Professor

Nathan Tung

AD
3.9
Overall Ratings
Based on 148 Users
Easiness 3.0 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 3.5 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 3.9 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 3.8 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (148)

4 of 12
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PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 15, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A

Dr Tung is a very clear lecturer, prerecorded so many cool demos for us to watch in class, and gave us extra credit for completing >65% of the homework. No surprises on the midterms, although the free response parts are slightly harder than lecture examples, it's still very reasonable. Definitely recommend his class!

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PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 18, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A

Highly recommend Master Tung. Great lectures, fair exams. We had 4 shorter midterms instead of 2 midterms and a final, which I liked since we finished the last midterm done before finals week. His demos were definitely the highlight of this class though!

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PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 20, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A-

I 100% recommend taking this class with Dr. Tung! He explains concepts with great clarity and even showcases fascinating demos that really help to apply concepts learned in class. The format during the virtual setting was also very reasonable, with lecture attendance not being mandatory and all the hw due at the end of the quarter(though definitely don't start at the last minute). I found rotational motion(last topic) to be the most difficult component, so definitely put extra attention into practicing the material.

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PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 29, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A

Best professor out there. Take his class if you can. He seems to really enjoy it, cares about students, and engages with them. He also does awesome demonstrations and he has the type of voice and enthusiasm of Neil deGrasse Tyson.

He did his virtual lectures through YouTube livestreams, which actually worked REALLY well, and he used TopHat to keep us engaged and to make sure we understood.

Lectures were entertaining and helpful. Tests were very fair. There was also plenty of extra credit.

Basically, take his class. I have nothing negative to say. Great professor.

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Aug. 10, 2021
Quarter: Summer 2021
Grade: A

Professor Tung is a great lecturer and is very clear in his explanations. He also adapted very well to remote learning, probably the best I've seen out of any professor so far. Everything in his class was done on Kudu including the midterms. I think they got progressively longer and also more difficult, but they were still very reasonable. Tung also gave a lot of extra credit and hints for the midterms throughout his lectures.
The labs in this class were sometimes frustrating because it is taught like a separate course. Sometimes labs do not line up with lecture which can make it difficult to get prelab questions correct. The tracker program used in lab was a bit slow for me so it took me a long time to complete the labs at first, but with more practice I got the hang of it.
Overall, this course with Tung is not too difficult and I would recommend choosing him as a professor if you can.

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PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 27, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: C-

Background on where I approached this class with: apprehensive yet excited to see if I would like physics, and I have adhd.These reviews made me feel like even though I had no previous experience in Physics, this class was tailored to life science students like me who don't really have a physics mindset or background and wanted to dip their toes in. I was extremely wrong. This class made me depressed from weeks 4-10. I poured around 20 hours a week into this class, blood, sweat, and tears, but it still was not enough. I tried my damnest, had 3 engineering friends help me with homework, and I still got a C-. He is a decent lecturer, and I can tell he's knowledgeable. The homework is hard, but forgiving (you only have to complete 65% of all assigned work, and its online so you get unlimited attempts and sometimes hints, which I appreciated). The labs stressed me out so much, my TA was cool to talk to but a hardass on grading, but he has no control over that. The workload is pretty rough, not because its so much content, but because the content is extremely challenging. We had homework problems on Mastering Physics where you get unlimited attempts at the questions and only have to complete 65% of the total assigned homework problems for full homework grade, which I appreciated, most of these chapters had no more than 30 questions. The majority of the grades are the tests. I went to every lecture, every discussion, and every lab, rewatched lectures, studied homework problems with my generous engineering friends, and got a 51/100 on the first midterm. He does not curve to the benefit of students (or at all). His testing format is generous, but to be honest, the only acceptable format for free-response tests during COVID. A pdf is released and we have 24 hours to do it. We have 4 midterms throughout the quarter, which I also appreciate this format. Professor claimed that these tests were meant to be completed in an hour, every single midterm I spent a minimum of 10 hours on. Worked from when it was released (around 5) until I went to bed around 11-12, and then got up in the morning and worked on it until my brain was fried and I couldn't bear to look at it any longer. You know if you struggle with math or chemistry or physics, and you will struggle with this class. I passed with this C- by a miracle. Overall, the professor is generous and forgiving on assignment submission formats but the content is absolutely brutal. My mental health and daily life have improved since I no longer take this class. Professor, if you're reading this, make the content easier. It is ridiculous what we are tested on and what we are expected to know as life science students to an introductory physics course. Sincerely, someone who tried her hardest and barely succeeded.

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April 4, 2023
Quarter: Winter 2023
Grade: B

Avoid Tung at all costs. He graded half of my midterms incorrectly and had to do multiple regrade requests to get back over 20 points. I loves to take random leave of absences for a week at a time and posts old recording from Covid times to make up for it. Which by the way does not align with our current lectures and is often missing a lot of information. He absolutely does not go over any calculation type questions or problems during lecture and does random demonstration like cooking a hot dog. The problems we get on kudu are so random they sometimes use formulas out of our classroom and do not even fit the scope of the lesson it’s assigned with. He does not go over any problems so essentially you’re on your own to self teach that. The only thing he does is talk about the theoretical aspect of physics for hours and hours so that’s it. Worst Professor ever not worth it

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Dec. 8, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: NR

Professor Tung is by far the worst professor I have ever had at UCLA. I have zero respect for how he teaches his class and I strongly advise against taking this class with him. He spends all of lecture going over pointless derivations of the equations and rambling on about convoluded concepts somewhat related to physics. He provides little, if any, examples that honestly have very little to do with his test questions, he provides no practice problems other than mastering which he even said were not reflective of the exams, and he provides no practice tests. His instructions for studying for the test were to "learn physics" and not just "study for his tests" and I'm sorry but that is complete bull. The average of the first test was 50% which according to him was his goal. The last problem on the test was worth 20 of the 40 points and no one had ever seen anything like it, which was his intention. Following the huge backlash of the 1st midterm, he tried to improve but did so sparingly. He held a review session for the midterm and it was surprisingly helpful however the average was still pretty low at a 63%. He is very condescending when speaking about grades in that he said in order to get an A you should be able to do problems you've never seen before just like him with no mistakes which is completely unreasonable considering he has a PhD in physics and none of us are even physics majors. All in all he sucks as a professor and I genuinely hope he drastically changes or never teaches again because I wouldn't want anyone to go through the torture and hell that is his class.

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PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 24, 2021
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A

Professor Tung is definitely beyond my expectations. The 4 midterms each make up 22.5% of the grade, while the homework is 25% and the discussion worksheet is 5%. For the homework, you only need to complete 65% to receive full credits. Anything beyond that is extra credit. You can also receive extra credit points by answering tophat questions during live lectures for both completion and correctness, and you can receive up to 5% of extra credit in total. That is a huge amount especially given that the exams are neither cumulative nor hard (though very conceptual).
Tung's lectures are clear and well-paced. They are on youtube, and he responds to the chats quickly. There are more than enough extra credit points in homework to get the 5%, so it's perfectly fine if you do not want to pay for Tophat. The slides on Tophat are not important for the class, as you can find the summary of basic concepts in Tung's notes. The notes are really nicely written and compiled.
Homework does not penalize you at all for giving wrong answers, so it's a good way to practice without any pressure. Just make sure you practice the conceptual questions without numbers, because there won't be any numbers on the midterms.
Tung's class definitely made my winter quarter more enjoyable. I cannot expect anything more from this class. 11/10

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Dec. 9, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: NR

Don't listen to these reviews. It's just a bunch of whiny stem kids. The class and professor are fair, and I am sure everyone will eat their words when final grades come out. He's trying his best and it's clearly evident, and to put yourself in his shoes would give you a lot of perspective on how good of a teacher he is trying to be. Emphasis on teacher, as he cares about education and is going against the grain on just giving A's to everyone who think they deserve it, which is why he's experienced such a backlash from these entitled students who think that grades should be handed to them on a silver platter. Don't get me wrong, I still failed the first midterm like everyone else; I am not someone who's excelling and is on a high horse. To give him such bad ratings shows the disconnect between the value of education and the demand by stem students to be handed a good grade so they can move on and go to med school. These people seems to be missing the point about why they are in college... Every classmate I have spoken to has not blamed the professor as they can see him really trying and adjusting, and they all trust that he will be very fair in grades at the end. The students on bruin walk are NOT representative on how students feel in this class, don't let the whiners dissuade you from taking this professor, he is a good man and a great teacher with a lot of potential in the future.

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11 14 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
March 15, 2021

Dr Tung is a very clear lecturer, prerecorded so many cool demos for us to watch in class, and gave us extra credit for completing >65% of the homework. No surprises on the midterms, although the free response parts are slightly harder than lecture examples, it's still very reasonable. Definitely recommend his class!

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
March 18, 2021

Highly recommend Master Tung. Great lectures, fair exams. We had 4 shorter midterms instead of 2 midterms and a final, which I liked since we finished the last midterm done before finals week. His demos were definitely the highlight of this class though!

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A-
March 20, 2021

I 100% recommend taking this class with Dr. Tung! He explains concepts with great clarity and even showcases fascinating demos that really help to apply concepts learned in class. The format during the virtual setting was also very reasonable, with lecture attendance not being mandatory and all the hw due at the end of the quarter(though definitely don't start at the last minute). I found rotational motion(last topic) to be the most difficult component, so definitely put extra attention into practicing the material.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
March 29, 2021

Best professor out there. Take his class if you can. He seems to really enjoy it, cares about students, and engages with them. He also does awesome demonstrations and he has the type of voice and enthusiasm of Neil deGrasse Tyson.

He did his virtual lectures through YouTube livestreams, which actually worked REALLY well, and he used TopHat to keep us engaged and to make sure we understood.

Lectures were entertaining and helpful. Tests were very fair. There was also plenty of extra credit.

Basically, take his class. I have nothing negative to say. Great professor.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Summer 2021
Grade: A
Aug. 10, 2021

Professor Tung is a great lecturer and is very clear in his explanations. He also adapted very well to remote learning, probably the best I've seen out of any professor so far. Everything in his class was done on Kudu including the midterms. I think they got progressively longer and also more difficult, but they were still very reasonable. Tung also gave a lot of extra credit and hints for the midterms throughout his lectures.
The labs in this class were sometimes frustrating because it is taught like a separate course. Sometimes labs do not line up with lecture which can make it difficult to get prelab questions correct. The tracker program used in lab was a bit slow for me so it took me a long time to complete the labs at first, but with more practice I got the hang of it.
Overall, this course with Tung is not too difficult and I would recommend choosing him as a professor if you can.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: C-
March 27, 2021

Background on where I approached this class with: apprehensive yet excited to see if I would like physics, and I have adhd.These reviews made me feel like even though I had no previous experience in Physics, this class was tailored to life science students like me who don't really have a physics mindset or background and wanted to dip their toes in. I was extremely wrong. This class made me depressed from weeks 4-10. I poured around 20 hours a week into this class, blood, sweat, and tears, but it still was not enough. I tried my damnest, had 3 engineering friends help me with homework, and I still got a C-. He is a decent lecturer, and I can tell he's knowledgeable. The homework is hard, but forgiving (you only have to complete 65% of all assigned work, and its online so you get unlimited attempts and sometimes hints, which I appreciated). The labs stressed me out so much, my TA was cool to talk to but a hardass on grading, but he has no control over that. The workload is pretty rough, not because its so much content, but because the content is extremely challenging. We had homework problems on Mastering Physics where you get unlimited attempts at the questions and only have to complete 65% of the total assigned homework problems for full homework grade, which I appreciated, most of these chapters had no more than 30 questions. The majority of the grades are the tests. I went to every lecture, every discussion, and every lab, rewatched lectures, studied homework problems with my generous engineering friends, and got a 51/100 on the first midterm. He does not curve to the benefit of students (or at all). His testing format is generous, but to be honest, the only acceptable format for free-response tests during COVID. A pdf is released and we have 24 hours to do it. We have 4 midterms throughout the quarter, which I also appreciate this format. Professor claimed that these tests were meant to be completed in an hour, every single midterm I spent a minimum of 10 hours on. Worked from when it was released (around 5) until I went to bed around 11-12, and then got up in the morning and worked on it until my brain was fried and I couldn't bear to look at it any longer. You know if you struggle with math or chemistry or physics, and you will struggle with this class. I passed with this C- by a miracle. Overall, the professor is generous and forgiving on assignment submission formats but the content is absolutely brutal. My mental health and daily life have improved since I no longer take this class. Professor, if you're reading this, make the content easier. It is ridiculous what we are tested on and what we are expected to know as life science students to an introductory physics course. Sincerely, someone who tried her hardest and barely succeeded.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Winter 2023
Grade: B
April 4, 2023

Avoid Tung at all costs. He graded half of my midterms incorrectly and had to do multiple regrade requests to get back over 20 points. I loves to take random leave of absences for a week at a time and posts old recording from Covid times to make up for it. Which by the way does not align with our current lectures and is often missing a lot of information. He absolutely does not go over any calculation type questions or problems during lecture and does random demonstration like cooking a hot dog. The problems we get on kudu are so random they sometimes use formulas out of our classroom and do not even fit the scope of the lesson it’s assigned with. He does not go over any problems so essentially you’re on your own to self teach that. The only thing he does is talk about the theoretical aspect of physics for hours and hours so that’s it. Worst Professor ever not worth it

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: NR
Dec. 8, 2019

Professor Tung is by far the worst professor I have ever had at UCLA. I have zero respect for how he teaches his class and I strongly advise against taking this class with him. He spends all of lecture going over pointless derivations of the equations and rambling on about convoluded concepts somewhat related to physics. He provides little, if any, examples that honestly have very little to do with his test questions, he provides no practice problems other than mastering which he even said were not reflective of the exams, and he provides no practice tests. His instructions for studying for the test were to "learn physics" and not just "study for his tests" and I'm sorry but that is complete bull. The average of the first test was 50% which according to him was his goal. The last problem on the test was worth 20 of the 40 points and no one had ever seen anything like it, which was his intention. Following the huge backlash of the 1st midterm, he tried to improve but did so sparingly. He held a review session for the midterm and it was surprisingly helpful however the average was still pretty low at a 63%. He is very condescending when speaking about grades in that he said in order to get an A you should be able to do problems you've never seen before just like him with no mistakes which is completely unreasonable considering he has a PhD in physics and none of us are even physics majors. All in all he sucks as a professor and I genuinely hope he drastically changes or never teaches again because I wouldn't want anyone to go through the torture and hell that is his class.

Helpful?

11 11 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 1A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
March 24, 2021

Professor Tung is definitely beyond my expectations. The 4 midterms each make up 22.5% of the grade, while the homework is 25% and the discussion worksheet is 5%. For the homework, you only need to complete 65% to receive full credits. Anything beyond that is extra credit. You can also receive extra credit points by answering tophat questions during live lectures for both completion and correctness, and you can receive up to 5% of extra credit in total. That is a huge amount especially given that the exams are neither cumulative nor hard (though very conceptual).
Tung's lectures are clear and well-paced. They are on youtube, and he responds to the chats quickly. There are more than enough extra credit points in homework to get the 5%, so it's perfectly fine if you do not want to pay for Tophat. The slides on Tophat are not important for the class, as you can find the summary of basic concepts in Tung's notes. The notes are really nicely written and compiled.
Homework does not penalize you at all for giving wrong answers, so it's a good way to practice without any pressure. Just make sure you practice the conceptual questions without numbers, because there won't be any numbers on the midterms.
Tung's class definitely made my winter quarter more enjoyable. I cannot expect anything more from this class. 11/10

Helpful?

2 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
PHYSICS 5C
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: NR
Dec. 9, 2019

Don't listen to these reviews. It's just a bunch of whiny stem kids. The class and professor are fair, and I am sure everyone will eat their words when final grades come out. He's trying his best and it's clearly evident, and to put yourself in his shoes would give you a lot of perspective on how good of a teacher he is trying to be. Emphasis on teacher, as he cares about education and is going against the grain on just giving A's to everyone who think they deserve it, which is why he's experienced such a backlash from these entitled students who think that grades should be handed to them on a silver platter. Don't get me wrong, I still failed the first midterm like everyone else; I am not someone who's excelling and is on a high horse. To give him such bad ratings shows the disconnect between the value of education and the demand by stem students to be handed a good grade so they can move on and go to med school. These people seems to be missing the point about why they are in college... Every classmate I have spoken to has not blamed the professor as they can see him really trying and adjusting, and they all trust that he will be very fair in grades at the end. The students on bruin walk are NOT representative on how students feel in this class, don't let the whiners dissuade you from taking this professor, he is a good man and a great teacher with a lot of potential in the future.

Helpful?

11 14 Please log in to provide feedback.
4 of 12
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