Professor Arisaka only gives out A and A+, so this class is pretty nice. I enrolled into this class because I did research with him throughout the fall quarter.

I believe 4AL is a great course to experience writing research papers and working with data. My TA (Elias) was super nice and gave us lots of help with programming. I was lucky to have great group members too. The workload was pretty manageable (one post lab and pre lab per week), and three group projects. Most people get A and A+.

However, if you don't have much programming experience, the learning curve for python in this class is pretty steep. Most of the time, you have to rely on the person in the group that has prior programming experience (which was me in my group).

this class is VERY DEPENDENT ON YOUR TA. My ta Alexander Galkin was amazing. When he talked to his lecture slides, it was understandable although some parts maybe left out but you can always ask him questions and he will gladly help you out. For the final project, he was a great tremendous help when one of my labmates went to his office hours! and the only time we start our final project was the very last day of lab day :sob: :sob: but we clutched up! here are the grading breakdown:

​(Individual) Pre-Lab Survey - 2%
​(Individual) Attendance - 10% (-1% for each missing lab)
(Individual) Weekly Pre-lab assignments - 15%
(Individual) Weekly Post-lab assignments - 15%
(Team) Unit 2 Report - 10%
(Team) Unit 3 Report - 15%
(Team) Final Project Presentation - 15%
(Team) Final Project Report - 15%
Cleaning up lab/table - 3%

Typically, for some weekly post-lab, sometimes it will be group work sometimes it will be individual. ALSO, for the REPORTS, make sure to start them early, be concise about it, and make sure to STRICTLY follow the rubric. Also, to make it more professional, use Latex :D.
Anyways, this class is ALOT of work than most, if not some 4 unit or 5 unit class :sob:. Dont take it for granted.

have fun and goodluck! P.S Shoutout to my labmates throughout this quarter (bluetooth that don't work most of the time)

I took this fiat lux the fall of my freshman year and found it very eye opening, but also dense with information. Prof. Arisaka goes into the nitty gritty regarding the science involved, much of which has been skimmed over and simplified in previous educational exposures, but its because he knows so much. Its sometimes had to keep track of all the information, but a lot of it is largely conceptual over memorization, so understanding ideas and causes/effects are more useful then trying to note the exact jargon and vocabulary terms. The main assignments consisted of reading feedbacks and summaries, which are based on your own perception and understanding rather than correctness, and was very much manageable. The final is essentially a slideshow and presentation on a topic of interest spurred by the curriculum so far, and those of my quarter ranged from more physics based time travel to, biology and neuroscience topics such as why do we need sleep. Definitely make sure you fact check and use critical thinking, as your audience is a clear expert in the field, and he was not afraid to applaud or criticize the presenter on their information's correctness. If you're interested and willing, definitely sign up. I witnessed some students zone out or draw (literally the whole time), which I thought was disrespectful to the professor and a waste of their own time.
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Selling required textbooks!:
Just Six Numbers - Martin Rees
Life Ascending: Ten Great Inventions of Evolution - Nick Lane
I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self - Rodolfo R. Llinas

text ********** that you're inquiring about PHYSICS 19

I bought these retail, but other saw that other students repurchased from others. You don't need to pay full price for a good grade!

Selling the book for this class. I will give you a very fair price. Contact **********. Its the Physics 6c book.

GREAT PROFESSOR!

I have my past graded exams for sale! $10 for each exam. I received an A+ in the course. Email me at *************

This class actually sucks. The TAs don't care at all and seemingly barely understand the lab setups at all, the tutorials are written and designed incredibly poorly, the curriculum assumes a baseline knowledge of python which is NOT listed in the prerequisites, half of the components that you will use in class are faulty and the data looks weird because of it, I could go on.

Content-wise, this class is extremely free. You slide an Arduino down a ramp then write a lab report on how you've proven that gravity exists. It barely even qualifies as a high school physics experiment.

Workload-wise, I've put more time into this class than I have for most of my 4-unit lower divs.

Grading-wise, it's entirely dependent on your TA. I had the misfortune of having a TA who repeatedly took off points for grammar and phrasing (we lost 3 points for calling the air track cart a "plastic platform") and then proceeded to deny the regrade request. We also lost lost points for writing "the force on an ideal spring" instead of "the force exerted by an ideal spring" which first of all is extremely dumb to take points off for, and second of all doesn't even make sense because of Newton's 3rd law. From talking to my friends, it seems like most TAs are fine, but it's something to keep in mind when taking this class.

This class is completely run by a TA. My TA was nice and helpful! For each lab, you'll just copy the circuit diagram and Arduino code, run the experiment, and fill in some blanks in a Python template to analyze the data. It was a solid introduction into data/error analysis and report writing. For a 2-credit class, I thought it was paced well.

The projects were fairly designed, but if you have a bad group, expect to do everything yourself. The TA was utterly useless however.