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)

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.

Things seemed pretty organized overall considering the online format. Pray for a good lab group. I had Chau Dao as a TA, he was great: super helpful and pretty relaxed about things.

Holy crap I might have had more work for this 2 unit class than for any of my others. They load on the amount of stuff you have to do for no reason. Every lab you have to have like 12 tabs open, the teacher and TAs are super disorganized, and since we were the first section they would find problems with the experiment and we would have to redo stuff all the time. It was a very heavy workload for no reason. Make sure you rely on your group-mates. You're all in it together and just get the work done on time. It's not harsh grading. Just a ton of busy work. Be prepared.

Took virtually due to COVID.

The course was hastily moved online and it showed. Labs were being edited and made as the quarter continued and instructions for reports were vague. That being said, the labs were decent. Not super interesting and had a somewhat heavy workload considering this class is only 2 units. I can imagine this class would be more interesting and easier if it were in person, as TAs couldn't exactly troubleshoot your circuits over zoom. Also, if you have a bad lab group, you won't have a good time, especially during the final lab/presentation.

This was a great class. It will honestly probably be better when it's not online, but I was honestly impressed with how smooth it was even with Zoom calls instead of in person. The group labs are pretty great and would be even better if it could happen in person, but overall a great course. There are some cool labs and you learn basic Python programming for representing data and manipulating it, which is a great skill. You also learn some Arduino, which is super fun. Overall, great class, take it. It is a little bit of work for being a 2 unit class though, so be aware of that. Occasionally it can be time consuming.

It's a lot easier than the old version, from what I've heard. However, be prepared to spend some significant time (approaching 4-unit class) on prelabs and lab reports.

Warning:
Also, the lab reports are graded quite harshly; 3/5 is given for MEETING all of the requirements. You need to go "above and beyond" (which was not very clear how) to get a full score. So you will get a B unless you go "above and beyond."