Tung is very knowledgeable about physics. You can tell that he is very fascinated on the subject and he does his best to demonstrate how cool physics is by using a lot of demonstrations in class. The problem with using a lot of demonstrations is that he just taught a lot of concepts and then wasted 10 minutes at the end of class to do those demonstrations. This means that he never did any practice problems during class. Also the Mastering Physics wasn't mandatory, but the practice problems still wasn't similar to what was on the exams, so it did not help much.

During the first midterm, almost no one did well because we only knew how to answer the conceptual questions. During the second midterm, he did a better job of showing us what will be on the exam, but you would only be able to truly know how to do those problems if you went to the REVIEW SESSION. or else everyone would've definitely failed. same thing goes for the final exam.

Nathan Tung is my TA for physics 1C in Spring 2019. He is absolutely the best TA I've ever had at UCLA. He just has the magic to make the most difficult physical concepts simple, clear and interesting. I always walked out of his discussion feeling that I had much deeper understanding of the material. It's a pure enjoyment to attend his discussion and I would 10/10 recommend him. If you're not convinced, just check out his physics 1C reviews: https://www.bruinwalk.com/professors/david-bauer/physics-1c/
I'm really shocked to see that he got such low rating at Physics 5C. It could be that he made the exams too hard or wrongly estimated his students' physics background. I believe that he will do better next time teaching because he is so enthusiastic about teaching. I'd still recommend him for he is such an amazing lecturer.

Tung was the best prof. I could have asked for. You won't regret taking him

Nathan is an absolute god. His exams are straightforward and he offers SO MUCH extra credit. I would 100% recommend.

Not sure if this review would be any different if the class was offered in person instead of online but overall the assigned work was not justified and the exams were fine as long as you paid attention during lecture.

Tung assigned a lot of homework through MasteringPhysics and was lenient about due dates (everything due at the end of the quarter) and completion for grading (initially needed 75% completed for full credit which then changed to 65%), however the homework was just busywork instead of actual help with learning about class concepts or exams.

In addition, labs also felt like busywork. Pre-labs are due prior to the start of lab and my TA set post-lab due dates 48 hours after lab. We worked with an infuriating program called Tracker (incredibly slow at times and outdated ugly looking UI) which allowed us to analyze our recorded videos of experiments we performed at home. It's not the lab's fault that the software was difficult and annoying to work with, however I feel like most of the grief could have been avoided if we had pre-recorded sample videos to work with instead of recording our own.

This quarter exams were open for 24 hours and open book + open note and Tung had review sessions which were actually pretty useful and practically outlined how to work out the written portion of the exams. He also gave out extra credit for those purchased a Tophat subscription and answered questions during live lecture.

So overall not the best, not the worst. If you can, I suggest you try to find a more engaging professor to take 5A with.

Doctor Tung is an amazing professor. He was very caring and thoughtful toward his students in what was a really tough quarter for a bunch of us. This was Doctor Tung's first time teaching Physics 5A and he was amazing. I would definitely recommend taking this course with him. He used Mastering Physics, which was a lot of work, but set the deadline for all assignments at the end of the quarter and did not have a penalty for incorrect answers. He also only required students complete 75% of the questions, which was later lowered due to the nature of this quarter. Doctor Tung created his own slides and his own notes (like a mini-textbook) on the content of this course. This was especially useful, since Doctor Tung's tests did not have numbers and required more conceptual (rather than quantitative) thinking. He also created a bunch of demonstrations and showed us them. You could always tell he was very passionate about teaching us well. He also was a cool, relatable professor who told us once that he had a good weekend because he finished playing Final Fantasy. :) He was super accommodating throughout this course and the midterms and final were 24 hour exams. My only complaint is that labs were a lot of work and sometimes frustrating because we had to set up the experimental apparatuses ourselves. However, this is standard throughout Physics 5 and was not the decision of Doctor Tung. Additionally, it was an accommodation for this quarter, specifically. Labs were also graded on effort, which was nice. I do not have the specific rubric, but grades in this class depended on exams, Mastering Physics, and labs. Doing Top Hat questions in lecture and extra Mastering Physics problems resulted in extra credit. I would totally recommend anyone to take this course with Doctor Tung.

He is the best physics professor you can have here at UCLA. He's super nice, chill, even gets philosophical about physics! Attendance and participation is all extra credit, there is no final, instead 4 small midterms. Also-- doing just 60% of the homework problems will get you full credit under the homework category -- everything over is MORE EXTRA CREDIT!!
Take it! You will not regret it :))

also -- he has really fun visuals and demonstrations!

I made an account just so that I could gas up Nathan. BY FAR the best professor I have had at UCLA. He is funny, kind, and sweet, and truly cares about his students. He explains lecture material very clearly, and prepares you well for exams (little studying needed). I really hope that I can take a class with him again.

Dr. Tung is straight up fire. I wish he teaches 5B and 5C in the future because he's killing it with 5A. I came in with zero background in physics and this professor made the concepts easy to understand. He offers a lot of extra credit so people can score really well in his class. He is also super accommodating. The lecture portion of the class is fun and enjoyable. HOWEVER, the labs suck. They are not hard just very tedious, it usually took us more time to do the lab than study for the midterms.
In terms of workload, it is heavy but easily manageable. In summer session, we had 4 midterms instead of having 1 midterm and 1 final. The 4 midterms were like long quizzes in my opinion, they were not bad and totally fair in respect to the content he taught in the class. This professor is not trying to trick you, the questions are simple.
The mastering homework was all due at the end of the session, so we had a lot of flexibility. Additionally, we only had to complete 60% of the homework to get full points.
So, if Dr Tung is available TAKE HIM, YOU WILL BE THANKFUL

Taking this class is daunting since I have no physics background at all. However, Professor Tung made this class understandable with his fun demonstrations and clear lectures. Honestly, one of the best Physics professor.