I entered this class with two full years of physics under my belt (it is worth noting that I received an A in both Honors Physics and AP Physics C: Mechanics in high school, as well as a 5 on the Physics C: Mechanics AP exam), and I still thought this class was unnecessarily difficult. For many of my classmates, Physics 1A was their first time studying mechanics, and I have no idea how they were able to keep up given how much I struggled. Overall, the textbook is relatively helpful, and much of the homework is pretty straightforward, with a handful of more difficult problems included each week to test your understanding. In fact, I actually considered Dr. West's lectures to be helpful and engaging as well. The exams, however, are an entirely different story; Dr. West claims that they are modeled after the moderately difficult homework and practice test problems, but the class average on the first midterm was somewhere around 55%, and we had nowhere near enough time to finish. After seeing how much we struggled with the first midterm, Dr. West decided to give us 24 hours for the second midterm and final exam, and although the additional time significantly improved overall scores, many students reported spending 15+ hours taking tests that were "designed to be completed in two hours." Additionally, Dr. West put forth little effort to accommodate students affected by George Floyd's death and the protests that followed. We were told that we must decide whether we wanted to be a student or a human rights advocate (according to Dr. West, it is impossible to be both), and that she would not support our decision or provide accommodations if we chose to protest. Ultimately, I would not recommend taking this class with Dr. West given her ridiculous expectations.

A lot of students here have personal views about what she did with finals, but I'd rather focus on her teaching abilities and what her Physics1A class is like since that's what future 1A students reading this later on will care about the most.

I think her teaching quality was alright. However, her use of Kudu (an extremely glitchy site) and excruciatingly hard exam questions made for a less than optimal learning experience and it was quite stressful. For the first midterm, she gave us a practice midterm from a different profs Winter 2020, and the exam she gave us was significantly more difficult. By the time the 2nd midterm rolled around, I'd already become desensitized to it and finals were pretty hard too.

Political views and opinions aside, I think that West is a decent professor who just happens to make her exams as difficult as the infamous Corbin does. If you're the kind of guy who has a solid grasp of Physics, maybe taking her is worth it. But if not, I'd suggest finding another professor.

It's my first time writing a review for a professor because I had a horrible experience with this professor. Professor West is one of the most EXTRA people I've ever met. She made simple instructions EXTRA. She wrote long confusing emails with many useless pieces of information that made the class extremely hard to follow along. She's strict and EXTRA on exam formatting for online submission, making a simple process extremely confusing. You even lose the participation points for the late submission of a gradescope submission practice just for her own confusing use of gradescope. She also gave you mandatory surveys and therefore making simple tasks complicated. Her use of Kudu with all these random in-class activities that are due on unreasonable deadlines is a pure nightmare. She has no sympathy for her students. Her exams were way too hard with most questions dealing with solving complicated equations with only variables. She gave practice exams that are completely different than the actual tests. While other professors made final exams easier or optional due to COVID-19 and BLM protests to accommodate their students, she made her final exam even harder with harder FRQ problems and an additional timed section on Kudu. She didn't want to step down and said: "I don't want to minimize challenges." Overall, she made the class complete chaos and brought me my most stressful quarter.

Physics 1A with Professor West was an emotional rollercoaster, to say the least.
She is a great lecturer and really simplifies complex concepts in class. She asks frequent questions, makes many jokes, and is generally really supportive. I believe that all her setbacks this quarter stemmed from the fact this was her first quarter teaching. Her midterms and final were insanely difficult and a huge jump from the difficulty of the homework and practice problems on kudu. They demand a very concrete conceptual understanding of concepts taught in class. This is quite the Herculean task because you cover a lot of concepts in 1A over a really short period of time. This causes you to solidify a good understanding of a new concept very quickly with all possible technicalities in the way Prof West teaches it, which means that you need to integrate her method of solving problems to your high school understanding. Professor West's exams demand you to perfect that seamlessly otherwise her midterms are not nearly 2 hours long but anywhere between 4-13 hours. In addition to this, the exams are harshly graded and require you to have no gaps in explanations in your written answer no matter how obvious they may seem.

However, these aspects can be balanced with the promise of a fat curve. Now Prof West left us in the dark about this for quite a while. She told us it won't affect your grade much, which shocked our entire class. Later she changed her mind after our entire class appealed to the department but she still wouldn't give us any helpful information. Additionally her final was not no-harm and we faced the challenge of it lowering our grade further. I believe that this is because since it was her first quarter teaching, she did not really know how to estimate how her curve would go until after the final when she had all the puzzle pieces, and she did not want to make any pre-emptive promises that she couldn't keep.

Other than these, she was also hell-bent on maintaining the "academic rigor of the course" and ended up making the course much harder than it should be, in my opinion. This anthem of hers also led to a blatant lack of accommodations during a global pandemic and political unrest. She made a few questionable statements in class and was very tight with her time accommodations for international students. When it came to our grades, she wasn't the most reassuring person and would just feed us lines from the syllabus. Although she came through for all of us with a fat curve in the end. However, I would not count on it for later quarters, and I do not agree with the way she handled things during the last few weeks of the quarter in alleviating the stress everyone was going through.

I believe Prof West is a good educator and lecturer, and she will definitely test your understanding, but she has a few ways to go before she is a good professor.

TL;DR: just like most other Physics 1A professors, great lecturer, not-so-great exams, meh all around.

Spring quarter was just not the time to be alive. Coronavirus and the death of George Floyd really didn't help when you're trying to learn on an online platform. Reviews here have been quite divided; some people loved the professor, others absolutely hated her. Personally, I can see both sides of the argument being right in their own ways. So without further ado, here's the best that I can do in writing an unbiased review.

The professor knows her stuff. In fact, she knows it a little TOO well to the point where she'll skip steps when explaining topics assuming that "we know how to do the appropriate algebraic manipulations." The lessons were alright, just the standard "take a look at this and take notes before it all goes away and you'll have to re-watch the video." Towards the latter half of the quarter (when she covered rotational motion), you'll start to lose her. Could it be the fact that its online? Were we slowly going insane from being indoors too much? Perhaps she skipped one too many steps? Who knows, not me of course.

The homework was... interesting to say the least. Kudu, the software you'll use for assignments and the textbook, has its quirks that definitely need time to get used to. West will have you log on to do some participation questions during lecture that she'll grade on completeness and not accuracy. Cool, I guess. The homework is all multiple choice mixed with numeric response that either test you on the concepts you learned or are simple plug-and-chug problems. Well, "simple" if you consider writing a million equations for one problem only to get one of the two attempts wrong because you divided wrong. Yay.

The tests, oh boy. They DO NOT have the same feel as the Kudu homework. If you do not know how to apply concepts to problems, you are DONE. Hell, even if you DO know what's going on in problem, odds are you have a 50/50 chance that you actually got it right. I think all but two problems on all 3 of our exams (2 midterms, 1 final) had you find a value in terms of other constants and/or variables. It is not intuitive at all as to what you are supposed to do. As one classmate said, "you just kinda put stuff together and pray that it works."

Overall, it was not a pleasant experience. I really do hope that West revises the faults that this class had. It wasn't completely her fault, but at times her stubbornness gets in the way, as she refused to lower the difficulty of the exam problems. Yes, she did listen to us when she saw that the mean of the first exam (that we had 2 hours to do) was an F. She gave all subsequent tests a 24 hour period to do, but that didn't stop her from handing out hell on a virtual platter. Time after time, we told her that those damn tests of hers were too difficult. Oh well. May the Almighty Curve be ever in your favor.

Here are the facts void of my personal opinions about Dr. West:

1. If she uses KUDU for homework assignments, you can easily find answers on Chegg

2. Tests are more difficult than class material/Homework. Midterm averages were 53%(2hrs) and 79%(24 hrs midterm). Exam questions require thorough understanding of the concepts.

3. Workload is pretty heavy - 18 to 20 HW questions every week with in-class and pre-lecture questions (but Chegg).

4. She did 24 hr final WITH TIMED PORTION when all the other Physics 1A/1B classes made their finals optional due to BLM movement and covid-19 outbreak.

5. When she was asked to accomodate black students for what they're experiencing with police brutality and BLM movement(June 2020), she didn't directly address the request, but instead shared paragraphs of this article that talks about how people still went to school and did their work as students during Pearl Harbor bombings and we shall do the same with the current challenges.

6. 40-50 students asked Physics Dept chair and faculties to talk to Dr. West to convince her to make the final exam optional like all the other classes did. Physics Dept chair and faculties were very understanding and asked her through a phone call and emails to strongly suggest that she make the final optional. She didn't. Physics Dept chair and faculties ended up allowing physics and chem majors take the class P/NP.

7. She held a lecture on the same day as the second midterm.

My personal opinion of Dr. West:

Previleged white female in Academia don't get to tell Black students that they should persevere through the systematic racism and uprising by sharing an article that compares the current situation to that of Pearl Harbor. We get that she had good intentions (did she?) but it was not appropriate if not disregaring of the struggles and pain of the black community at this time. I didn't really care much about this class and I actually did fine. I've also never written a review of professors on bruinwalk. I also think about if we weren't going through these challenging times I would've not had to exprience the dismissiveness and whiteness("out of touch with social issues and hardships that BIPOC experience") of her. Overall, she's an whatever lecturer but a dismissive lecturer who doesn't know how to empathize with students that are not as previleged as she is.

I truly feel that I learned a lot in Dr. West's class. I attended her office hours regularly and it was extremely helpful. She is patient and does a good job of guiding you through problems, really making you think about and understand the concepts. Her lectures were very organized and contained a good mix of theory, derivation, and example problems. The exams were quite challenging, but such is life in UCLA physical sciences. The homework and textbook were through Kudu, which can be a little unreliable/glitchy at times.
Overall, Physics 1A with Dr. West was challenging, but a great learning experience.

Does not demonstrate compassion to students or attempt to gain an understanding with students struggles in the class, but rather dismisses the situation or problem. During the ongoing events that have occurred in the spring quarter--like the pandemic and black lives matter movement--she repeatedly said that being a student was more important. I agree that being a student comes with responsibility but I also believe that students have a right to partake in protests that significantly affect lives and she had no right to discourage students from engaging in the act of protesting due to her own beliefs and opinions. The way she dismissed students and the way she responded to students when they asked for help and denied them that help, is something that isn't right. She expects students to go on with there lives as if nothing is happening and saying we "need to soldier on" but when we ask if she can hold a review session, she states "I don't think I have time with everything going on." She expects us students to focus during these difficult times but she makes excuses why she can't hold a simple review session for students who are deeplly struggling. Us students were not looking for a cancelation for our final, we were asking for compassion, clarity in her grading method, and for a no-harm final. We weren't asking for anything out of the ordinary, only something the academic senate strongly suggested to the professors and an even field with other physics 1A classes who had adapted to the no-harm final.

Taken spring quarter 2020, apparently her first quarter teaching at UCLA. I had no prior advanced physics experience.
I don't know how much her teaching style will change since Spring was her first (online) quarter. She was one of the most accommodating professors online-wise: recording & posting all of her lectures, not requiring any mandatory attendance, creating a survey prior to class starting to learn of all of our circumstances and being semi-flexible with exams (at least at the end: the first midterm was a timed 2-3 hour exam and the formatting was stressful, but she became more lenient over time. The final was written 24 hr portion + 45 min (short) timed online portion to curb cheaters, since dumb@sses posted the midterm II on Chegg while it was live). Exams were challenging for sure-arguably in the right ways- but it felt like the practice exams did not always reflect what would be on the exams. Her exam questions were pretty much deviations of "standard" Physics problems: pulleys, rollercoasters, rotation, frames of reference, etc. with a twist.

She was not as accommodating with the rise of BLM protests, while almost most other professors were, so take that as you will.

Office hours: She offers generous office hours. Will answer any questions.

KUDU: The class textbook was a good foundational tool, but not exceptional by any means. It was pretty buggy. I found that the hard-to-follow proofs for derivations in the book were compensated and cleared up by West in the lecture, which I appreciated.

As for teaching, she was one of the best professors I've had. I found her lectures to be a breath of fresh air; compared to the traditional chalkboard lecturer, she made her slides and notes pretty clear and updated. I think if you are taking this class as just a requirement, the work may seem like overkill, but I liked how in-depth she went with the explanations of each proof and providing examples. This is a 5 unit class, compared to most STEM lower divs already being 4 units.

By the latter half of the course, she was unclear about the curve and made things more complicated than they needed to be. I get that she was new and her curve is unique, but this quarter was not one to experiment and test and confuse students.

I do not think she understood the Math requisites for this class, or perhaps Physics 1A disregards it as a course, but she did introduce advanced math topics (like integration/32B-worthy material). It was not too difficult but it is good (not necessary) to try to take 32A before this course since the first half of both courses are introducing vectors.

Overall, I am not sure if I would take this class again. Her accessibility and excellence as a professor were offset by the inconsistency of the course syllabus near the end of the course along with her patronizing commentary towards world events.

(Disclaimer: I took this class during the start of Covid-19, and at the end of this class the murder of George Floyd happened. BLM! ACAB!)
West is a pretty good teacher. Her lectures are very clear, and she stops to take questions. She explains things pretty clearly. She's extremely qualified and knows what she's talking about.
The textbook was online on Kudu (MUST pay $ to use), and there were HW questions as well as practice problems on there. Participation questions were also on Kudu, and you had 24 hours after every lecture to fill those out.
The biggest problem with her class was probably the tests. The first midterm's questions were unexpected. No numbers/values at all, which isn't something we practiced in class. Also it was timed but open note, but the time limit really made it hard and the class average was low. The second midterm was a little better. It was 24 hours but again a very theoretical exam, there were barely any numbers. These questions aren't plug and chug. The final was 2 parts. One on Kudu with timed questions (pretty easy) and then a free response portion that you had 24 hours to complete. All exams were open note.
Dom was my TA. Good at explaining things and takes his time. He also has a cool cat.
The online format did kind of suck, lots of tech issues, but not West's fault. There was also a fat curve at the end of the class that (I think) a lot of people did not expect.
Finally, at the end of the quarter, there were protests all over the country after the murder of George Floyd (Rest in Power). Many UCLA professors made accommodations. West was not one of them. She addressed the current events in class, and I personally thought she did not handle it well. She came off as ignorant and privileged. But as a teacher, she's pretty good. I personally reached out to her to ask for an extension and I explained how disturbing Floyd's murder was and the distress I was under. She actually granted me the extension. So I suggest for future people taking her class, reaching out to her 1 on 1 is the best bet for getting an accommodation.
Would I take this class with her again? Probably not. Her response towards the world events added extra stress onto my already deteriorating mental health. But would I take a different class with her? If there were no events outside of the classroom causing issues in my life, sure. Take that as you will.