COURSE TAKEN: 6C

ABOUT THE PROFESSOR:
Niemann is monotone professor, who like any other physics professor, is usually rushed for time to complete lecture. He's like you're average not good not bad kinda guy.

THE CLASS:
6C is like a miscellaneous course for the 6 series with all the concepts seemingly having not much connection with each other. They're all like the left over topics.

HIS TESTS:
1/3 Multiple Choice conceptual 2/3 calculations and problem solving. Make sure you understand everything conceptually because the MT choice is what sets the curve. But at the same time get as much partial credit for the Free response if you're stuck.

RESOURCES:
Practice tests that he gives as well as Test bank.
The TA Office hours are very helpful since TAs are more in depth and student-friendly in problem solving and explaining.

Things I would've done differently:
Not much really. Just gotta make sure you know the conceptual aspect, because you're allowed cheat sheets for midterms and finals.

PHYSICS 1B

Professor Niemann was awesome. His lectures are very well paced. Tells the students what to study and what to ignore from the textbook. The tests were three questions with multiple parts but they were very doable. Final had 5 questions but most people who knew what they were doing finished in the first hour and half. The class is curved so it will be a struggle to get an A

You get to choose one out of two midterms. 20% HW (mastering physics) 30% Midterm and 50% final. Since everyone will choose the better score, final determined everything.

But other than that lectures were very well paced and clear. Arguably better than textbook. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I had Niemann for Physics 6C, Fall 2009. Overall, I had a very good experience in this class. His voice is a little monotone and he has an accent, but I was still able to understand and get through his lectures just fine. Niemann always spends the first 10 or 15 minutes of every lecture reviewing the material he taught during the previous lecture, so you pretty much get lectured on the same exact material twice, which I found to be very helpful since the most important concepts are emphasized again and again. I definitely think it's important to go to class because he writes a lot of notes on the board. I found that the class notes that I took were incredibly helpful because he bases much of his midterm and final on the concepts that were emphasized in class/written on the board. His midterm and final exam were both very reasonable. He tests you on the important concepts that he emphasized in class -- he doesn't try to screw you over by putting up some ridiculous questions that you've never seen before. The exams were about half concept questions and half questions that you had to work out. Overall, I loved Niemann as a professor because I felt that he did a good job teaching the material and because his exams were very fair. Physics 6C is supposed to be a hard class, but the material didn't feel too overwhelming at all because Niemann does a good job of simplifying and teaching the most important concepts to you. However, be aware that at the end of the quarter, a lot of students emailed Niemann complaining about their final grade. I guess since most of the students felt they did well in the class, they all expected to get good grades. However, Niemann DOES grade on a CURVE so... (this is what Niemann wrote in his final email to the class), "unfortunately [this means] that you could all be geniuses and still the students with the weakest score would get a D." I luckily ended up with an A, and I think an A is definitely achievable if you just make the effort to go to every single lecture, take really good notes, & keep up w/ the material so you can do well on the exams.

Niemann is not the BEST lecturer but he posted notes for us for every lecture which were very organized and easy to understand. He also lets you drop either midterm or hw grade to give you the best grade possible in the class. His tests are very reasonable and he prepares you well for them and gives you a past midterm with answers to study with. I would take him again if I had the chance.

He wasn't listed under the physics department, but I got Niemann for Physics 6C.
Very boring professor for a very boring subject. He can be very monotoned, but he does put a lot of effort into presenting his topics. He is very repetitive and likes to review everything from the previous lectures just to make sure that you get the point. He lectures straight out of the textbook, so reading the book would probably be helpful.
He only has one midterm, which was half concepts (multiple choice questions) and half work out problems. The questions are very to the point, but the concept questions can trip you up.
The class is graded on some mysterious curve at the end of the quarter. A lot of people unexpectedly got lower grades after final grades were calculated. Since everyone pretty much gets 100% on the HW and the labs, your grade is dependent on the midterm/final only.

I really didn't do anything for this class... barely did the homework, never went to lecture, just studied some formulas before the midterms and finals... which worked well for the midterms, his first two midterms were easy... like if you took physics 1B and got an A you don't have to study easy, but his final was hard. large part was conceptual questions that i probably got wrong, the other ones were do-able. either way from what i hear the EE1 teachers are hard but niemann really isn't... take him if you can!

He is not a great professor. He is decent. To be honest, the material is simply horrible unless you dream about magnetic and electric fields every night.

His homeworks were fair, his tests were fair. His class is composed of 5 units, but he drops the unit that had the lowest score.

Homework: 1 unit
Midterm 1: 1 unit
Midterm 2: 1 unit
Final: 2 units

I stopped going to lecture after 4th week, and was OK. He's not exciting, but he isn't completely useless.