Overall a lot of the reviews from this first quarter have been impacted by both the traumatic and chaotic circumstances the class was taken under, and the responses from professor West. To those reading reviews from the same time period take both sides with a pinch of salt, as no side is entirely right or wrong. Both the student body and the professor could have been more effective and considerate with their responses. As such I will spend my review explaining both sides and hopefully providing insight into how one should consider the potential taking of a class with Professor West.
1.) Professor - Overall her teaching style is perfectly fine, with plenty of supplementary examples and a strong emphasis on understanding how and why given equations work the way they do. All of this works towards furthering the classes understanding of the underlying principals of physics through the learning of real world examples and logical reasoning. Furthermore, she is a nice and approachable person so there are no direct barriers to asking for help; in the online setting she periodically stops to answer questions and attempts to clarify the less direct points of learning. All that being said from this standpoint she is also a new professor, and as such has plenty of areas to focus on improvement. While I personally may not agree with the approach she took with regard to providing accommodations for those negatively impacted by the rioting and protests over the events surrounding George Floyd, she did have solid reasoning for what she did. However, much of the breakdown and frustration over the response came due to the use of impartial language in its delivery, as well as the reckless declaration of standpoints on a student's role in a university and as a person. It was clear that personal beliefs impacted her decision making, something I believe should be kept separate from the classroom setting. In addition, the tests provided were exceptionally difficult without a sufficient curve to back up one's proportional learning among the class (i.e. a score of 56% was left as raw for grading purposes despite that being the median score - something generally warranting a 70-80% in other classes). Finally, her use of a 50/50 split between AB grades and CDF grades is highly unorthodox, and potentially offers little to no benefit for those taking her class. Personally, I believe the implementation of a standardized z-score curve about a B or B+, a more traditional approach, would be more equitable and effectively reward students for their hard work (as it more accurately and fairly demonstrates one's placement within the class).
2.) Students - As mentioned before and is evident by the less than impartial reviews, a significant portion of the class was left dissatisfied with the professor's response to the disastrous circumstances of 2020 Spring Quarter, particularly with the style of the final exam. Much of the distaste surrounding the topic was due to the inequitable implementation of recommendations from the Academic Senate and Physics Department, both of which strongly recommended the use of a "No-Harm" final where it could not negatively impact your score. West's rejection of that recommendation, instead choosing to simply fluctuate the weighting of the final exam left many to object — especially given the fact that other 1A and 1B courses chose the No-Harm route. While the pursuit for accommodations on a similar scale was not unjustified, the emotional response, choosing to bash the professor was uncalled for. She clearly cared about the well-being of the class, its just her words were not always well-reflected by her actions. Claims of support while providing minimal ease or accommodations left plenty to lash out emotionally, resulting in her being called heartless, detached, unsympathetic etc.

Overall, take this however you will, personally I see no issue with her teaching style and she does a decent job at teaching. Just hope some things will be sorted out in the future (and honestly do sorta regret being a test subject, but what can you do).

Her exams are unreasonably difficult. She says they can be completed in about 2 hours but in reality, they took most of the class between 4 and 13 hours. When things started to get really bad with protests happening all over the world in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, with the national guard roaming the streets and our police force attacking innocent peaceful people who are just trying to fight for what is right, our class begged her to accommodate for a final that she made even more difficult than expected. We pleaded our case, that the world had put us all in a very poor mental state, to the point where focusing on anything was a luxury. She ignored this email we sent and decided to address it during class.

She used words like "you have a duty to be a student, and sometimes you have to make sacrifices", "the duty that you've taken this quarter is to be a student...pick up that duty and soldier on", "people overseas aren't really affected by it", "some of you feel like you need to be activists but I don't necessarily agree with that", "personal accomodations can be made for extreme personal circumstances, such as if you need to flee your neighborhood", "the test is designed to take 2 hours, like the first 2 midterms". These are just the things I remember.

Most of these statements were extremely insensitive, especially considering the fact that most of us ARE already making sacrifices. We believe in fighting for what's right and she totally dismissed it as a valid need for any accomodation. She said that people overseas aren't really affected by it. We have a lot of international students in our class and to say that they aren't affected by it completely ignores the fact that racism is present everywhere, that people all over the world are also protesting and fighting this fight.

Her response to her students asking for compassion and understanding was met with a sentiment that basically told us to deal with it. Never will I forget the things she said that day. She made it seem like there was nothing she could do to help us. If you want to be taught physics by anyone with basic human decency and compassion, choose someone else.

Logistics:

`• This class uses Kudu, an online textbook. You have to pay for it.

• The syllabus breakdown:
- 05% Participation
- 20% Homework
- 17% Midterm 1
- 23% Midterm 2
- 35% Final

Homework was on Kudu. It's okay for an online textbook, not the greatest.

Participation was some questions on Kudu we answered during lectures or questions we answered before lectures.

*Note: for the final this quarter, she increased/decreased the weight of the
final by 10% and equally changing the weight of the other assignments
depending on if the final helped or hurt you.

• Grading (according to the syllabus):
- Dr. West grades using a curve. According to her syllabus, 50% of the class
gets A/B's while the rest get C/D's.
- She does not curve down according to her syllabus. So if your raw score is
a 94%, she won't bring your grade down if you so happen to be in the
lower half of the class.

*Note: Because of the pandemic and protests this quarter, she decided to also
adjust her curve to make it more generous this quarter, although it isn't too
clear what "generous" entails.

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Class Review:

I didn't take AP Physics, so this was my first exposure to physics at this level. I felt it was doable, but it required work. For me, I think I spent a good 4 or 5 hours each week either reviewing or doing homework for this class. For exam review, I spent even more time in order to do the practice exams and just study them completely.

If you get stuck, it's helpful to looks up similar problems or strategies to solve them. For me, the intuition to solve the problems did not come naturally at all, so I used other physics videos and walkthroughs (Khan Academy is amazing for this) to help me build that intuition.

The Kudu textbook . . . I did not like it's interface at all.

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Prof. Review:

Overall, I though Dr. West was a very . . . by-the-book professor, for lack of a better word. Kind of like a very strict, but aiming to be very fair sort of way.

Her tests were hard but not impossible. The average for our first midterm was low (~56%) when it was timed, but when the format switched to 24 hours, our midterm and final averages went up (77-79? %). The exam difficulty seems very par for the course, so they are tough.

As I said before, Dr. West is a very by-the book sort of professor. She wanted to maintain the integrity of the course as much as she could, which resulted in her choice of accommodations for the final, to change the weight of the final, instead of making it no harm like the other class. I have mixed feelings about this decision.

The delivery to the class . . . was not the best. While she could have worded her decision better and shown more empathy to the students who had concerns, the backlash she received was a bit strong.

In my opinion, her decision concerning final accommodations would have been received better if it had been stated in a different way or if it had shown more empathy for the students with valid concerns. She tried to reassure the class by giving out a message to encourage us to keep pushing on and pushing on, but I feel this didn't resonate with the students who weren't looking for encouragement to keep struggling to the finish line, but were wanting compassion and concern during the turbulent end to the quarter.

That being said, throughout the quarter, Dr. West was very helpful in explaining any problems or concepts the students had trouble with. She also listened to feedback and adjusted her exams accordingly (the 24-hour exam change, which resulted in higher averages). For our final, there were more concerns about cheating, so in order to maintain the integrity of the test while not punishing the students, she added in a timed portion again, but made the questions extremely easy, basic questions.

All in all, the feel from her class I got was that it was very, very by the book. I can't really think of another way to describe it. Her main goal was maintaining the integrity and fairness of the class, which was probably the main motivated behind her decisions. She's helpful if you reach out to her at office hours.

Take a class with her if you enjoy lies (this midterm should take you only a couple hours, the practice tests are similar to the exam, etc) and a lack of empathy during times of crisis!

I know there are a lot of mixed feelings about the professor, but here is my take on her:
1. She's still learning.
So one of the major things that probably affected her teaching is that she is brand new. In this sense, she has no idea how the students will perform, how the students will react, or what the students expect in terms of her own teaching. She can go off of previous years and other professors, but keep in mind that every professor has their own style of teaching and their own morals. Yes, she could have been more empathetic and flexible towards the students, but at the same time, we cannot solely blame her for what happened in this class.
2. She tries. alot.
One of the first things I noticed is her teaching style. She was one of the only professors that really reached out to us before school started. She had two platforms and in-class activities. In my opinion, this demonstrated that she tried to make it so that we would learn/be engaged in the class as much as possible. One pitfall to this is that everything took a lot of time, and so she was not able to cover the very hard concepts she would often put on exams. That being said, if you are a student that is good at self studying, and love challenges, she is the professor for you. You will learn a lot about yourself as a student and what your own study strategies are. She will not let you slack off in this class.
3. She can be harsh, but she's rooted.
One of the things I respected HER as a PERSON is that she is rooted in her morals. So, this went two ways in my opinion. She could have been more understanding and flexible as a professor, but she decided to stick to what she thought as a person, which is something I personally understand. Yes, she may have said a few things that could come off as insensitive, but I am almost 99% sure that she did not say these things to hurt anyone. It may have come off wrong, but in the end, she was stating her opinion.
4. Her class in a nutshell.
So her class (granted this is during CORONA virus season so it may change) consisted of a homework every week, two midterms, a final, and participation. The homework was difficult for sure, but she gives two attempts per multiple choice question and four attempts (which she raised from two to four after week 2 because she saw how difficult it was) for each numerical response question. Midterm 1 was difficult because it was timed and there were many unforeseeable issues. I think it hit all of us really hard because we didn't know what to expect. We had 24 hours for midterm 2 and that definitely was better and had enough time. The final was two parts: a timed section worth 25% and a free response section worth 75%. Overall, it was doable, but was definitely very challenging.

My last piece of advice is this:
Take her class if you are okay with the challenge. If you are willing to help her learn (and at the same time, maybe suffer some consequences), you will find her class okay. If you are willing to self study and understand the concepts fully and completely, you will be okay. Overall, I know that every one of you that take her class will come out of this class learning at least one thing. Whether it is about physics, about yourself, or about challenges, this class will help you grow, whether its through anger and failure, or/and happiness and success. You will be okay!

As for the professor, please go easy on her. There will be moments of frustration, but she is human and she is trying to learn even if we can't immediately see it. There's a lot that goes on without us knowing so try to be as kind as possible.

1A is not easy but I know you are all capable of doing well :) good luck!

Dr. West at first appears to be great, and very thoughtful. However, later in the quarter, I and other students have come to realize that this is all kind of superficial. Throughout the quarter there have been a couple accommodations made, such as getting a homework extension where we could turn it in later via email. Though this seemed nice, this accommodation was only made because she misspoke, and furthermore, because it was done on the "honor system", you were not allowed to utilize as many attempts as you would on kudu. This was a small detail, but reflecting on the quarter kind of sets the tone-- nothing she does is wrong or evil per se, but it all compounds into an overall unpleasant experience.

Though I recognize the difficulty of teaching online, especially as a new professor, her teaching style is hard to understand at some points, especially if you do not have much prior physics knowledge to go off of. Furthermore, the classwork, homework and exams are all disparate in difficulty and topic. I attended lecture, and took notes and all, but still was blindsided by the midterms and final. As of now, she has told us it does not look like the curve will be large-- which is kind of alarming for a class where the first midterm average was an F, and the second was barely a B-. She seems very eager to not budge on the grade distributions set in earlier quarters, which, in a time such as now, with a pandemic as well as protests going on nationwide, where the university and many professors have allowed for accommodations making a better grade distribution, is kind of ridiculous, and frankly, disappointing.

She also needs to be cautious in her wording. In responses to requests for a no harm final, she replaced it to a bs "lowering the weight of the final to 25% if it lowers your grade", which is higher than any of the other three stem classes have set the final weight at to begin with. Additionally, in response to people having trouble focusing or choosing to spend some time helping protest for change in this country, she said that she respects that, but we should be aware that activism is a choice we make over being a student and though she respects us for it, we should not be surprised when it affects our grade negatively.

Overall, that response really felt like it came from someone in a seat of privilege, which is sad because this is the first stem professor I have had that was not an old white man, and I was really excited about that. Avoid if you can, and do not expect much.

So a lot of people in this class have some very strong opinions, and understandably so, but I am going to try to be a bit more passive/impartial/informative.
-Dr. West is a new professor, so taking her class was already a risk. I will say though, if you have a good foundation in AP Physics from high school, this class is definitely manageable. I had a batshit crazy physics teacher for AP Physics and, lucky for me, he prepared us well.
-If you do not have this foundation, however, this class will definitely be tough. Her tests are hard, no doubt about that. I think in general they are doable, but she often made them way longer than anything reasonable. Moreover, her lectures and the homework did not prepare us at all for the midterms (haven't taken final yet). Her exams were similar in style to that of the AP curriculum (which is why I was able to do decent on them), and I would actually recommend doing past AP FRQs from CollegeBoard rather than studying anything else she gave us.
-In lecture, she spent a lot of time doing proofs, which often felt like a waste of time. I will say, however, that in lecture she was really receptive to students' questions, and also the in-class-activities are helpful in terms of conceptualizing the material.
-The homework each week was on Kudu, and generally was not too bad, but each week there was around 2-3 questions (out of like 18-22 questions) that were really difficult. In fact, there was one time when, if asked how to do a question in office hours, she literally didn't even know how to do her own problem. I thought that the homework had you apply and use the main physics concepts well, but, to reiterate, the exams were not similar to the homework.
-In terms of her accommodations for the final... there really weren't any. Even though she absolutely has the right to make her own decision about how she wants to run the class, not giving us a no-harm final while literally every other physics professor gave one reflects very very poorly on her. Moreover, the students and the entire country are really experiencing world-altering events right now, and she fails to realize this. Her continued stance was that "crises come and go" and that being a student comes first... but like... hunny... racism isn't a "crisis" that just "comes and goes"... we're trying to end this shit for real... so yeah. She DOES genuinely want us to learn and I think she DOES care about her students and I respect this about her, but she let her personal bias get in the way of making the best decision for BOTH the well-being AND the learning of her students, and that is just never okay. And not only do I think she made an ill decision, but also in her explanation of this decision she made some very insensitive comments (as you can read in some of the other reviews, they're spot on) where she again brought in her personal beliefs, which is just not professional.
-So yeah. Overall, I thought she was good at TEACHING PHYSICS, but she is not good at BEING A PROFESSOR to a student body that is unapologetically aware and responsive to the world around them (as they should be). If she was teaching physics to a pile of rocks, I would rate her a 5/5 instead of a 3/5.
- For reference, I am going into the final with an 88% and expect to do well enough to pull an A-, fingers crossed. So yes the class in doable, maybe just not preferable. I hope I was able to adequately shed some light on everything :)

This professor has given us no sympathy during the difficult times we are going through right now. When we asked for accommodations as a group she told us that we just have to work harder. She also told the activists in the class that if they wanted to participate in protests they shouldn't expect any accommodations in return. She said they would have to "make sacrifices" academically. If you are not aware of what is going on in 2020, there are protests all over the nation. She did not seem to support the students who were affected by them or the students involved. DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS

Someone in the review said that we're just pissed about her not being lenient and that the policy was passed from the department. This was true in the beginning but then on June 3rd the Physics Department and the Academic senate CHANGED the policies, encouraging professors to give us accommodations such as "optional" or "no harm" finals. Even AFTER her initial excuse not to assist her students became irrelevant, she said no because she did not feel that the tests up until then had demonstrated our learning well enough. Well newsflash, tests are already horrible indicators of a person's knowledge, especially when the tests were completely out of the realm of what she actually prepared us for. But ESPECIALLY now during Coronavirus and the protest occurring for the Black Lives Matter Movement would they be horrible at gaging our true capabilities when it comes to Physics. Her inability to empathize with her students who have truly been severely affected by it, patronizing her students by sending us articles that essentially said "kids still went to school during Pearl Harbor and so can you". NEVER take this woman. She will let you down again and again and at first she seems nice but in dire times it is clear she has no empathy. 3/4 of my professors proved that they truly cared about their students, giving at least some form of reasonable accommodation. What a shame I took my first physics class as a physics major with Dr. West.

I think that a lot of Prof. West's shortcomings can be attributed to this being her first time teaching Physics 1A, and maybe being too much of a Harvard-educated big brain who can't relate to us peasants :,)

Jokes aside, though, it's really clear that she loves physics and is very good at it, and she was always prompt with emails and Slack messages. Her lectures were very organised, although sometimes she would go much more in depth than was necessary for the scope of Physics 1A. Her exams were pretty terrible, I studied the most for this class and never got above a 70% on an exam. The questions were way too long and were much more difficult than what was covered on the hw and in lecture (but to be fair they were very creative questions, we love spherical cows). I do not think this class was worth the GPA hit but I do think that Prof. West will adjust the difficulty of her exams more once classes are in-person again. For now, though, I would suggest taking a different professor if possible.