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 currently studying for my final exam in this class and I couldn't be more frustrated. Several equations on the equations sheets uploaded to Canvas are just straight-up wrong (might I add she will make the same mistakes in lecture). I am currently cross-checking Simpson's versions of the equations to the ones in the Pearson textbook to make sure the information taught to us is actually correct... There are a fair amount of exam-style questions posted to BruinLearn– but they are frankly nothing like the exams.

This is 100% the worst class I have taken at UCLA thus far and it's largely due to the poor instruction. Lectures are abstract and she just writes on the blackboard (good luck seeing anything if you don't get a seat in the front couple rows).

Simpson has also continuously revised the midterm grading policies, leaving ambiguity as to what final grades will look like– I am guessing this was in an effort to keep students in the class because the midterm averages were both around 50-60%. It's hard to believe that students who have passed 5A/5B and have made it to the end of the series are straight-up failing these tests–– well, maybe it's because 500 announcements are made out-loud during 50-minute exam window because Simpson's exams are so unrefined.

Welp. Not sure how I'm going to do in this class. Let's just hope Simpson actually audits her Final Exams such that she doesn't need to make 500 announcements during the exam time to correct her mistakes.

this professor was by far the worst professor I have ever had at UCLA. she absolutely cannot teach: all lectures confused me more than before I even entered the lecture hall. The lecture presentations frequently focused on deriving long formulas with limited focus on practice problems. This left students asking what are we looking at? what are you deriving? what is the point of this formula? how do you even use this formula? I am by no means weak in physics. I have always been great at math and got an A+ in Physics 5B (I even paid $60 an hour for a tutor for this course just to makeup for the incompetent professor). BUT THIS COURSE WAS SO DISORGANIZED. errors were frequently made in the practice problems provided, lecture material, and formula sheet. On top of this, the professor would promise one grading scheme and then go back on that a few weeks later. IT IS WEEK TEN AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MY GRADE IN THIS COURSE IS. AT THE VERY LEAST FOR SOMEBODY WHO IS PAYING TUITION TO BE HERE I SHOULD HAVE SOME INKLING OF WHAT MY GRADE IS SO THAT I CAN HAVE THE OPTION TO DROP THIS ATROCIOUS COURSE. Additionally, I have emailed the professor several times only to get no response to my any of my emails. To add to this, as if what was mentioned wasn't enough, the exams she would administer were of an entirely different caliber than the practice midterm problems she gave us. She would put significantly more difficult problems on the exam, and when the averages came back in the 50s percent-wise, she would "encourage" us to review the practice problems properly. THE ONLY STUDY SOURCE WE HAD WAS THE PRACTICE PROBLEMS, DONT YOU THINK THAT A LACK OF STUDYING OF A FEW STUDENTS WOULDN'T RESULT IN THE ENTIRE AVERAGE BEING 52 OR 55?!?!?! OBVIOUSLY WE ARE NOT THE PROBLEM, IT IS YOU! This was further fueled by the dreaded midterm 2. Professor Simpson informed us that we performed worse than anticipated on midterm 1 so she had talked to the TAs and hopefully, midterm 2 was better. Naturally, students thought the exam would be easier and more similar to the practice problems. NOPE, the average was still 55. This class was the worst class I have ever taken, some people just shouldn't be professors. She showed no value for our concerns as students, communicated horribly, made so many errors, gave us tests that were too challenging, and never properly clarified what the grading scale would be. nobody knows what is going on with this course, including the professor. This is not the type of institution that needs their name tarnished by lackluster professors that could not care less about their students.

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.

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.

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.

“depressing”

When people say the prof matters for you to well in a class, I second-hand that. Learn from my mistake and I urge you to take this course with a professor that has good ratings or has ratings at all!!!!
Red flag #1, she did not have slides. As a visual learner, I could hardly see the chalk on the board and her explanations were extremely poor. In fact, she would take long pauses between sentences as if she didn't know the information herself. I lost motivation after the first midterm which was nothing like the practice exam and the content was worded and formed completely differently. The 5C material is not even bad which frustrates me even more. The tests did not reflect what we learning, especially since she hardly gave practice problems to apply in her lectures.
I urge you to pick any other prof to take this course. it should not have been this much of a headache.