Physics 5A with Samani was fantastic. Students who had taken him previous quarters said it was a very stressful class because of all of the "extra credit" work they had to do since his test were so hard, but he has changed most of that now. His exams are very fair and there is less feeling of needing to do extra work.

Samani is a brilliant lecturer. He is very calculated in what he says, so he is always extremely clear. My only negative thing I could say would be that he occasionally can lecture at too slow of a pace for sake of clarity when it is not helpful/needed, but other students might disagree with me on that.

Regardless of if you have taken physics in high school, you will do well in this course - you do not need the textbook even.

Samani 5A Grade Breakdown (kind of):

2 Midterms, each worth 20% -- the first midterm was very easy, most everyone got well in the A range. Thus, the second midterm was definately more difficult. Had I studied, it would have been not too bad.

Final = 30%: Final was very fair. Nothing crazy. Study all the practice exams he gives out.

Other 30%: Mastering physics, Lab, Discussion, iClickers. These are gimme points. If you do them, you get 100% practically.

Loved this class. Samani is an excellent professor and I wish he taught the rest of my physics courses. He will answer all questions to the best of his ability and will never make you feel dumb for asking a question. He really values his students' learning. His class is bruincast but has clickers. Lecture notes are extremely useful and he uses examples in his class that are always useful when I study for his exams. I studied hard and did decently on all the exams. His practice tests are very good to use as study material before exams. If you took physics in high school, you should have a pretty solid foundation (even if you failed the AP like I did haha). Overall, this professor is amazing and the class is set up so that it is very engaging.

Before taking this class, I was so scared of physics. I took AP Physics in high school but I did not learn anything from it and ended up not taking the AP test. I put off physics for a while when I got to UCLA, and ended up taking it spring quarter of my sophomore year. Samani is BY FAR my favorite professor of all time, and will probably remain my favorite professor. I learned a lot every lecture, and he was very clear with his teaching. I HIGHLY recommend taking Samani for 5a, and actually any class he may teach.

He is very approachable and super helpful at office hours. Class attendance is mandatory (there are clickers). The tests aren't easy, but they also aren't hard if you study. I got a 98% on the first midterm, 94% on the second, and an 86% on the final and ended up with an A+ in the class. Discussion sections are very helpful and VERY similar to the test questions/concepts, so I recommend going to all of them (you can miss one). Also, make sure to stay on top of the online homework (Mastering Physics). I usually waited until the last minute to complete them, but I would recommend doing a few problems each day rather than all of them the night before.

Anyways, Samani is an amazing professor, he young and funny, and a great teacher. If you have the option to take his class, just do it. You won't regret it.

I can't deny the exams were pretty rough even with the ample practice he gave us (and graded...) Really consider how much you value the learning experience over the grade before you take Samani as getting a solid A can be hard even with the extra credit opportunities.
That being said, he is still a great professor and lecturer, probably one of the best ones you'll ever run into. You can tell he genuinely cares about teaching you how to learn and reason through problems, something you'll still need to do out of physics. That's enough for me to recommend him, but again it depends on how much you're willing to stake your grade.

This class was SO hard. It is one of the hardest classes I have ever taken and it will probably be very challenging. That being said, Josh does everything in his power for you to succeed. There is enough extra credit to raise you grade 5% and there are midterm redos. Office hours are also really helpful.
I think my only advice for this class is even if you completely bomb the 2 midterms, talk to Josh and see where you are at in the class before dropping because the class is kinda curved in a way

Here’s the thing about 5A with Samani: He’s a genius, a super nice guy, an engaging lecturer, and he really cares about student learning. He challenges his students to obtain a deep conceptual understanding of Physics, he requires you to memorize equations, and he doesn’t let you use a calculator, making exams inherently more stressful.

If you’re like me, and you have absolutely NO prior Physics (or calculus) experience, this class will be incredibly tough. Trying to memorize equations on top of working hard to even understand the content (and the basic mathematical principles behind it, lol) was really difficult. Samani’s tests are really, really challenging— to the point where I developed insane test anxiety and would panic heavily for his exams. I know people generally do fine in this class, but I really wanted to let those without a strong Physics background know what they’re getting into.

All that being said: it’s worth it. While struggling in this class, I literally completely changed the way I approach learning. I changed my study habits entirely, moving towards heavy practice testing and keeping an error catalog (as Samani suggested). The skills that class, and Samani’s teaching, have imparted have been immeasurable. I’m saying this as someone who got a C+ in the class and I have absolutely nothing to gain from writing this, so take it seriously lmao the man is a legend

I was dreading this class initially, because I am not a huge fan of physics and didn't think I'd be too good at it. Dr. Samani, however, is very encouraging and a really good professor. The tests are definitely a bit weird (they are very conceptual), but make sure that you pay attention in class, understand the clicker questions, go over the discussion worksheets, and do the practice exams. I also found that working with friends helped me understand content on a more conceptual level.

He also offers a loooot of extra credit and buffer with Mastering Physics, Lab grades, and clicker questions, so you should be fine. For example, he realized that our first midterm was too long for the time we were given, so he had a corrections policy to get some points back and ended up giving us full credit on a question that many students got wrong.

As an aside, he has these "group midterm" components of your grade, in which you take the midterm twice (once individually, once in your pre-determined groups), and the individual one is 15% of your grade and the team one is 5% if the team one is higher than the individual one -- otherwise you keep the individual score as your 20%. In my opinion, I thought this was a bit of a flawed system as I did better on both of my individual components anyways and people end up discussing their answers with other groups anyways as we have a 10 minute break in the middle of the two identical tests. However, I know many friends in the class who did indeed like this "team component" aspect of the midterms.

Overall, I really liked Dr. Samani. He's a fair professor and a really cool dude. Screw the labs though -- those were a colossal waste of time in my opinion lol... this is standardized for the whole 5 series though haha.

Tough class. Although he is very helpful, the workload and difficulty of the class is extremely hard. Do not skip classes or any thing and attend discussion.

Professor Samani saved my virtual spring quarter and I honestly wish he was teaching all of my classes. His lectures were super clear and engaging, partly because he always made a lot of time for students to ask questions. He clearly put a lot of thought into making the class as interactive and educational as possible, with helpful resources like OpenStax (free textbook) and Campuswire (online discussion platform). The problem sets were challenging and took a little adjusting to, but I learned the most physics/problem-solving I've ever learned in a class, and there were many resources to get help. Prof Samani is also a really down-to-earth and considerate person and made this class fun and interesting. Highly recommend!

Professor Samani is extremely kind and understanding, especially during this chaotic time. As for the lectures, he goes through the materials thoroughly since he genuinely cares about his students' understanding. The only flaw of this class is that the problem sets were pretty long, but considering that homework covers at least 50% of our grade, the workload is probably reasonable. Overall, I would highly recommend taking his class.