I want to start by saying that Prof. Jura is approachable and helpful. If you're ever in need of some help just ask him or his TAs. And just to reiterate what I'm sure anyone else will tell you: "DON'T BUY THE TEXTBOOK". The textbook is neither relevant to the problems you're expected to be able to do nor is it a useful supplement to the lectures or concepts. Memorize the formulas. Understand and be able to recreate the derivations. The math in the class is fairly difficult; if you're having problems understanding some of the more complicated procedures/concepts it helps to consult PhysicsForums, Wolfram, and Wikipedia for homework help. For his exams: you should be able to do the questions from the practice exams, and go back over the relevant homework problems. All in all, his class is straightforward, no nonsense, and steady paced. Anyone can do well in his class.

He's a great professor! All you need are his notes so DON'T BUY THE BOOKS not even the reader. It's a waste of money. He's a bit stingy on partial credit on tests and homework, so make sure to study hard.

Jura's class was poorly organized. We used two "books" throughout the class, for the first part we could buy separate chapters online which can only be opened for 6 months and on your computer only. It turned out these virtual pages were useless. For the second half of the class our textbook was just a book of Berkeley lecture notes, which was also not helpful.

Then there comes the homework, which were sometimes poorly worded. The midterms are very strongly based on the homework and old midterms. It didn't help that the TA had a strong accent and messy writing.

Take someone else for 17 if you can.

I had Jura and did not enjoy the experience at all. His lecture was great and made perfect sense. However it was very loosely related to the material in the book or even for the homework he assigned! His midterm was the same. He is a brilliant man but not a very effective teacher.

Professor Jura was great... other teachers should have to sit through his class to see how physics is taught... he took his teaching seriously and not as a burden... i would definitely take his course again... hopefully he'll decide to teach more upper division courses in the future... the TA for that course was great also... colin deserves a big heads up for all the work he put in for that class...

Dr.Jura is great. He prepares his lectures meticulously, and treats students like fellow physicists.. with respect. Exams are hard, but partial credit is generous. Study the lecture material very carefully, and you'll do fine in his class. He teaches you to think like a scientist.

Professor Jura is awesome. Once in a while his lectures can be a bit incoherent and confusing, but in general they were very very good. And those a few rare lectures are confusing mostly because of the material is very new and difficult, rather than Prof. Jure not being able to teach well. The exams are difficult in a sense that you no longer get the typical problems you expected in the 1 series. Instead now he tries to teach you, and expects you to begin learning how to be a real physicist. I feel that this is appropriate for physics 17 because it is designed to be a transition from lower to upper-division physics, and therefore should very reasonably be a student's first exposure to how physicists really think. On the exams you are often asked to derive an expression regarding a more or less complete and coherent physical phenomena, which requires extensive use of physical intuition and conceptual understanding, as opposed to simply plugging into a specific equation. (Which is what happens more often than not in the 1 series.)

Also, Prof. Jura is in his office and willing to help almost anytime, regardless of if it is formal office hours or not. He is very nice and reasonable. Highly recommended.

I loved this class! He taught it very well. The tests for this class were very reasonable, especially the final exam. I studied 18 hours straight for the exam and I got an A in the class. The material that Professor Jura covered was very interesting. I had seen some of this stuff from my other classes but didn't quite understand the "where" and "why". But in this class, he explained everything and where they were derived from. I was really sad after the 1 series in Physics but now that I've taken this class, I'm really excited to take the upper division courses.

He is a very intelligent, caring, and funny teacher. I recommend taking him.

Sigh... I'm torn when thinking about Professor Jura. On one hand, he's a nice guy, caring, sympathetic to students' needs, but on the other hand, he's stagnant in the way he teaches and I can't see him improving. He cares about teaching, no doubt about that, but he just doesn't convey the information of the course to the students very well. He talks about the course subjects but he doesn't realize at times that we can't appeal to the math or physics he's using because either we just learned it and haven't got the hang of it, or we just haven't seen the stuff at all. It's frustrating listening to his lectures at times, and it's even more frustrating taking his tests. If he's teaching a course you need, take him. Don't fear him too much; he tries, unlike other teachers; but just realize you may have to work alittle harder and sweat through some pain.