This class was rough! I expected it from a physics class yes but I was not prepared for the written midterm paper that took 4 weeks to grade, and the similar final research paper alongside an actual final exam. Ontop of that we had weekly quizzes every Wednesday at 9am, and we were not allowed to drop any of them. This made it hard to get your grade up again once a little mistake was made. Discussion was easy, graded on completion, and we used Pearson for HW. Overall I wouldn’t take it again with this prof, considering how much more lenient the other physics professor was this quarter, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world considering my lighter workload in other classes

Bauer is a great lecturer, and he's always open to student feedback; I had him for 5A during the summer, obv had him for 5B bc of this review, and taking him again for 5C. I can tell he genuinely makes an effort in wanting to improve his class structure, but with that being said 5B was rough due to all the papers. The midterm paper he assigned took forever to grade bc he overestimated how much time he'd take to give individual feedback, and overall didn't really prepare us for the final paper that ended up weighing 5 times more lol. Since I just went to his 5c lecture, he's since gotten rid of these papers, so I can say with certainty he does indeed listen to student feedback, and will probably not bring these papers back if he decides to teach 5b again.
other reviews may say that he doesn't listen, but also there were so many anon comments and posts on campuswire that quarter begging him to change the grading scale each and every week and being rude when he replies that he just wants grades to be worth something. from a student standpoint, I agree that the grading scale was rough (my grade might fool you but I barely made that adjusted grade cutoff), but there was no need for bitterness. show some respect.

material wise, 5b is easier to understand than 5a, bc it's a lot easier to conceptualize. labs are also less frustrating bc we no longer deal with tracker (instead, get ready for your new best friends phyphox and imageJ, which aren't that bad honestly).

bauer does prerecorded lecture vids that he plays during the lecture time, so attendance for that isn't necessary. he explains things very simply yet concisely. I've never taken physics before in my life but have so far been doing well in the series bc it's easy to understand him
(or maybe bc it's also online lol)

even under a sh/tty grading scale, i'd still choose bauer over any other prof. he lectures well, and if you genuinely want to learn something, you can trust that he'll deliver. he recommends reading the book for supplement, but honestly his lectures are enough for understanding material and formulas if you'd rather apply that time elsewhere (such as doing practice problems). the book is great review for looking at problems and examples though, since he doesn't incorporate a lot of those in his videos due to time constraints. also, do all the practice problems he suggests so that you actually understand how to apply the formulas (and this means actually doing them, not looking at solutions unless checking your work, so that you're actively applying what you learned). having a cheat sheet alone will not prep you enough for his exams, which tend to be on the harder side since topics are often interconnected.

Dr. Bauer is amazing and extremely helpful. I highly recommend taking any/all physics courses with him!

((taken online during the pandemic))

general class impression:
as someone who's only taken physics through the 5 series at UCLA as opposed to AP Physics in high school, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed 5C, or physics at all for that matter. Hated 5A (damn u newton), tolerated 5B (water's kinda cool ig), and loved how applicable 5C was to daily life. DJ Bauer never disappoints in terms of lecture (had him for the entire series): he always uploaded prerecorded lectures in a consistent manner, and explained each concept and formula very thoroughly; also gave us optional readings (most of my classmates didn't even touch the book, but I found it helpful for the examples since there was not enough lecture time to go through formula applications) and practice problems. we had weekly quizzes starting week 2 (9 total, one dropped) which was kinda stressful but worth it in the long run, because no midterms, and the final was only worth 10% of our course grade.

grade breakdown:
Discussion 10% (weekly worksheets based on completion and attendance, easy points)
Final exam 10% (only 3 problems in 90 minutes)
Homework (Mastering Physics) 10%
Labs 15% (since the majority of the course is on electromagnetism, you'll be working with circuits! you have the option to purchase a physical circuit for ~$80 or just do free online simulations, but I found the simulations to be more straightforward and less of a financial burden)
Quizzes 55% (9 total taken during class time on gradescope, 1 dropped)

Extra credit 0.6% (campuswire posts, meant to help you in case you were close to the next highest letter grade since he does not round grades)

Scale:
A 93%
A- 90%
B+ 87%
B 83%
B- 80%
C+ 75%
C 70%
C- 65%
D+ 60%
D 55%
D- 50%
F <50%
with "A+ awarded at the professor's discretion for extraordinary achievement in the course"

tips:
as the majority of our grade is based on weekly quizzes, do those extra practice problems in the schedule every week and study ahead of time! I found the mastering problems to be too easy compared to the quiz difficulty since his quizzes tend to combine concepts in parts instead of explicitly stating an exact formula you have to use like in mastering; the extra practice problems in the textbook do a better job of having you apply concepts more broadly. quiz difficulty ranges each week, but partial credit is given for using the correct formulas even if your numeral answers are incorrect. this doesn't mean just memorize formulas, though—conceptual understanding is fundamental to doing well in this course (as with any other course, but physics especially imo)! if you don't understand something, tackle it straight away because each week builds upon each other. best of luck, and don't feel intimidated by the name because it was personally the most straightforward of the series! :)

This was my first college physics course since high school and I definitely felt that this class was very time consuming (which it should be) because I had to find extra resources to really understand the material on my own. I will say that there were a lot of Khan Academy Videos and Organic Chemistry Tutor videos that were amazing! I think the professor explained concepts well in lecture; however, the practice problems were sooooo simple in comparison to the weekly quizzes. Even the old practice exams/ quizzes I thought were much easier compared to the quizzes he gave us. Don't get me wrong there were a few quizzes that were definitely easier than others, but overall the quizzes were on the difficult side. Here was the breakdown for the course:

Discussion: 5%
Final Exam: 10%
Homework (Mastering Physics): 10%
Laboratory: 15%
Quizzes: 60%
Extra Credit (Campuswire): 0.1%-0.3%

The Quizzes took place every Wednesday and you only had 50 minutes to complete the quiz and upload to Gradescope, otherwise it was late and not accepted. On the bright side you were able to drop 2 quizzes; however, that meant every quiz was worth about 9% of your grade in the class. What really helped me succeed on the quizzes was going through the book, I found that a lot of the quizzes were reflective of the sample problems in the chapters!!!! I found mastering physics to be the most helpful in terms of practice problems. In office hours the professor was very helpful answering questions. Lab was also time consuming, but my TA graded generously and I got 100 on all those. I found discussion to not be very helpful, we would work on worksheets and no one ever talked in our breakout room. In the end I finished with an 89.5% and wasn't rounded up (very frustrating). I would say just to try to work through as many problems as you can and really understand them, ask questions, and work through the sample problems in the book!

Dr. Bauer was a pretty good professor.
I felt that his lectures and notes were pretty solid overall. Unlike other phyics professors who just scribble jargon down, Dr. Bauer's notes were actually pretty organized and easy to follow, albeit he wrote all of his notes using OneNote which made it a pain to go back to review his notes later.
Class was on a straight scale, but the cutoffs were pretty lenient, 60% for a C- and 75% for a B-
The class had no midterms but instead had a weekly quiz and a final, each timed, 40 minutes for the quizzes, and 3 hours for the final, so as we move back to in person classes, your experience will probably stay relatively the same.

I felt that the quizzes were a bit on the difficult side, but Dr. Bauer seemed to account for this and made the final much easier.
(He did mention that he had to do the opposite in another quarter: where he made the quizzes way too easy and had to adjust by making the final much harder, so if you feel that the quizzes are too hard or too easy, expect the final to be the opposite)

My only gripe with the class was that Dr. Bauer barely gave any example problems in lecture, if at all. This made studying for the quizzes a pain because it truly felt impossible to know exactly what we would be tested on. All it felt like you can do to prepare was do all of the practice and challenge problems he assigned to get the overall idea and hope for the best.

Overall I enjoyed the class and I managed to pull off a better grade than I expected thanks to the easier final. I didn't do very well in 1A and I was nervous moving on to 1B, but Dr. Bauer manages to teach the course in a very clear manner and I actually felt like I understood what was going on for the most part.

This is just my experience, but after taking the MCAT and having to study some of the concepts for that exam, relearning them in class was a bit weird because the difficult topics (or at least ones that were difficult for me) like fluids and optics weren't explained as in-depth as thermodynamics. Maybe this is just the way the course is set up, but I honestly reverted to my MCAT notes to review the concepts because lecture didn't do enough for me.

I would definitely take some time in addition to lecture, lab, and discussion to do practice textbook problems. The main reason why I struggled with the biweekly quizzes is that I just memorized the equations and assumed that the word problems would be straight plug and chug (which was not the case!!). I think this class is doable with Bauer, and he's not a bad professor, around average I'd say.

I really liked how Professor's Bauer's taught and his quizzes and tests were very reasonable.

I literally hated this class with my guts. One time I asked Prof Bauer a question and he said "I feel like you should know how to do this"... very unhelpful. Take w another prof if u can. Also he does Mastering Physics and I HATE THAT SHIT

Professor Bauer has well-organized lectures, and the class material is easy to access, with the slides always posted before class/ the recording of lecture also posted ASAP. The slides (in combination with paying attention while he's explaining them) are easy to understand, and he works out practice problems in lecture as you go, which is helpful. In office hours or after class, Bauer is approachable and clearly happy to help if you are confused or have questions. Also, I liked his lecture style, and he seems to care a lot about student success/ has altered the structure of the class in response to feedback before, which is nice.
For test difficulty, it appears to vary between quarters, but he will curve up if needed, and alter the difficulty of midterm II/ the final accordingly (he will not curve down). I found the tests to be very reasonable, and the homework + extra practice problems Bauer provides from the textbook or writes are good preparation. You don't have to worry about derivatives, and are given an equation sheet with everything relevant on it for all of the tests, which is convenient, so you just have to worry about correctly understanding/ applying equations, and can easily know what's actually relevant to study.
I had never taken any physics before, but found the class to be very doable and easy to follow. The reviews saying you need to have a physics background to follow the class/ that he doesn't explain his slides should have gone to lecture more maybe, as neither is true haha