Professor Tung is an amazing professor who was very accommodating to us during the pandemic. He gave detailed reviews before his exams and was very lenient while describing everything so well :) He cares so much for his students and always went the extra mile to make sure everyone understood (he answered all the questions in the chat and risked getting injured to give us physics demonstrations). He has detailed notes for his whole course (literally like a second textbook). During the pandemic, he had 24 hour exams and offered extra credit questions to take roll. Homework only needed to be done to 65% and if you did 100% you got a little bit of extra credit. Coming in with no background physics knowledge, he made the subject approachable. Thank you Dr. Tung!

Tung changed the exams from kudu to paper and pencil right before a few days of the first midterm. I did all the kudu homework problems, however, like the others have said, the kudu homework questions are not good preparation for the exams at all. I took Physics 1B with Corbin and got a better grade in that class than in this one. Even though I felt comfortable with the material covered in class and the lectures were fun, the exams were downright horrible. It does not help that they account for 80% of the grade (20% for each midterm and 40% for final). Avoid this class if you care about your GPA.

Professor Tung is wonderful! As someone who had zero physics experience prior to this course, Professor Tung did a great job of easing into the material and making concepts feel as intuitive as possible. This quarter he offered up to 5% extra credit on our final grade (!!) which could be earned by completing extra homework problems and in class participation. The amount of effort he puts into making class engaging shows how much he really cares about his students-- even though he has no idea what any of us look like, as he likes to joke. 10/10 recommend!!!

This was the easiest class I've taken at UCLA so far (easier than my GEs), and I'm no physics genius. However, I did take AP Physics in high school, so that may have somewhat helped, but even if you don't have prior physics experience you should still be able to succeed in this class. Tung is a goofy guy, but he isn't really a good lecturer and his lectures tended to be mediocre at best. I ended up never watching any lectures past the first midterm, but only went to his review sessions where he literally walked through each free response problem (which are worth most of the points) that would be on the exams.

Speaking of exams, there are four midterms and no final. His exam schedule was constantly changing though, so I never really knew when each exam was until about a week before. They consisted of some multiple choice questions, which were pretty easy to answer if you went back in his lecture notes, and a few free response problems which shouldn't be that bad since he goes over them during his review sessions but just changes a few numbers or adds a small detail.

Tung also offers an abundance of extra credit, which is fairly easy to get and is supposed to bump you up a whole letter grade if you do all of it. To get extra credit, you can complete extra mastering physics problems (homework) and answer the clicker questions during lectures. Besides the extra credit, the workload is fair. There are weekly mastering physics problems (he gives you unlimited attempts which was really helpful) and a weekly discussion worksheet, all of which take about 2-3 hours to complete.

Taking everything into consideration, this class should be a breeze, especially with the huge amount of extra credit offered. However, I felt that this class wasted my time. I didn't really learn anything and the fact that he basically solved the exam questions for you beforehand takes away any motivation to study. Additionally, because there was no final, I can't really say I mastered all of the material. This entire course consisted of regurgitating his work from his review sessions onto the midterm. If you want an easy A, take Tung, but if you actually want to learn something try taking someone else.

TLDR: if you want a really high-quality, interesting physics class, and a professor who truly cares, but you don’t mind getting a lower grade, take this class.

I got As and A-‘s in the other physics 1 series classes, so I was pretty surprised to receive this grade. In general, Nathan Tung is very kind and cares deeply about student learning. His lectures are beyond entertaining, and I don’t even like physics that much. However, I felt this class was not very forgiving. None of the midterms were dropped, the TAs were not helpful at all, and the questions on the exams felt sort of unpredictable. However, there was a chance to get 3% extra credit which was nice. Furthermore, I cannot emphasize what a wonderful lecturer and kind professor Tung was. Overall, I enjoyed this class the most out of all my physics classes, despite getting the worst grade in it. (He did tell us in the beginning that he would try to keep the class average gpa pretty low as the physics department was requiring it, which kind of sucks.)

I found this quarter to be a wreck. He crammed 100+ students into a lecture hall for the midterm where everyone needed their laptop for KUDU and it was just a mess. His lectures weren't helpful, all he did was demonstrations instead of actually applying the equations to problems. Tests were so challenging.

Dr. Tung is a really funny guy. He really tries to make lectures fun and engaging with fun demos and random jokes. His exams were a little annoying for me because they were all theoretical with no numbers but I got used to them after a while. They aren't super challenging but he has no practice problems that are like his exam questions. He uses slides but they aren't really helpful so you have to go to lecture to get the actual notes. He gave a LOT of extra credit this quarter, I don't know if he does that for every quarter but attending class was extra credit and doing all of the launchpad problems were extra credit. Two midterms and a final. Labs were graded on completion this quarter which was great because they were hard to do at home vs in person. Overall, I can't say I loved the class but it definitely wasn't as bad as the other reviews made me believe before taking the class.

Professor Tung is one of the best professors I've had at UCLA so far. This is my 3rd time taking a mechanics class, and I wish Professor Tung had been the first person to teach me physics. He makes the subject material intuitive, he really cares about how his class impacts his students, and his enthusiasm makes a typically tough subject totally bearable. If UCLA doesn't hold onto this guy for as long as possible they're out of their minds. In conclusion, if you have the chance to take Professor Tung's class, there is basically no reason why you shouldn't go with him.

I love Professor Tung! Take his class if you have the chance; he's a really great person and super passionate about physics.

I loved Professor Tung. His exams were very fair and his homework he assigned was very helpful. If you pay attention to his lectures you will be prepared for the exams.