams are way harder than the practice exams from previous years exams that he uploads to CCLE and there is really no way to study effectively for the exams outside of doing the old midterms and going to lecture. One of the more disappointing parts about the class was his use of the BS Mastering Physics program which does not further the understanding of physics and does not help at all for the exams. Overall I would rate him a 7/10 and I would recommend him over other 1A professors. Good luck on his hard tests though.

Only a quarter after I've taken him do I realize how much I liked his class. He's always helpful and willing to answer questions patiently. His midterms aren't too difficult, but his final blew everyone out of the water. There was one question that I would be surprised if anyone got above 20% on it. The highest score on the final was a 67%, and the average was a 47%, if I recall correctly. Don't be arrogant and skip lectures. What he discusses is important.

Worst class i've ever taken so far in ucla.

This is by far the worst class I have taken my entire freshman year at UCLA. If you're a South Campus major you can't really get around it because its a pre req for a lot. To start off with, the grading scheme is crazy and very detrimental to student collaboration. 1/3 of your lab section gets an A, 1/3 gets a B, and the other 1/3 gets a C. So collaboration is really not encouraged with other people in your lab section because you're competing against them for a grade. You could get a 92 on the lab report but if everyone else gets a 97, you're getting a C on that report.
The lab manual is not helpful or clear at all. The professor expects you to just intuitively know what to include in the lab report and never actually tells you what specifically you need to address. The instructions for the labs are confusing and the TA's don't really know whats going on so they can't help you. The lab reports are pointless busy work that teach you nothing but how to use Excel. Each report takes probably 15-20 hours a week and they're just pointless restatements of the lab manual and pages long derivations of error equations.
I have learned nothing in this class about physics that I didn't know before. The time that this class takes up is way too much for what a 2 unit class should be. Start the lab reports early and include everything you can possibly think of even if you think its obvious because chances are you will get points taken off for not including the derivation of one little equation that you thought was just a known fact.

This quarter has not ended yet but I really would like to say this is the worst class I've ever taken. Number one, even the TA says the lab manual is poorly written. Number two, I really don't like the way lab reports are graded, because we're often asked to pretend to write real research papers about something everybody knows. I just have no idea how to pretend that way. Also, the requirements for the lab report is very unclear so I end up losing points for reasons that don't make sense. I work in a lab and my PI and postdoc say I write very good abstracts, papers, and proposals, and my scientific writing worked for real conferences, so I don't understand how the grading scheme works. I would seriously prefer the way the chemistry and life sciences departments do the lab classes (though I really hate the chemistry CPR writing assignments). It's week 7, and I haven't learnt anything new from this class. LS23L is also a 2 unit lab class and similarly the professor never showed up, yet I learnt a lot from that class about gel electrophoresis, PCR, and so on that I couldn't learn from other LS classes. I strongly recommend Dr. Campbell to learn from other departments. Number four, I can't believe how much time this class takes; it should really be 4 units instead of 2. What's worse, I don't really learn from the time I spent.

This is one of the worst classes ever. It is a complete and utter waste of time. You learn absolutely nothing meaningful. Perhaps this class should be called a typing lesson or something because all you do it type for pages and pages about some principle of physics that is obviously true. (Why else would they make you do it)? The "experiments" are not as much experiments as they are UCLA's desperate attempt at creating "laboratory" experiences for their undergraduates. However, this class is a complete failure in that sense, since you only need to spend about 10 minutes to collect the data, and the rest is busywork that you do on your own. The professor never shows up, instead it's just a TA that does everything. I can't believe that a professor would actually get paid for "teaching" this class, since they seriously don't do anything. This class could be easily removed from the curriculum and it wouldn't affect any student's understanding of physics.

This is the worst class I've taken so far in my entire life. TAs tend to return your last lab report after you have submitted your newest one, which even seems ideal since mine gave us feedback even two weeks later for the last few experiments. So if you ever make a mistake, you usually make at least twice. This number could be larger when your TA suddenly decides that he would start take points off for some details. This class is basically destroying your quarter from beginning to the end.

Okay this class flat out sucks-and if you are an engineer you basically have to take it. So here is what you do: take it during the summer if you can, work with friends (trust me it wont kill the curve), and learn from your mistakes early on in the class.

First some words on Campbell-he will never be in the class it is taught by you TA 100% Campbell is the one responsible for the sadistic grading scale. It is a strict curve against your OWN section so 1/3 of the 20 students will get A/A- etc. As a student who scored a high grade my advice is that you get older labs to model yours off of and learn from. Lol don't even try to copy, you have to put it through Turn it in. Work with friends in your section and out of your section-compile your lab reports don't make the same mistake you made last week and don't make the same ones your friends did. Keep in mind they grade every single small detail...from commas to tick marks and even printing errors! DO all the extra credit-remember it is a curved class so you kind of have to do it.

Also the work load for this class was insane 10th week I had to write up a 30 page report that too about 30+ hours to do (this happens basically every week if you want a good grade) Usually reports are 15 pages long and take 15-20 hours to do.

If you work with friends then you guys will all set the curve and that is what you need to get a good grade or else be prepared for a really rough time.

Campbell if you ever read this seriously remove the curve there is no need for it and try to listen to the 100's of student who have probably tried to tell you this.

Coming from a guy who got an A+, this class is absolutely terrible. Read any of the below reviews to understand why.