I LOST MY 4.0 TO TUNG.

Overall, two midterms are easy enough to get partial credit in / do well. There's 3% worth extra credit as well. BUT, the professor gives no practice problems in class and lectures are just deriving stuff, so it's hard to actually learn if you're never taken good physics in high school.

The final was the worst exam I've ever taken. I got lulled into a false sense of security by how easy the midterms were, but the final was really difficult. Bro's a known GPA killer. Good luck out there.

Tung is a great conceptual lecturer who utilizes engaging in-class demonstrations that helped me understand the principles of physics as someone who had never taken a physics course before this one. However, I felt like this was then completely lost on the exams, where the magnitude and depth of the questions went far beyond any of the supplementary materials covered in class or on Kudu (which he is aware of and states in the syllabus). I would say his exam questions most closely mimic the ones covered in discussion, but I felt the lecture did not adequately prepare me to approach that level of physics problem solving. He allows a cheat sheet for both midterms and the final, which I relied on heavily to be successful in this course. I think Tung is a solid choice of professor if you have prior experience with physics and can focus on the more complex problem solving, but I felt I was constantly juggling new fundamental concepts with applications and a demand for a deeper understanding of the material.

Tung is an okay physics professor. His lectures are very conceptual which is helpful to learning physics for people who have never taken physics before but he doesn't focus much on advanced problem-solving review during lectures nor does he give out any practice exams. I would say that going to the lecture was kind of useless but he gave us extra credit randomly through Kudu questions (kind of like clicker questions). TBH, his Nathan's Notes was a LIFESAVER for this class. You basically do not have to go to lecture and just read his Nathan's Notes which were most of the time an exact transcript of his lectures or just abridged versions. Use the Nathan's Notes as a study guide! His exams were multiple choice and short answer. I would say his exams are pretty difficult compared to the homework and problems in lecture/notes but there are a lot of similarities so it was not entirely too bad. The only thing that was difficult was that he would oftentimes give us problems where we had to come up with a symbolic answer without numbers so it is really important to understand the concepts and algebra behind things. As a person who has never taken physics before, this class is definitely doable but you need to study, review, and make sure to stay on top of things! I would say compared to the other physics professors here Tung is not a bad choice at all!

Dr. Tung is an incredible professor. He lectures clearly, taking the time to cover every detail that will come up on later assignments without being overbearing, while keeping a focus on understanding rather than just memorizing formulas. He answers questions very well in lecture and in OH, and his pre-exam reviews are amazingly helpful (it can help determine what you need to study). The exams are fair, but can sometimes be tricky (especially the first one). Make sure to review Nathan's Notes.
While the labs can sometimes be tedious, they do help with the rest of the course and pad the grade. Also, the discussions are really helpful for really cementing what you learn in lecture, so don't skip.

He is a good lecturer. He gives massive homework chunks that are all due at the end of the quarter so it's easy to get behind on those but if you do more that 65% everything past is partial credit.

His midterms are 24 open book, BUT they are very hard do not be fooled. He is very big on cheating so just don't do it or else you screw yourself and everyone else over. He also gives a form of clicker questions where they are used for extra credit.

Overall, he sets you up for success but the class is still very challenging nonetheless. Also contact me if you want my notes for this class **********) for a low price (even if you don't take the class with Tung, friends in other classes found them useful). Good luck!

This is BY FAR the WORST class I have taken at UCLA. I took AP physics in high school and it was a breeze but Tung managed to suck all the life out of physics. He is hands down the worst professor at UCLA! His test are completely unreasonable, the lecture don’t cover ANYTHING, you literally learn NEGATIVE F-ING information by going to class.

For Summer, it was all online and Tung streamed his lectures on YouTube, which I liked. For me personally, the material of this course was pretty interesting, probably because I'm EE. But it was also because his lectures were clear and his teaching style was very engaging for me. We had weekly Quizzes which were generally easy, if you watched the lectures and did practice/HW problems. Most of the HW was easy. The final exam was fair as well. It was like watching a streamer everyday, he has an intro video and everything.

Tung definitely is an engaging professor- he does a lot of cool demos in class, which I really enjoyed. He is also helpful- he answers questions during the 5 minute break/the end of class and is more than willing to help during his virtual office hours. Overall, I liked him, but the class is VERY content dense and moves extremely fast. Knowing what to focus on when studying for tests is a challenge, so staying on top of the kudu readings is key. He also offers ~3% extra credit for answering online questions in class and for doing more than the required amount of hw.

TLDR: Don't take the class, waste of time take a class with a bad prof and teach yourself since you will have to teach yourself in this class too

just don't that's my opinion. I came from horrible physics professors ie Freiman etc and yet he managed to be worse. He thinks he is a god at lecturing and because of that he justifies giving exams which are actually hell. For example the final and second midterm weren't evenly spaced out on the material at all. Like bro? For a cumulative final I expect the content to be spread out.

He is a mid lecturer at best. He goes way too much time going into derivations of formulas and teaches us barely any skills on learning how to solve a single physics problem. Don't worry though you can derive a formula though!! His discussion worksheets were irrelevant to the course where the TA's would be like "yea idk why he gave you this"

Don't even get me started on Kudu. This man straight up goes "my lectures accompany Kudu and Kudu accompanies my lectures" so now I have to read a terrible textbook ifykyk and deal with his derivation heavy lectures. At least with bad lecturers, you can teach yourself from the book. But nope not with this class!

The practice problems from Kudu and the discussion worksheets are nothing like the exams. But don't worry he won't give you a practice test because "Kudu is practice enough"

This man is the definition of ego issues too. He should not be a prof

Dr. Tung is a passionate lecturer and cares about learning, but this is a challenging and content-heavy course. Homework is not very time-consuming, but understanding the concepts beyond that can be. Something that helped me was attending his office hours. They were hosted over Zoom at a convenient time. The few times I attended, there were little to no people in attendance. He was very attentive to my questions and provided explanations from different angles than in lecture.

He also hosted a lengthy final review stream, which was so considerate! He gave a few hints about the final material, but ultimately the final was far beyond my abilities. It almost seemed a little unfair as the last unit was not tested evenly. Nonetheless, I believe he curved the final. To succeed on the tests, really understand the discussion questions and his "Nathan's Notes" pdf, not the homework! He often glosses over problems in lecture, so discussion questions are really the only place you'll see problems that he "likes." He often writes the discussion questions and relates them to what he wants you to know.

In terms of exam difficulty, I do believe Dr. Tung was just doing his best to satisfy the physics department policy (class mean must be around B-). However, he also tried to reward proof of understanding. He would even give points if we wrote out our thoughts in English, and mostly full credit if we just erred in computation. Also, 2-3% extra credit was available (which theoretically could bring the class mean to B).