What truly encapsulates what the professor's mindset on how he organizes his course is this one phrase he said after seeing the midterm scores on our midterm. A whopping 64% was the average. Clearly, the majority of this class was struggling with the content and the test was very VERY difficult. Despite this he looks at the 14 people (out of the hundreds of students who took this class) who received a 100% and says: "I need to make the final harder." He looks at the minority succeeding outliers and uses those as a baseline for the difficultly of his tests, which are very VERY difficult.

The lectures are also very unengaging. It is almost impossible to stay completely focused throughout the two hour lectures. He sometimes sounds as though he is not interested in the content he is teaching either. The lecture content itself seems very trivial in comparison to the textbook which basically teaches the exact same thing, but at least you can go at your own pace.

The difficulty spikes between the things you are required to do are nothing short of phenomenal. The homework are not too bad, fairly standard. Maybe have to search up a problem or two. Maybe slightly above average of a professor's homework expectations. The quizzes and tests are dreadful to say the least. Let me walk you through the standard physic's students process in taking these tests. Glance at the question, see some horrific contraption that you have NEVER seen in any form on the homework, lecture, or practice problems you might have looked up. On the first quiz you think "oh it might not be that bad! the given values are only equal to 1, 2, or 0.5. this can be doable." Then, you find that you are crafting these convoluted statements in order to write what hardly resembles a solid answer. You turn it in and the only relief you have is that the pain is over. Only to have quite an aftershock as you receive your grade back.

This class was hell. And if you were present for the very chaotic 2022 winter quarter where all hell broke loose, then you'll know just how bad it was. Avoid this class as much as you can. If you are unfortunate enough to take it, brace yourself.

My guy Williams is a physics legend as a researcher, but definitely not the best prof out there. His hw is pretty easy, which is just mastering physics assignments, however, beware of his midterms and finals: I scrapped an A- only cause I had a lot of previous knowledge. Do a lot of practice problems if u can and pray to your textbook. His lectures are basically useless and try to avoid him if it is your first time to take physics.

This class was pretty difficult, not gonna lie. The average on the first midterm was 56%, and on the second it was 46%. The final average was 59%. The curve was nice though, so I got an A- after scoring between a half and a whole standard deviation above the mean on each exam.

The grades were 10% homework, 22.5% for each midterm, and 45% final. The homework wasn't too bad, as it was one problem set per week that took about two hours on average. I've already touched on the tough exams. Partial credit is awarded, but one mistake can still tank your score because each midterm is only 3 questions (the final was 6).

His lectures were pretty dry, and there were times where he seemed somewhat condescending, such as when he said "it didn't seem that hard to me" or something along those lines about the second midterm. If you can, I would recommend looking elsewhere.

Williams is a professor who cares about his students. Don't get me wrong, but he is a pretty nice lecturer. Although he spends time deriving equations (which we don't really need to know), he still explains the concepts fairly well. But then again, I had three years of physics experience prior to taking his class, so I must warn you, if you have NO prior experience in physics, try to look for a better professor, although it would be kinda hard since Williams is pretty good.

In Williams' class, you will get a homework set every week. Some of the problems may seem hard, but after Williams lectures through the material and you have your Friday discussion, it really isn't that bad.

The midterms aren't that bad. But the final is pretty hard.

All in all, if you read the chapters in the physics book, go to every lecture, do all of your homework, you should be fine for the tests (especially when they give out partial credit they're pretty generous I must say).

Ok the other people that posted reviews for Fall 2019 were mostly just salty about the second midterm being a little more challenging. I got a 4 on AP Physics 1 and got a 99 on the first midterm, 67 on the second, and haven't gotten my final grade back yet but it was about the same difficulty. Midterms are three questions that feel like more in-depth AP Physics questions (gives you a situation, asks you to find various things about it), and you have 50 minutes to complete it. Final was 6 problems and you had 3 hours, making it much less stressful.

Homework is done online on mastering physics, which also has the textbook, but I never really looked at that at all. Your homework is graded as you work on it (5 tries per problem), and most of the problems can be googled somewhere if you get stuck, just make sure you understand it in the end.

The lectures themselves are stereotypical physics lectures, professor writing on the board, doing demos with ramps and blocks, etc, so kinda slow for an 8am but manageable. They're also all on Bruinwalk but the camera work is questionable sometimes. Also the math 32A corequisite is barely even required, most of the integrating and differentiating is for deriving new equations, I don't think it was on a test at all.

All in all I'd probably take another class with Professor Williams if I had the chance to. Also take those other reviews with a grain of salt since they were made right after a midterm, if you understood AP Physics 1 you should be fine.

Okay so first of all, Prof. Williams most definitely finds pleasure in seeing his students get bad grades. After the midterm he allegedly said that there were too many perfect scores on the on the exam and the final would have to be harder. Keep in mind that the average was a 64 on the midterm and there were 14 perfect scores. You have thought the statement was a joke but the final came around and it was absolutely no joke. Scores were just about the same or worse, so there's that. If you already know mechanics then the lectures are really boring but the exams will still be just as hard. Many students who did terribly in this class like myself, ended up doing exponentially better in physics 1B so the bad scores were not for a lack of trying. Just keep in mind that if you're going to take this class with Gary that you have to be ready to panic during the small testing windows.

If you have not taken physics before, avoid at all costs. I mean it, just wait till another quarter. You'll get left behind by his lectures and humiliated by his exams. You're gonna have a bad time.

By far the worst prfessor I've had at UCLA. Whoever mentioned earlier that his classes teach grade-school level physics and expect PhD level exam answears hit the nail on the head. I wish I had listened to the advice on this page.

DO NOT TAKE!!!

All 5 quizzes and the midterm were very easy. The final (3 hrs) was extremely hard.

I attended every single lecture, took good notes, did all homework, and scored almost 100% on all quizzes and the midterm, but I only got a 90% on the final.

The most helpful things that he taught were the step-by-step manner to solve problems, some general techniques, and some common derivations that you need for almost every single problem (e.g. constructing a coordinate system and deriving relations between the accelerations of different objects).

Avoid him if you can because it's too difficult, and if you can't, make sure you know from inside out those problem-solving techniques.

I would recommend taking this class with another professor. The workload is manageable although the homework can take forever if you do not study the material by yourself. The lectures are centered around multiple examples of problems that are not always helpful to understand the material. The professor uploads weekly practice problems for each chapter without ever bothering to upload the solutions to these problems. The quizzes are generally easy and the worst one is dropped. There is only one midterm which will most likely be curved. I stopped attending lectures after week 6 since they do not really help you gain a better understanding of the material that you have to know for the final. If you really like physics and want to gain a better understanding chose a different professor.