Buchanan has been teaching at UCLA for I think more than 40 years now and he is a retired professor, which is good and maybe also bad. He is super nice and kind as a person but not the best as a teacher. Being retired allowed him to have about 9 hours of office hours a week! It was really nice of him and he was always one to encourage students to go to his office hours. His curve was also very generous which was good. The first midterm had a median of 86 which is REALLY high, and he still gave 88+ an A! For the second midterm, the median was 53ish I believe and he made 74 an A. For the final, the median was a 59 and an A was a 69+ with the highest score being 89. Warning though, his lectures are literally useless and unhelpful. In addition, he has about one assignment due ever 2 days with most of them as tutorials and pre-lessons and every weekend a homework assignment which takse quite a few hours. other than that, he's pretty good if you have some physics background and also keeps up to date on the assignments.

let me tell you about BUCHANAN
personality wise
- he is very nice old man (+70 years old ) and very sweet that about it.

teaching the class & midterms
-he cant teach for shit, you go to the class he put bunch of calculus proofs which nobody cares about and i have no clue why he put it on the board this series is based on trig rather than calculus

-he spends about 15 minutes of class going through announcements, the other half doing the stupid calculus proofs. as for putting problems on the board, it takes forever to solve one problem and he writes very small so you can see shit if your in class of 200 people. he gives some online notes that worthless that wont helpyou at all.

-how did i study for his class, is by stopping attending his lecture because its waste of time and just reading the book beacuse the book does very good job explaining the concepts.

-amonut of work for his class is alot on matering physics, i mean shit due every week like 4 things due even the day befoire the exam and i always hated how he assigned HW before finishing the material.

- exams, the frist midterm that average was ver high lik 87 beacuse the questions were not hard and doable if u knew the homework but fukin the 2nd mitrem was super hard and his ave was 53. his curve for the second was very good. as for the final ave was 60 and if you got 70 you have an A automatically. (he has very genouros curve)

- the exam style, he put some problems to solve, he put some questions without number that you have to solve, and also derive some formulas. the final was same style.

at end i dont recomend you to take him beaucse he not an easy A class and he sucks at teaching and you have to teach yourself in order to pass. i got an B at the end. so if you gona take based on his peronality go ahead but if you gona take thining he is a good teacher and easy class then good luck.

Honestly, avoid this professor if at all possible. He assigns WAY too much work on mastering physics. There's something due every other day in this class and you may think you can skip stuff and still get a good grade, but it all adds up. The other class only had homework due once a week. In a typical week of Buchanan's class, you would have 3 Just-in-Time's that were on material that you needed to read about before he lectured on it, one Etude which was a bunch of practice problems and then the homework. While the point of this all is to help you learn, it was too much and most of the time, students were just filling it the answers to get it done with.
He goes off these hand-written notes a lot that he will send out multiple emails for. If you memorize them and his methods, you'll be good but who has time for all of that? Literally I had a notebook worth of his notes alone that often times weren't in sync with the textbook. In class, he has his back turned to you most of the time while he's writing on the board then turns around and asks if there are any questions. Outside of class, he's a charming elderly man. Very sweet and willing to help his students, and usually has plenty of office hours. The problem here is that he spends most of OH repeating what he said in lecture or going forward to the next lecture, and it leaves you confused. Especially when you only needed help on one part of a multiple-part question.
The first midterm was easy. The second midterm had a median of 53 or 54. The final's median was expected to be the same.
So if you have a good background in Physics, go ahead and take Buchanan, but if you don't try to wait around for another professor or get into tutoring/studygroups/anything you can.

I have never taken physics before and taking it with Buchanan was wonderful!! This professor is awesome and knows everything! He will go out of his way to help you. He never laughed at any of my questions--even though they were really basic. With his class you have to think outside of the textbook. His class makes you apply these concepts to real life and his tests usually involve complicated real life problems. I did alright, but that's because I never took physics. Take this guy if you really want to learn! If you have been exposed to physics before than you'll be fine, and if you haven't and really want to get your money's worth take him. GREAT TEACHER!!! I wish I was exposed to this stuff earlier because I would definitely have done something in physics over medicine.

Decent professor, lectures are boring and pretty useless. He's the sweetest old guy and he really cares about his students, but when it came to teaching I felt like he's past his expiration date. I found it easier to teach myself using the book. I definitely reccomend swartwood's review sessions with John before exams if you're a little shaky on the material. Midterms were fair but the final was difficult, the average was around 54%. He curves generously but I feel like my grade would've been better off (and probably would've learned more) overall with Peroomian or someone else.

He's not the best lecturer around. I actually stopped listening in class after the 2nd week and later stopped going to lecture because his lectures were so useless. His online notes are pretty much all I use to study the night before the exam. I had a very solid background in Physics from high school so the physics he teaches was pretty easy to me. Heck, half of the problems on his exams, I've already seen and done before. But, even if physics isn't easy for you or its your first time with the material, he is a very friendly professor who is very willing to help. Go to office hours and he will explain everything in detail to you slowly until you understand. He really cares about his students. The homework takes quite a bit of time and I honestly don't think they are useful. The labs are even more useless than the homework. They are worth so little points and everyone gets a perfect score as long as you show up. I don't even know why we even have physics labs. The exams are fair in my opinion. But I might be biased since I've seen many of the problems before. The final was pretty hard though because it had rotation, my most hated topic in all of physics. But the best part of the class is his generous curve. I usually grade my own exam after he posts the answers and his grading is usually 8-10 percent higher than the grade I give myself (don't know if its because I'm a hard grader or he is too lenient). All in all, he grades pretty leniently (gives quite a bit of partial credit) and he gives out a pretty big curve. I think I would recommend him especially to those who already had physics before.

Best physics class ever. You'll be lucky to get him, especially if you're like me and have (had) a mental block against physics in general. Buchanan is a good lecturer because its obvious he loves this stuff and he is easy to understand. He's been teaching this material for 41 years, and his experience shows. He is always available outside of class to get help from or discuss a grade on an exam. Very concerned about student learning, overall I could not have asked for a better professor.

WORST CLASS.

took general physics back in high school so i basically knew nothing, which made this class unbearable. his tests were so bad.

lectures weren't terrible, they were just boring, even though he is an adorable little man. could have taught myself the material equally as well or better by just reading the book. good demonstrations though!

midterms weren't that bad, but the final was literally the most difficult problems. about 10 of them if i can remember, and all difficult ones that were basically the advanced problems at the end of the chapter. I dont even know what I got but the average was about 40 out of 200.

get swartwood review sesh with john if you can. i didn't know about it when i took 6A but im sure it would have helped a lot!

definitely better 6A professors out there, like peroomian, so dont take buchanan!

Pretty hard still if you have never taken physics before.

I took him thinking that the class would be easy. Well it wasn't. Maybe it's because I had no prior instruction in physics and I was walking into class completely clueless. His lectures are pointless. He's a nice guy but I'm glad he's retiring, as he is difficult to understand. I had to drop the class because I was spending more time trying to figure out wtf was going on in his class than focusing on my other classes.