PHYSICS 5B
Physics for Life Sciences Majors: Thermodynamics, Fluids, Waves, Light, and Optics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; laboratory, two hours. Requisite: course 5A. Thermal properties of matter, free energy, fluids, ideal gas, diffusion, oscillations, waves, sounds, light, and optics, with applications to biological and biochemical systems. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2019 - Dr. El Alaoui is simply a terrible lecturer so don't take him unless you're willing to teach yourself all the material. I managed to get 98%s on both midterms.... after spending 10+ hours doing all the available practice problems before each exam. His exams all drew problems directly from the homework and lecture examples, but that didn't really help because it was pretty much guaranteed that I wouldn't understand what he was doing in lecture and I would have to go through the textbook and online tutorials to learn how to do them myself. When we tried to ask clarifying questions he would eventually cut us off, saying we were taking too much time. I don't think it's too hard to get a good grade if you're willing to put in the effort, but you will be dragging yourself through the class completely on your own. The labs are also bullshit as always, and Mostafa got so behind in lecture that you would have to do the pre-labs with literally no knowledge of the material. Hell, we skipped the complete last chapter of material entirely. I would recommend taking literally any other professor unless you know all the course content or have a lot of time to spare. The one positive is that he gives formula sheets with his exams.
Spring 2019 - Dr. El Alaoui is simply a terrible lecturer so don't take him unless you're willing to teach yourself all the material. I managed to get 98%s on both midterms.... after spending 10+ hours doing all the available practice problems before each exam. His exams all drew problems directly from the homework and lecture examples, but that didn't really help because it was pretty much guaranteed that I wouldn't understand what he was doing in lecture and I would have to go through the textbook and online tutorials to learn how to do them myself. When we tried to ask clarifying questions he would eventually cut us off, saying we were taking too much time. I don't think it's too hard to get a good grade if you're willing to put in the effort, but you will be dragging yourself through the class completely on your own. The labs are also bullshit as always, and Mostafa got so behind in lecture that you would have to do the pre-labs with literally no knowledge of the material. Hell, we skipped the complete last chapter of material entirely. I would recommend taking literally any other professor unless you know all the course content or have a lot of time to spare. The one positive is that he gives formula sheets with his exams.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Holczer is a very kind professor who genuinely wants his students to succeed. However, he's not the best lecturer. After the first lecture, I never watched another one, even the recordings. His teaching style is vague and his handwriting is difficult to read. Honestly, just read the textbook and you'll be fine. It does a great job explaining concepts and also gives plenty of example problems. The homework for this class is typical for a physics 5 class. There's a weekly problem set and weekly mastering physics questions, but they shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours to complete. In my opinion, the exams (2 midterms, 1 final) were pretty easy, considering that I only watched one lecture throughout the entire quarter. Going through the example problems in the textbook and the problem sets will definitely help you prepare for the exams. So if you want an easy A, which most people do, take Holczer. However, if you want a more engaging lecturer, maybe try a different professor.
Winter 2021 - Holczer is a very kind professor who genuinely wants his students to succeed. However, he's not the best lecturer. After the first lecture, I never watched another one, even the recordings. His teaching style is vague and his handwriting is difficult to read. Honestly, just read the textbook and you'll be fine. It does a great job explaining concepts and also gives plenty of example problems. The homework for this class is typical for a physics 5 class. There's a weekly problem set and weekly mastering physics questions, but they shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours to complete. In my opinion, the exams (2 midterms, 1 final) were pretty easy, considering that I only watched one lecture throughout the entire quarter. Going through the example problems in the textbook and the problem sets will definitely help you prepare for the exams. So if you want an easy A, which most people do, take Holczer. However, if you want a more engaging lecturer, maybe try a different professor.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Not sure what changed, but this professor is actually one of the worst I've ever had at UCLA. From the previous reviews, I was expecting an easy, educational quarter in physics 5B and was even pretty excited for the material. However, this quarter the professor must have changed his way of teaching, and not in a good way. The class is asynchronous, but his lecture videos are basically just reading off the textbook and the concepts are not explained well. Each week, I had to go to office hours to re-learn the material because it was so poorly explained in the videos. He is also not active on Campuswire, and he changed his time for office hours midway through the quarter to a time that many students couldn't attend due to time conflicts. Oh, and his exams are only 35 minutes. So yea, if you are not comfortable learning physics completely on your own with minimal help, don't take this professor for 5B.
Winter 2021 - Not sure what changed, but this professor is actually one of the worst I've ever had at UCLA. From the previous reviews, I was expecting an easy, educational quarter in physics 5B and was even pretty excited for the material. However, this quarter the professor must have changed his way of teaching, and not in a good way. The class is asynchronous, but his lecture videos are basically just reading off the textbook and the concepts are not explained well. Each week, I had to go to office hours to re-learn the material because it was so poorly explained in the videos. He is also not active on Campuswire, and he changed his time for office hours midway through the quarter to a time that many students couldn't attend due to time conflicts. Oh, and his exams are only 35 minutes. So yea, if you are not comfortable learning physics completely on your own with minimal help, don't take this professor for 5B.
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2024 - I had Dr. McKeown for Physics 5A (for some reason not listed here), and going into the course, I was concerned that we would be learning a lot of irrelevant, technical physics that wasn't related to my career path as a pre-med student. However, this wasn't the case, as Dr. McKeown correctly designed this course to be relevant to pre-med students by including topics and concepts that are actually relevant to biology and medicine. Because of this, I was interested in the topics of this course and found what we had to learn to be intriguing rather than tedious. Additionally, Dr. McKeown's lectures were helpful, on-task, and weren't boring. He always stopped to take questions from students and clarified everything thoroughly, which not all professors do. I felt that our quizzes and tests were very reasonable and had nothing unexpected/surprising that strayed from the lectures/homework. I also appreciated how he gave us unlimited attempts/graded the homework on completion, rather than correctness, so we could actually use it as a learning source and not an assessment. Overall, I would highly recommend taking a course with Dr. McKeown as he is passionate about Physics, and teaching his students in an effective and legitimate manner. You definitely won't regret taking a class with him.
Summer 2024 - I had Dr. McKeown for Physics 5A (for some reason not listed here), and going into the course, I was concerned that we would be learning a lot of irrelevant, technical physics that wasn't related to my career path as a pre-med student. However, this wasn't the case, as Dr. McKeown correctly designed this course to be relevant to pre-med students by including topics and concepts that are actually relevant to biology and medicine. Because of this, I was interested in the topics of this course and found what we had to learn to be intriguing rather than tedious. Additionally, Dr. McKeown's lectures were helpful, on-task, and weren't boring. He always stopped to take questions from students and clarified everything thoroughly, which not all professors do. I felt that our quizzes and tests were very reasonable and had nothing unexpected/surprising that strayed from the lectures/homework. I also appreciated how he gave us unlimited attempts/graded the homework on completion, rather than correctness, so we could actually use it as a learning source and not an assessment. Overall, I would highly recommend taking a course with Dr. McKeown as he is passionate about Physics, and teaching his students in an effective and legitimate manner. You definitely won't regret taking a class with him.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2025 - If you do not want to kill yourself by the first midterm, run!! I do not recommend taking this class with this professor. We had our first midterm in week 3 after the chaos of remote learning caused by the LA fires. We had 50 minutes to complete a couple of MCQs and SAQs. The second midterm was sooo much harder than the first, with four MCQ's and six very hard SAQs. I honestly do not think all students could finish all SAQs with the insufficient time we had and the difficulty of the questions. After the second midterm, after seeing how poorly his students did, we were told that our best midterm score would be used for both midterms; all else would stay the same. This shows how poorly the exam went. I do not know what will happen (I am writing this before the final). Students have not heard anything regarding how the grading is going to work. His rating has decreased since starting the winter quarter from 2.4 to 1.6, and it probably will continue to decrease. Mind you, there is only one TA for this class, and he's a champ. There was a lot of miscommunication throughout this quarter. I didn't know where the final would be located because his announcements did not mention them. You wouldn't know where the location would be unless you asked the TA. (I was about to pull up to a different location until my friend told me). Please save yourself and not take this class, even if it's the only one available.
Winter 2025 - If you do not want to kill yourself by the first midterm, run!! I do not recommend taking this class with this professor. We had our first midterm in week 3 after the chaos of remote learning caused by the LA fires. We had 50 minutes to complete a couple of MCQs and SAQs. The second midterm was sooo much harder than the first, with four MCQ's and six very hard SAQs. I honestly do not think all students could finish all SAQs with the insufficient time we had and the difficulty of the questions. After the second midterm, after seeing how poorly his students did, we were told that our best midterm score would be used for both midterms; all else would stay the same. This shows how poorly the exam went. I do not know what will happen (I am writing this before the final). Students have not heard anything regarding how the grading is going to work. His rating has decreased since starting the winter quarter from 2.4 to 1.6, and it probably will continue to decrease. Mind you, there is only one TA for this class, and he's a champ. There was a lot of miscommunication throughout this quarter. I didn't know where the final would be located because his announcements did not mention them. You wouldn't know where the location would be unless you asked the TA. (I was about to pull up to a different location until my friend told me). Please save yourself and not take this class, even if it's the only one available.
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