5C is rumored to be the easiest in the 5 series, but I would repeat 5B five times before taking 5C again with Simpson. I want to like her and have nothing against her as a person, but it is clear with every passing day that she is not equipped to teach. She only uses the blackboard for lectures, which is fine, but she miswrites equations at least once in most lectures. She spends lecture sharing the philosophy/derivations behind certain concepts but never tells us how to apply them to problems, or even mentions which formulas to use half the time. I don't need to be spoon fed, but I have never felt so lost in a class until now and I have dealt with many other first-time professors and started in the Physics 1+Math 32 series. I have been teaching myself entirely out of the book for the first time in my life (which is a regular old physics textbook, not like a "for dummies" handbook) and learning the important equations from the directions/hints on the MasteringPhysics homework.
The average on the first midterm was a 52, which is lower than any other class I've ever taken, and for reference I'm a godawful test taker but managed an A on my 5B midterms. She told us she hopes we do better next time (bruh), as if collectively failing was a reflection of us. She also said she would curve grades up to an average of 85 (!), which is more than generous, but then she decided after the first midterm that she will not adjust any raw scores until we have our final grades. She will not commit to a curving scheme until after we finish the class, so we really have no way to know how we are doing until it's too late.
Again, she has her upsides. She is curving generously, releases (messy) practice midterms, does (unproductive) midterm review sessions, is dropping our lowest midterm, and she never seems unkind or unwilling to help. Also, all the TAs are helpful. I want her to improve and hope she does with time. But this quarter with her was a nightmare. Ok sorry for writing a whole dissertation. Just be careful yall. xoxo gossip girl

KILL ME OR KILL HER plz.
FELT LIKE HELL ALL THE TIME. THE WORST PROFESSOR EVER.

Simpson was far and away the worst professor I have ever seen. Cannot believe how a professor can be so unclear with content. Even with bad physics professors, so long as you can learn the equations and learn to apply them on your own, you have a chance. Not with this professor. Not only did Simpson often give us incorrect or errorful equations, but she also gave very few practice problems to use them on. I remember one lecture, in the midst of her 20 minute tangent on the derivation of the formula (which had no relevance to the lecture or the class in general), she continuously stopped to switch the equation from positive to negative, and in the end, came to no conclusion. This was just one of many similar occurrences. As a matter of fact, it was actually more shocking when there wasn't a mistake in the lecture notes than there was. On the rarity that she actually did get the equation right, it was through the most confusing, inapplicable, and convoluted explanation you've ever heard. The only reason to go to Simpson's lecture was to get the name of the equation and topics we were learning so that you can self learn it later, and even then, you still had to somehow find a way to go back to learn Simpson's version of it. I'm not exaggerating when I say Simpson couldn't teach simple vector addition on the first day, so imagine how bad it was when we were learning particle theory and quantum.

As far as the exams went. what everyone says is largely true. Lecture was nothing like the homework, homework nothing like the practice exam, and practice exam nothing like the actual exam. This resulted in very low averages on the midterm which were naturally also full of mistakes. However, the one small positive (and I mean small), is that at least after the first midterm, I'd say the difficulty of exam decreased, at least in the level of math and trig required to solve the problems, as the math on the first exam was far too complex, especially for a 50 min midterm. The final was actually pretty easy, but this came largely as an attempt by Simpson to save the course average and help the headache of the curving scheme she is still figuring out, but it definitely was easier than other 5C finals. I don't even take this as a positive of Simpson though, rather as a reflection of just how poor the state of her teaching was that all she could reasonably ask on a final exam was baseline-level questions.

I know Simpson is teaching next quarter, and obviously try to avoid if you can, but it is doable in the end. Definitely focus on self-learning (khan academy carried my quarter), and don't really bother with Simpson's content as anything more than a reference for what topics you should learn. Also, while I doubt she will improve as a teacher, and will likely be just as unclear and unprofessional, she did show progression in her exams through the quarter, so next quarter shouldn't be nearly as bad as this one was.

I would advise anyone to avoid taking this class with Simpson if possible. She is incredibly new and it shows. Her lectures have almost all had mistakes throughout them and students in the class have to correct her as she teaches. She only teaches theory and goes over formulas but never explains how to use them so completing her homework is always incredibly tough. There is one homework assignment per week so the mandatory required work for the class is pretty low which is nice but you are almost always unprepared for them so they take forever. Her two midterms were incredibly difficult and also full of mistakes that she had to try to announce while everyone was taking the test. I even got an A on the first midterm based on the curve so am not writing this as a salty student, its really just an awful class. The TAs are at least helpful and try to catch you up but the lectures were eventually useless for learning any content because of how poorly she was teaching the class. The labs are also pretty easy but don't really help because you are so confused on the content they are trying to connect on in the lab. She is really nice and I think is just new but if you want to avoid a horribly organized and taught class I would take this with anyone else.

THE ABSOLUTE WORST PROFESSOR I HAVE EVER HAD. I have had many controversial profs at UCLA and NONE of them even compare to how bad this prof is. Avoid taking this class at all costs with Simpson!! She is so ridiculously unclear and erroneous during lectures that you have to do so much self-teaching on your time. Typically this is understandable in other classes, but definitely not to THIS extent. Prof makes so many mistakes and lectures do not cover questions remotely similar to the exams. The prof also never responds to emails (multiple students have stated this in the GroupMe as well). There are also so many mistakes on the practice exams and notes/answer keys that she posts that you can't even use those materials to study off of. Many students have also caught these mistakes and have alerted her but she does not post new announcements regarding the mistakes so if you don't actively check the GroupMe, you may be studying incorrect material. Her grading scheme is also so unclear, but many reviews have already elaborated on this. I've had three new profs in the past and NONE of them were even remotely this bad.

I struggled a lot in 5A and 5B but ended up with an A in both, but this class's difficulty with this professor did not even compare to the previous classes. I don't even think the content is that bad--it's really just this professor.

Also, she reads her lecture notes off her phone and has ran out of the room repeatedly to get batteries? She also talked about her landlord calling her? This professor is so unprofessional that it's almost comical at times.

The WORST professor I have ever had in my entire life, by a landslide. It is evident that Simpson has no idea what she is doing as a professor because this class has been a complete mess since the very first day. 5C is by no means an easy physics course on its own but it would definitely be much more manageable with any other professor. I regret not dropping this course when I had the chance because taking this class with Simpson has been the greatest disservice to myself and my learning. I can confidently say that I will be leaving this course with close to no knowledge about electromagnetism at all. Simpson spends every single lecture rambling about abstract physics theories and concepts that are far, far beyond the scope of this class and our knowledge (as life science majors or otherwise). She has spent the last 10 weeks deriving formulaic equations on the blackboard and has a track record of making many mistakes while doing so— which she has admitted she often “doesn’t bother to correct”. Most of these formulas aren’t even ones that we are supposed to be responsible for knowing, and it has been beyond me why and how she thinks our learning will be benefitted in any way by anything she believes she is teaching us. I can hardly find the words to describe how bad our exam situation has been, but it is reflected in our weak class averages of 52% and 57% for midterms 1 and 2 respectively. Most people are failing this class or doing very poorly, and Simpson does not seem to care in the slightest as she made no changes to the ridiculous level of difficulty of the exams after midterm 1. What’s even worse is that she also makes numerous mistake on every exam/ answer key she writes, and will interrupt us multiple times during our 50-minute midterm to make corrections. She writes them on the chalkboard such that most students at the back of the lecture hall are unable to make out the corrections, and have to waste more time calling over a TA to clarify them, as if they weren’t already running short on time. She also could not seem to make her mind up on her grading policy, first promising a generous curve then taking it back weeks later and saying there would only be a curve at the very end of the course (this would help our grades significantly less). The exams are nothing like the homework, and the homework is nothing like the lectures. This entire quarter has been extremely frustrating and at this point I’m at a loss as to how to prepare for the final because her tests are virtually impossible to anticipate due to the nature of the questions she makes up, which are nothing like anything we’ve seen before.

TLDR: Take this class with any other professor or wait for another quarter, you’ll be wasting your own time and effort studying for something you can’t ever be prepared for, and tanking your GPA while you’re at it.

This instructor mentioned they were new at the beginning of the course and it was clear that they are passionate about teaching and cared about student learning. However, throughout the course, I experienced many issues with the way this professor taught the class, wrote exams, and communicated with the class. Firstly, the professor lectured by reading their notes on their phone and copying it down to the chalkboard, which did not feel very engaging. When asked questions about content, the professor answered to the best of their knowledge but often times the answers did not really satisfy the question. Further, the professor promised to curve the first midterm to an 85%, and after the average was a 52% (which was posted after the drop deadline), she decided she was no longer curving the midterm, but rather that the second one could replace the first one. This would have been fine, but the second midterm had numerous errors on it that the professor attempted to fix by writing corrections on the chalk board during the midterm. Many students were unable to read the board from the back of the room, which felt quite unfair. The stress and anxiety that this course has induced is definitely not worth it. I recommend waiting for another professor to teach 5C if possible as I have heard from others that the course is quite manageable with other professors.

This is the absolute worst professor at UCLA and I'm currently taking biochem with a prof that has only 3 midterms and a final for the grade. It was really unfair for UCLA to switch the professors last minute. I enrolled thinking that I would be taking this class with Hamilton, who I had been recommended by someone who took this class last quarter, but then in the middle of the summer as I am checking MyUCLA I see that they have changed the professor. The physics department didn't say anything and there was nothing I could do to change this since physics is already so hard to get into. I also learned that she was a TA for this class last quarter, but clearly didn't learn anything from the prof she was TAing for. After midterm 1, the average was a 52% and she tried to gaslight us into thinking it was our fault for not studying hard enough. The practice problems that she provided weren't a true indication of the level of difficulty that the test was going to be. Her wording in class and on the tests are so confusing that I honestly stopped going to class at all after the first midterm and I did significantly better (still not great) and I did that from doing the material by myself. Her equation sheets have so many errors and she has to correct herself multiple times during the midterms, which she started late both times and didn't give us the extra time so that we had the full 50 min. I had hoped that physics 5c wasn't going to be horrible after hearing from my friends who took it last year, but it is absolutely horrendous and I would never put my worst enemy in this class with Simpson.

I am almost finished with my undergraduate career and have been through plenty of tough classes, but nothing could have prepared me for the absolute nightmare that was this class. I had heard from friends that the material in 5C could be tricky, but with a good or even decent professor it was doable. I think it's evident from the other reviews that this was far from our experience with Dr. Simpson. I can't believe it was only once after final grades were posted that she decided to write a passive aggressive email to us sent at 1:39 AM to let us know how she ultimately decided to adjust up after we collectively bombed both midterms, and then said she will not be taking requests for grade adjustments (which is frustrating because the final exams were graded quite harshly and I wanted to submit a regrade request). I lived the whole quarter in a constant state of fear not knowing if I would even pass the class because she was so wishy washy about what the grading scheme would even be. Maybe don't design tests we aren't equipped for because your lectures hardly ever go through applications of concepts, make TAs grade exams ungenerously, constantly make errors in the wording of exams and the formulas/constants sheets, not give us assurance as we perpetually struggle and fail, and then act shocked that we are coming to you with questions after all of that? There is *so much* for her to learn about being a professional, such as maintaining timely and accurate communication with students and in general being able to better organize and execute this course as she teaches it again to a new group of poor students... May she improve enough so they don't suffer quite as much as we did.

As everyone else has mentioned, this professor has by far been the worst professor I have taken at this school. I had her as a TA for 5A and never liked her because the way she taught was confusing and when I realized she was the professor for this class I knew I was in for it. I understand the difficulties of being a first time professor and can't imagine it being easy, especially teaching a difficult class like physics, but I can't even sympathize with her because she was so bad. I have never had a professor who is so unclear about every aspect of the class to the point where I am beyond lost. Her lectures were an absolute waste of time because you would only get more confused listening to her "teach." The way she explained the concepts was so complicated and it was as if she were teaching us like we already knew the content perfectly. I assumed that given she was new the exams would probably be easier and I could not be more wrong. Nothing and I mean nothing helped prepare for the exams. The lectures had nothing to do with the content besides maybe one out of the fifty different equations she gave us. The homework was simply a waste of time and the practice exams did not accurately reflect the exams. If it could not get any worse the way she graded/curved was not fair in my opinion. I did well above average on both midterms and got all points in the homework and lab sections yet it still wasn't enough. She was sooo unclear about how she would grade and changed her mind so many times where none of us knew what would happen. You would think averages of about 55% on both midterms would indicate to her that she was the problem but nope that one is on us apparently. I hated this class and absolutely do not recommend.