Professor
Joshua Samani
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Picture an ideal professor. One that plays music before lectures and during breaks, one that is understanding of all current situations (especially considering this quarter occurred during a global pandemic and a massive racial movement) and one that delivers engaging lectures filled with analogies that help one grasp a conceptual understanding of the material and clearly understand theories through nicely drawn diagrams and thought experiments. This is precisely what Professor Samani is. A professor of such high caliber that he should be teaching every class at UCLA (no cap). Professor Samani is an extremely down-to-earth professor that hosts useful office hours where he would literally spend as much time as needed to address your concerns and actually try his best to answer his students' diverse set of questions. It is unfortunate he isn't teaching 1C next quarter because this man is a gem. I truly started to like even the gorey calculus bits of 1B because Samani made it fun. His grading scheme is also very reasonable. The class is not curved but rather scaled where 50% of your grade are his problem sets. These problem sets are extremely hard but collaboration is encouraged and the TAs and Professor Samani provide a lot of support via Campuswire. Also, they are graded mostly for accuracy. An A is roughly 93% but very achievable since the midterms and final exams are based off of the problem set content and thus quite doable. I only have one small critique for Professor Samani: he does not do complex enough examples in lectures sometimes (unlike Corbin) which left me lost trying to approach his difficult problem sets and made the class time consuming since I would have to read OpenStax (a free online textbook he follows). Nonetheless, this man is a godsend and I highly recommend all freshmen take him if possible for a lower div class! He really made online classes so enjoyable that I stayed up till 3 am to attend his lectures live (being located outside of the US).
Spring 2020 - Picture an ideal professor. One that plays music before lectures and during breaks, one that is understanding of all current situations (especially considering this quarter occurred during a global pandemic and a massive racial movement) and one that delivers engaging lectures filled with analogies that help one grasp a conceptual understanding of the material and clearly understand theories through nicely drawn diagrams and thought experiments. This is precisely what Professor Samani is. A professor of such high caliber that he should be teaching every class at UCLA (no cap). Professor Samani is an extremely down-to-earth professor that hosts useful office hours where he would literally spend as much time as needed to address your concerns and actually try his best to answer his students' diverse set of questions. It is unfortunate he isn't teaching 1C next quarter because this man is a gem. I truly started to like even the gorey calculus bits of 1B because Samani made it fun. His grading scheme is also very reasonable. The class is not curved but rather scaled where 50% of your grade are his problem sets. These problem sets are extremely hard but collaboration is encouraged and the TAs and Professor Samani provide a lot of support via Campuswire. Also, they are graded mostly for accuracy. An A is roughly 93% but very achievable since the midterms and final exams are based off of the problem set content and thus quite doable. I only have one small critique for Professor Samani: he does not do complex enough examples in lectures sometimes (unlike Corbin) which left me lost trying to approach his difficult problem sets and made the class time consuming since I would have to read OpenStax (a free online textbook he follows). Nonetheless, this man is a godsend and I highly recommend all freshmen take him if possible for a lower div class! He really made online classes so enjoyable that I stayed up till 3 am to attend his lectures live (being located outside of the US).
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Everyone will tell you that Samani is a great professor, and this is true. He is an enthusiastic and engaging lecturer, but his exams are SO difficult. They are not straightforward at all, very conceptual based (kind of reminds me of AP exams). If you're looking for an easy time and simple exams where you can plug in numbers into formulas -- this is not it. Also, he requires you to use a lot of "common sense" during exams and estimate values such as mass, height, velocity etc. of objects. As someone who had never taken physics before, this was a challenging class. Unless you are very confident about your physics understanding, this class will be tough.
Fall 2019 - Everyone will tell you that Samani is a great professor, and this is true. He is an enthusiastic and engaging lecturer, but his exams are SO difficult. They are not straightforward at all, very conceptual based (kind of reminds me of AP exams). If you're looking for an easy time and simple exams where you can plug in numbers into formulas -- this is not it. Also, he requires you to use a lot of "common sense" during exams and estimate values such as mass, height, velocity etc. of objects. As someone who had never taken physics before, this was a challenging class. Unless you are very confident about your physics understanding, this class will be tough.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - Professor Samani is by far the best physics professor I have EVER had. There are a ton of recent negative comments about him on here, but these are just some of the reasons why people might have left them: 1. The final was in-person and people didn't want to study for it as they should. It's just funny how people kept getting angry at Samani for holding his final in-person, claiming to be extremely afraid of COVID, yet had no issues showing up in-person for their other finals and other social events. This is because Samani is an extremely accommodating professor and a majority of students expected him to move the final online in response to their backlash. Unfortunately, the line has to be drawn somewhere and these students weren't content with that. 2. The final was closed note and had no equation sheet. Now we were informed of this in like Week 5, so people had PLENTY of time to memorize their equations, make flashcards, etc. This isn't even taking into account how weekly quizzes were supposed to be closed note, so people should have had their equations memorized anyways as long as they weren't cheating. However many people chose to ignore these steps and continued to cheat on weekly quizzes by using their notes, therefore not learning any of the equations for 10 weeks and freaking out before the final. This is not Samani's fault, this is the students' fault. Also, Samani literally made us an equation sheet to memorize so we wouldn't have to comb through 10 weeks worth of lectures to find all the equations. All we had to do was memorize it (it's really not that bad). 3. People claimed that having an in-person final after the entire quarter being online was unfair. This was just false. Yes, the class was online until Week 5 (just like every single other class at UCLA due to the COVID surge). However Samani had in-person lectures for the rest of the quarter after campus opened up (people just chose not to show up) and you were allowed to take the quizzes in-person in the lecture hall during lecture time (people just didn't use that option, probably because a lot of them cheated during online quizzes). So it's not like there wasn't anything in-person during the quarter -- literally everything about the class was in-person if you made the effort to attend. Now that that's out of the way, here are some reasons why Samani was absolutely amazing and a gem of a professor: 1. He listened to ALL of our concerns and made changes wherever appropriate. Our weekly quizzes were initially open for 24 hours (but an hour timed) and Week 3 he switched the system so we had to take the quiz during lecture time (still online however). This stressed a lot of students out and Samani heard these concerns. Week 5, he switched quizzes BACK to being open for 24 hours. How many professors do we know of who would do that? Also, quizzes were initially 60 minutes long. This time was too short for some students, so Samani increased quiz durations to 80 minutes while keeping the length the same. Again, he made accommodations when he had no obligation to do so. It was out of the kindness of his own heart. 2. He had a weekly quiz + final format instead of midterm(s) + final. This is up to personal preference, but I personally LOVED this format. Each quiz was wayyy lower stakes than any midterm would be so I was naturally much less stressed for this class since one bad day wouldn't ruin my grade. Also, the lowest quiz grade was dropped! Another reason why the quizzes were not stressful at all. Additionally, quizzes always incorporated some content from previous weeks. This actually helped me to retain the content way better and gave some bonus extra practice with old concepts. When the final came around, since I had actually been learning and applying the concepts all the way back to Week 1 every week, studying for the final was way more doable and took less time than it normally would. 3. His lectures were incredibly engaging and funny. He always made up some entertaining example problems to work on during lectures which incorporated all of that week's concepts plus old concepts for review. He's also very high energy during lectures which makes them much more engaging especially if you attend in-person. 4. He gives plenty of practice material so you always know what to expect on quizzes and the final. Practice packets can be quite long, but honestly they're just for your own good. Some people complained about how we don't get points for completing them, but not everything you do for a class should be for points, some should just be for genuine learning. The questions on quizzes were very doable if you put in meaningful effort to the practice packets and asked questions wherever you needed help (Campuswire was great for this!). 5. He gives ample extra credit. We got extra credit for Campuswire based on our level (0.1% - 0.3%) and for completing LA feedback forms and course evals. If you are borderline, EC should hopefully push you over the boundary. I know this is a long review, but I honestly really wanted to highlight how amazing a professor Samani is. Especially for a class like physics which many students struggle with, it was extremely evident how hard he tries to make it engaging, applicable to our lives, and not too challenging. The negative reviews on here are the same students who were complaining on GroupMe about the in-person final and lack of equation sheet, but let's be real, when we go on to take the MCAT or other standardized tests they will also be in-person with no equation sheet. So to conclude, please take Samani. As long as you're proactive and willing to put in the work, you will learn a lot while having a great time :)
Winter 2022 - Professor Samani is by far the best physics professor I have EVER had. There are a ton of recent negative comments about him on here, but these are just some of the reasons why people might have left them: 1. The final was in-person and people didn't want to study for it as they should. It's just funny how people kept getting angry at Samani for holding his final in-person, claiming to be extremely afraid of COVID, yet had no issues showing up in-person for their other finals and other social events. This is because Samani is an extremely accommodating professor and a majority of students expected him to move the final online in response to their backlash. Unfortunately, the line has to be drawn somewhere and these students weren't content with that. 2. The final was closed note and had no equation sheet. Now we were informed of this in like Week 5, so people had PLENTY of time to memorize their equations, make flashcards, etc. This isn't even taking into account how weekly quizzes were supposed to be closed note, so people should have had their equations memorized anyways as long as they weren't cheating. However many people chose to ignore these steps and continued to cheat on weekly quizzes by using their notes, therefore not learning any of the equations for 10 weeks and freaking out before the final. This is not Samani's fault, this is the students' fault. Also, Samani literally made us an equation sheet to memorize so we wouldn't have to comb through 10 weeks worth of lectures to find all the equations. All we had to do was memorize it (it's really not that bad). 3. People claimed that having an in-person final after the entire quarter being online was unfair. This was just false. Yes, the class was online until Week 5 (just like every single other class at UCLA due to the COVID surge). However Samani had in-person lectures for the rest of the quarter after campus opened up (people just chose not to show up) and you were allowed to take the quizzes in-person in the lecture hall during lecture time (people just didn't use that option, probably because a lot of them cheated during online quizzes). So it's not like there wasn't anything in-person during the quarter -- literally everything about the class was in-person if you made the effort to attend. Now that that's out of the way, here are some reasons why Samani was absolutely amazing and a gem of a professor: 1. He listened to ALL of our concerns and made changes wherever appropriate. Our weekly quizzes were initially open for 24 hours (but an hour timed) and Week 3 he switched the system so we had to take the quiz during lecture time (still online however). This stressed a lot of students out and Samani heard these concerns. Week 5, he switched quizzes BACK to being open for 24 hours. How many professors do we know of who would do that? Also, quizzes were initially 60 minutes long. This time was too short for some students, so Samani increased quiz durations to 80 minutes while keeping the length the same. Again, he made accommodations when he had no obligation to do so. It was out of the kindness of his own heart. 2. He had a weekly quiz + final format instead of midterm(s) + final. This is up to personal preference, but I personally LOVED this format. Each quiz was wayyy lower stakes than any midterm would be so I was naturally much less stressed for this class since one bad day wouldn't ruin my grade. Also, the lowest quiz grade was dropped! Another reason why the quizzes were not stressful at all. Additionally, quizzes always incorporated some content from previous weeks. This actually helped me to retain the content way better and gave some bonus extra practice with old concepts. When the final came around, since I had actually been learning and applying the concepts all the way back to Week 1 every week, studying for the final was way more doable and took less time than it normally would. 3. His lectures were incredibly engaging and funny. He always made up some entertaining example problems to work on during lectures which incorporated all of that week's concepts plus old concepts for review. He's also very high energy during lectures which makes them much more engaging especially if you attend in-person. 4. He gives plenty of practice material so you always know what to expect on quizzes and the final. Practice packets can be quite long, but honestly they're just for your own good. Some people complained about how we don't get points for completing them, but not everything you do for a class should be for points, some should just be for genuine learning. The questions on quizzes were very doable if you put in meaningful effort to the practice packets and asked questions wherever you needed help (Campuswire was great for this!). 5. He gives ample extra credit. We got extra credit for Campuswire based on our level (0.1% - 0.3%) and for completing LA feedback forms and course evals. If you are borderline, EC should hopefully push you over the boundary. I know this is a long review, but I honestly really wanted to highlight how amazing a professor Samani is. Especially for a class like physics which many students struggle with, it was extremely evident how hard he tries to make it engaging, applicable to our lives, and not too challenging. The negative reviews on here are the same students who were complaining on GroupMe about the in-person final and lack of equation sheet, but let's be real, when we go on to take the MCAT or other standardized tests they will also be in-person with no equation sheet. So to conclude, please take Samani. As long as you're proactive and willing to put in the work, you will learn a lot while having a great time :)
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