Samani was very engaging in lectures, but what he taught was at a much simpler level than what his exams asked of us. That being said, both midterms were very difficult, and I did not even finish the final during the three hour time period. I don't feel like his slides or homework accurately prepared us for the storms that were his exams.

I took this class when it was online so it may have been different, but here is the outline for how Professor Samani ran Physics 5B.

No midterms or finals- HOWEVER, there were weekly quizzes (noncumulative, but is helpful to know previous stuff) that he gave us 1.5 hours for.
They were honestly a bit difficult, but as long as you attend his lectures and do the worksheet, it should be fine. He said himself that he wanted students to feel challenged, but was still able to get it in the end, which he succeeded since that was exactly how I felt. There is also partial credit. I honestly loved this system of constant review, and it was less stressful during midterms and final seasons

no lectures-HOWEVER, he would post a recorded lecture that covers the whole week's material at the beginning of the week. They are on average 2 hours long, but is actually shorter if you speed up the parts where he writes. Instead of lecture, he would hold sessions where he showed us practice problems. These were very helpful for understanding the material and the quizzes, and THEY WERE SUPER INTERESTING.

Everything is recorded and posted so very flexible
We can start the quizzes whenever we want in a 24 hour period, but there is a 90 min time limit,

Overall, Professor Samani was amazing, he really cares about student learning, and is a wonderful lecturer. I honestly enjoyed this class quite a bit because of him, despite not liking Physics in general. Take him if you want to learn!

Samani is a great lecturer and he is clearly passionate about what he teaches. The format of the class was we had 1 long lecture video for the entire week posted on Monday, with live problem-solving sessions on Wednesday and Friday. Instead of a midterm and final, we had weekly quizzes. The quizzes were moderately difficult, and we had adequate time to complete them. I liked the quizzes overall since they were a bit lower stakes than a big exam.

My gripes with the class:
Some of the labs are not fun and very frustrating, but that's out of Samani's control. Hopefully it's only because we had to do the experiments at home.
We had a final group project that was worth 30% of our grade, but it had no clear guidelines/expectations. I thought it was gonna be pretty chill, but I felt the grading was quite harsh and there were no justifications given for why points were taken off. It dropped my grade more than 5% and almost screwed me over.

Samani is a great teacher and passionate but his quizzes/final were a lot more difficult than what he taught. I always found myself to be confident with what he lectured but the quizzes did not reflect what we were taught- they were always obscure algebraic derivations rather than physics problems. This course definitely took the majority of my time due to the weekly quizzes and don't even get me started on my STACK of flashcards of equations we had to memorize for the final. He was not accomodating at all honestly and expected life science students to make physics their whole life. If he adjusted his exams to reflect lecture material perhaps I'd be more positive but I won't lie this course was super stressful.

This is the professor to take 5A with. I had not taken physics before and I was really scared as to whether I would succeed. The main thing to do is to do the pre-lecture readings and that will help you succeed in the class.

I loved the class and thought Samani was an excellent professor.

Lab is a joke- just attend it and put in decent effort and you'll get through it

To start, this class is not a walk in the park, however, it also is not a trip down Hell. Professor Samani is very clear on the goals/objectives that you need to know. His lectures were some of the best I've ever had at UCLA, he truly does care about student success; they are so engaging and make you feel like you actually learned something walking out. The midterm has a group portion 7% of your grade, which is essentially redoing the questions on the individual portion of the midterm which was 18% of your grade. He does offer extra credit through Campuswire status. Discussion is required and you get to work with your group that you take the midterm with. In terms of the tests, they were very fair. They reflect the homework and practice quizzes he would give. Nothing necessarily out of left field. The homeworks were also very nice, which number of questions ranging from 4-12 (nothing over 12 questions). They are weekly but do not take much time, especially if you do it throughout the week. These questions are written by the professor and are not just a waste of time like Mastering Physics and Kudu (both of which can feel irrelevant to the material of the class). Samani does not hold your hand like some other physics professors do, but he also will not sink your grade and GPA. You will definitely learn during this class and that could prove useful if you wish to take tests like the MCAT.

Overall great professor for learning. Is not an easy A(like the other physics classes) but if you come to lecture and understand how to do the weekly quizzes, you'll be fine.

Dr. Samani is one of the most engaging and fun professors I have had. He genuinely tries his best to prioritize long-term learning, hence the lack of a formula sheet. Despite this added difficulty, I appreciate the effort he puts in, and the effort he gets his students to put in. I also like how structured each lecture is, he applies course concepts and walks us through a class-long problem. He has an itinerary for every class, but he also will delay his plans for seemingly as long as needed in order to answer student questions. Overall I am satisfied with my Physics 5B experience, my only regret is not going to office hours enough.

Favorite professor by far at UCLA!

Samani not only brings in real examples to help understand the applicability of the material from the very beginning, but also makes you feel like you are not even learning physics. Attendance is taken through in person reflection sheets, yet I found them so much more engaging than iClicker used for other classes, as they had us working through ideas and actually encouraged discussion with our peers around us. The homework is an automatic 90% through completion, and are the SAME level of difficulty as exam problems - which I found challenging in the very beginning, but appreciative that there were absolutely NO curveballs thrown whatsoever. No online access for a textbook is needed for the homework too (which is a plus), he just releases assignments through BruinLearn.

On the note of not having an equation sheet - it honestly is not that bad, coming from someone who took 5A with an equation sheet. Through lecture, Samani gives tips for memorizing the least information possible and use that information to create a logical system of reasoning to get to almost any equation you need. Also, using active recall by redoing the homework and the practice exams he releases without looking anything up really helped me succeed. Also, by doing so many problems over and over again, you'll find that most of the equations become muscle memory.

Lastly, one piece of advice I would give is to go to office hours! I found that my discussion section wasn't particularly helpful in my understanding of the material. However, once I started going consistently to office hours, I saw how my conceptual understanding of the material improved drastically - which just made it easier when studying and doing homework. (one tip though, try to show up as close to the beginning as possible - his office is super small and fills up quite fast).

I could not recommend him enough, and I honestly really wish he taught other classes just so I can have him as a professor again!

Bro take 5B with Samani and you will actually feel like you got your money's worth coming to UCLA. This guy is the best Professor I've ever had, he might just be one of the best teachers you've come across in your life. Insanely good at teaching really hard concepts and actually finding practical ways to use them in our daily lives, everything made sense, everything was interesting. I also found that because lecture attendance was forced through the reflection sheets, I learned so much more and barely had to study for the final. Also the fact that he makes you discuss questions within lecture with your peers and the mandatory discussion sections makes for a really social experience in an otherwise really STEMmy class, always a bonus to make new friends.