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.

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.

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.

Why I don't recommend taking the class with Professor Simpson:

- Midterm 1&2 averages were 52 and 56, which is normally unheard of in the Physics 5 series.
- 50-minute midterm exams would start with the professor writing on the board all the mistakes in the exam.
- The professor is genuinely very unskilled in lecturing. I feel like she finished her sentence in her head but not vocally when she answers questions. I can't tell if she is not confident about her answer, she doesn't want to finish her explanation, doesn't know the answer, or none of the above.
- I enjoyed Physics 5A and 5B and managed to get a A+ in both classes. Meanwhile, in this class, I was scoring 60s in the midterms (and so was everyone else).

Why I recommend taking the class with Professor Simpson:
- If you have absolutely no other professor to take this class with
- She can curve the class if she decides that she can't fail everyone

AVOID THIS PROFESSOR.

When I first walked into class, I was skeptical of her teaching because of the lack of slides. "That's fine. She must know her stuff to teach without slides to guide the content of the lecture." Absolutely not. She paused every sentence or two to stare at the notes on her phone and it completely ruined the flow of the lecture. It wasn't comprehensive in the slightest. "No matter. I'll just look at the posted notes." I took a look at the raw notes, and they were a mess. Her handwriting was horrendous. "That's fine. I'll look at the typed notes from the book content." But announcements about typos on the typed notes were not uncommon. "Oh well. I'll just rewatch the lecture." When I watched the lecture recording, I could barely hear anything she was saying because she mumbled into the mic and peaked it so often that I'd just miss what she wanted to say. "It's fine. I did the homework and labs well. I should be able to do well on the exams." The averages were horrendous (52 and 57% respectively). "I'm sure she'll curve the exams accordingly." Haha.

Throughout this entire quarter, Professor Simpson has been extremely unclear about grading curves and course expectations. If her midterm scores are any indicator of her success as a professor, Midterm 1 had an average of 52%, while Midterm 2 had an average of 58%. Even her Final Exam had an average of about 69%. Given this, and knowing that the vast majority of students were able to receive close to full marks on the other coursework (i.e. homework and labs), it would be natural and logical to curve the exam scores separately.
This however was not the case. Our grades were calculated on a curve with our other coursework serving as a buffer. Because of this, many students ended with final grades in the B/B+ range, despite excelling in the exams compared to other classmates.
In previous quarters, about 50-60% of students were able to earn grades in the A/A+ range.
Naturally, a lot of students, including me, are. Irked. This class caused me so much stress and emotional turmoil, and now, because of Simpson's laziness, my GPA's been lowered. Do yourself a favor. Avoid this professor.

Please don't take this class. Even as a last resort. I had a really hard time getting my physics classes and could never take them one after another and I still would have waited another year if it meant I got a better professor. She is nice as a person, but thinks way too fast to ever adequately explain anything. I got an A in 5B and 5A and put in way more work into this class than either of those and still got a B. I went to an average of 3 hours of office hours a week (Prof and TA OH), had a study group, read the textbook, and used additional youtube vids for help and still couldn't understand anything. Homeworks were SO hard and took soo much time. Please don't take this class with Simpson unless there's absolutely no other option.

In all honestly, I do not this Simpson was the worst. I came in seeing all the reviews from Physics 5C and was very nervous coming in. With only 44 people enrolled in the whole class, I definitely felt intimidated and scared. Coming from a C+ in 1A I was definitely scared. However, while she isn’t the greatest lecturer, I felt like she is very supportive and genuinely wants us to succeed. Her exams are difficult (midterms are way harder than the final exam) but, she offers generous extra credit when you do test corrections and curves the final grade. Even when I missed the last page of exam 2, the extra credit saved my ass since you can earn up to 25% of your lost points back as extra credit. While she isn’t the best, she is trying her best and I can feel that she wants us to succeed.

Lectures are like a journey into the Bermuda Triangle - you enter with hope, but your understanding mysteriously disappears. It's like a magic trick gone wrong - you start off hopeful, but end up wondering if you accidentally wandered into a comedy show instead. By the end of the quarter, students didn't even show up to lecture. I ended up just learning from my roommate and the textbook.

But hey, on the bright side, attending their class is a great way to appreciate the intricacies of the universe... by marveling at how someone can make such an interesting subject so mind-numbingly dull. You'll be taking a crash course in patience and resilience. After all, if you can survive their lectures without questioning the very fabric of reality, you can survive anything.

Prior to taking the class, I was already aware that the content would be difficult but in addition to the actual structure of this class taught by professor Simpson, this may have been one of the worse classes I've taken at UCLA. I struggled with physics in the past but with previous professors, I was always able to manage through the class but with this professor, this felt impossible, especially if i were to only rely on her lectures. Her lectures and overall class in general always felt so disorganized as she is frequently making mistakes and second guessed herself. Her notes are put in a weird format and she usually just copies stuff off her phone and derives equations during lecture which is not very helpful when putting it to use for the exams. The practice problems she goes over in class are very baseline and does not help much in my opinion. Additionally, her practice exams also set us up for basically nothing when the actual exam happens. Not only did her review session make me even more confused but her solution guide for the practice exams were useless as it just gave the equations and the answer and did not really show how to go through each step, as all her notes and solutions were typed which also threw me off. Watching lectures and trying to do the homework for a class has never been this frustrating. And it is genuinely sad to see how many people walk out of her midterms feeling this defeated.

I've sat on this review forever because I barely processed the hell of a quarter I experienced with ANNA SIMPSON as my professor. I chose to taken 5C because I have always struggled in physics and heard through the grapevine that 5B was harder. I saw that 5C had a highly rated professor and enrolled. Sadly, that professor was replaced by Anna sometime before the quarter started. I thought: "How bad can taking this class with a new professor be?" I was VERY wrong.

Hiring this professor demonstrates exactly how little UCLA cares for their students. UCLA throws unqualified faculty to teach a course that is categorized as a "weeder" course. I am unsure whether this is to weed students out faster or they just hate us. But if they wanted to weed the most students out, Simpson is the way to go!

Professor Simpson is probably a great person (outside of 5c), but her unpreparedness when coming to lecture and her unwillingness to improve herself shows how little she actually cares for her students. When the class average for the first midterm was announced to be a 52 percent, instead of reflecting on whether it may have been how she presented/taught the material she instead belittled students by stating that she "misjudged our academic abilities."

After the first midterm, did she improve in her teaching style? Did she look deep down and reflect on whether she may have been at fault for the poor exam grades? Did she try to improve during her lectures and actually give us examples instead of spending 50 minutes deriving an equation that she does not explain how to use? NOPE!!! She continued the way she was.

Her lectures are extremely unorganized, make no sense, and often have many errors. Attending lecture is often a waste of time because you end up more confused than you already were. If you want to understand the concept, you'll have to watch tutoring videos outside of lecture.

Exams were an absolute joke. "She won't possibly test me on this one topic she spent a max of 3 minutes talking about!" WRONG. She'll do exactly that. Exams also often have a million mistakes in them and she will often have to clarify what she even is asking in the question.

Final grades are just as confusing as her lectures. Her syllabus lacks the grade breakdown, so maybe this came as an advantage to her because she couldn't be held accountable. It was unclear whether she graded the final grades entirely or curved the individual scores (ie. midterm 1 scores, midterm 2 scores), and to this day I still don't know how she came up with her grades. I barely scathed by getting a B because I was able to keep up with the exam averages (F's).

One piece of advice: STAY AWAY!!!

I would never wish taking this class with Anna even on my worst enemy. Im so glad that hell of a class is over for me. For those in her class rn or those forced to take her... Im so sorry.