One of the worst professors I've ever had at UCLA. He was super unclear and extremely boring. The homework was right out of the textbook, but the texts really felt like they were trying to trick you. Thankfully, I had enough physics knowledge to get by, but I learned nothing in this class.

If you took physics in high school, this class is a joke. The problems only require you to memorize the equations and plug in numbers, with the idea that you know when to use what equation.

The lectures were pretty entertaining, though they provided no real value to my grade in the class. I survived purely off my physics knowledge from high school and the book. During lecture, he would show seemingly law-defying demonstrations, but you didn't really need to know the exact details he would talk about. It seemed like going to lecture was only to be intrigued by physics demonstrations. I really enjoyed the demonstrations, though. He would also tell us some cool facts about physics that apply in your everyday life.

If you have taken physics in high school, or have a fair grip on most of the concepts and want to broaden your knowledge about physics and how it applies to everyday life, take this class. It's pretty basic.

Even though the professor is terrible, the class was pretty easy

Not a good professor, his lectures are incredibly disorganized (he jumps from equation to equations with little explanation), he is difficult to understand with his accent, and he goes through incredibly difficult problems during lecture that you will not see on any exams. He does do some fun demonstrations though, and he is pretty funny. I stopped going to lectures after the first exam 5th week and did better on the second exam because of it. His lectures only confused me when I thought i understood the concepts from the book. Book is necessary; exams problems are taken directly from the practice problems. The final was 10x more difficult than the midterms, and was curved significantly.

There is no reason why you shouldn't do well in this class. You don't need to read the book, just become somewhat familiar with the formulas for the midterms and final. During lecture he just does demonstrations. Though cool, they do not really help you learn the material.

He gives a ridiculous amount of extra credit, which isn't even really needed since his grading policy is very lenient to begin with. He is genuinely a nice person and a somewhat entertaining lecturer.

Professor Holczer only did experiments in class. They were pretty cool and interesting to see but you don't learn anything useful for the test while in lecture. A lot of people realized this and stopped coming after a while. The entire tests consists of calculation type problems and multiple choice is a very minimal part of the final. So a bulk of what you need to learn are the formulas and how to use them to calculate. You learn all of this in the once a week discussion. I learned more from the TA than i did from the professor. i was initially scared that this class would be difficult but I realized that I just need to memorize how to do all the different problems which is really not that bad. The professor gives a lot of practice through homework and practice tests so the curve ends up being pretty high in the class. I got 85s on both midterms, a 88 on the final and somehow ended with a solid A in the class.

super easy class. i actually scheduled it on top of another class because i hate physics and i just had to take it for the psych major pre-req. so i actually couldn't be there on mondays and wednesdays, and as it turned out, after the 2nd week, i only went to class twice - on the days of the midterms - and i got an A. (I had to stop by the lecture hall once a week to turn in my homework (its usually due monday or wednesday), but it was convenient since my other class was right next to it.) Its very possible to take this class without ever going to the lecture - he posts homework and practice midterms and all the info about the exams on his website, so you'll know whats going on. though to be fair, the few lectures that i went to were kind of interesting. But they weren't necessary at all to be successful in the class. Just do the homework and the practice exams, thats what the tests are on, though the problems on the tests are slightly trickier. In the past the tests were open book, but now he just lets you have an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper (both sides) with anything you want written on it. A lot of the material was a recap from my high school physics class, so if you've taken physics before and done well, it should be a breeze.

overall, a very easy class. if you want to learn something about physics, and learn the science behind refrigerators, dvd players, stuff like that, i'm sure you can. On the other hand, if you just want to get an A and fulfill your GE/pre-req, but not have to go to class, you can do that too.