Nathan C Tung
Department of Physics
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3.8
Overall Rating
Based on 68 Users
Easiness 3.1 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Clarity 3.9 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Workload 3.6 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Helpfulness 3.8 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

TOP TAGS

  • Gives Extra Credit
  • Engaging Lectures
GRADE DISTRIBUTIONS
38.3%
31.9%
25.5%
19.1%
12.8%
6.4%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

78.3%
65.2%
52.2%
39.1%
26.1%
13.0%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

51.8%
43.2%
34.5%
25.9%
17.3%
8.6%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

65.1%
54.3%
43.4%
32.6%
21.7%
10.9%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

73.1%
60.9%
48.7%
36.5%
24.4%
12.2%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

93.3%
77.8%
62.2%
46.7%
31.1%
15.6%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

80.6%
67.2%
53.7%
40.3%
26.9%
13.4%
0.0%
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
F

Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office.

ENROLLMENT DISTRIBUTIONS
Clear marks

Sorry, no enrollment data is available.

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Reviews (59)

4 of 6
4 of 6
Add your review...
Quarter: Summer 2022
Grade: A+
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Sept. 11, 2022

Oh where to start? I saw this professors seemingly great reviews on bruinwalk and was very excited to have him for c sesh physics… boy was I wrong. That class was such a mess! His lectures were really a waste of time, and unorganized. He taught nothing of substance and provides no resources. Let me be the first to say I’m fine with bad professors so long as they give the necessary resources to succeed. This man is neither a good professor nor does he give any extra resources to his students. And on the topic of students… this man is so narcissistic and apathetic towards his students. He repeatedly referred to us as his “audience.” I doubt he learned a single kids name. When he was approached with questions he usually was rather unhelpful and condescending.

The biggest blunder of this course, though, were his tests. You see Tung’s tests are multiple choice and he really doesn’t allow for partial credit on much, meaning a lot of your grade comes down to a few questions. They are also on this godforsaken website called kudu, which we had major tech problems with. He was absent for our midterm, ultimately messed up calculating grades, and as a result canceled midterm scores and made our 12 question final exam the only test grade of the entire class.

Above all this, he really was a bad teacher. He confused people more than he helped them the more he went on, and often approached problems in the most conceptually difficult ways to grasp. I was lucky to have had experience in physics, otherwise I feel this class would have been more of a challenge. I found myself often explaining problems to peers, as the professors explanations and instruction was too rudimentary to cover the homework/ quizzes. Just don’t bother with him - not worth it at all.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Summer 2021
Grade: N/A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Feb. 23, 2022

I'm retaking this class with a different professor right now because I was unable to finish the first time due to personal issues. I'm coming back to say that, after taking this class with a different prof (Rombes), I think that the way Tung teaches makes the course a lot harder than it needs to be. His lectures were engaging for the most part, and he was good at explaining things clearly, but I think he tried to teach concepts in a way that was too in-depth for an intro physics course. There are a lot of things in my old notes from this course that haven't even been mentioned in the one I'm taking now because they're not necessary to understand the curriculum.

If you like physics and want a deep, integrated understanding of the different concepts in 5A, then this might be the professor for you. Otherwise, I found that other profs like Rombes make their courses a little more beginner friendly.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Jan. 4, 2022

Tung is a great professor! He speaks in a manner that is very straight-forward and clear. He's able to break down concepts well and gives relevant examples. He cares very much about the students, his tests are fair and similar to the homework and in-class questions. He gives us review sessions before the midterms, which are exactly like the tests. You just need to do the homework and go to his review sessions in order to do well on the class.

Helpful?

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

Dr. Tung is an excellent professor who really cares about his students. He explains concepts very easily and always addresses questions throughly. His homework policy is very generous as its not due till the end of the quarter and if you do more than 65% you can receive Extra Credit. Exams were definitely fair overall. The multiple choice portion was pretty straightforward but the free response was definitely more difficult. It was still very doable for a 24 hr exam. I highly recommend Shardul if he is a Lab TA for 5A because he made labs really enjoyable. I highly recommend Dr. Tung for any physics class.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Summer 2021
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Aug. 15, 2021

I recommend taking PHYSICS 5A with Dr. Tung. The class taught me a lot while being low stress (as every class should be). Dr. Tung’s lectures were very clear, organized, and well thought out. They were more like conceptual lectures though, so example problems in the lectures will not exactly mimic homework problems. The lectures were sort of like extended Khan Academy videos with some participation questions that were extra credit. Dr. Tung also has an extremely cool intro video that he plays at the beginning of every lecture which amazed me every time I watched it.

Homework was collected all at the end of the class. These problems mostly prepared me for tests. Some of the homework problems were difficult, so ask on Campuswire for help. Only 60% of homework is need to get full credit for the homework part of your grade. Anything else over that is extra credit.

Discussions were somewhat useful. We worked on worksheets in groups and the TA’s went over the solutions at the end of class, which cleared things up. However, this might be the case just for the session I took.

Labs were tedious, but doable. They took a long time as we had to set up and record our own videos to analyze. The labs were also extremely independent, so no one really talked to their group members during lab. My TA wasn’t that helpful, but the lab manuals had enough instruction for me to figure out most stuff on my own.

The four midterms we had were similar to homework. Each midterm was 15% each and there was no final. There were only about 15 questions on each test, so one question was 1% of your grade. That can seem intimidating, but there was a lot of extra credit in the class. We were also given 24 hours to complete it and we could use the whole 24 hours if needed, meaning there wasn’t any time limit within the 24 hours.

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0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Summer 2021
Grade: A-
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Aug. 10, 2021

Professor Tung was a very nice and funny person who gave very engaging lectures with examples ofen in the form of videos demonstrations he conducted. Professor Tung's lectures was more on the conceptual side which sometimes made calculation in homework, discussion worksheets, etc. a little trickier but still doable. The labs were pretty tedious in the beginning but I felt as if it eased up a bit towards the end; like other reviews stated, the labs often times felt like a seperate class since they took up a lot of time and didn't match up with the lecture content at times. Also, I wasn't a big fan of the worksheets since it also introduced topics that were barely introduced (sometimes literally introduced in lecture a few minutes prior to discussion). I'd strongly recommend this class since Professor Tung genuinely cares about students learning and is also pretty forgiving in terms of grades since he offers a lot of extra credit than can bump you up a grade level if you do most of it.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
May 12, 2021

The tests lasted for 24 hours which helped a lot especially if you had other midterms on the same day. His lectures where live YouTube videos. He offered ALOT of extra credit. This class lessened my stress.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
April 2, 2021

Probably one of the best professors I’ve had so far. I have never taken a physics class before, but Professor Tung seriously helped me and I’d say most of my class understand the material well. He’s a super funny and chill lecturer, and I felt like his lectures and the test questions were well-related and fair.

His exams were pretty short in terms of the number of questions, with each of the four midterms having around 6 to 8 questions. You want to make sure you do well on the last 2 or 3 questions, as those typically counted for a larger portion of the exam grade. There was no final exam which was great, and the midterms were spaced out and could be taken within a 24 hour window (no other time limit, so you basically had the whole day from one evening to the next). I really appreciate how Professor Tung scheduled the exams so that it wasn’t too overwhelming, and he even did class polls asking what days and times we preferred, and pushed back the fourth midterm a bit so we’d have more time to study.

There was one discussion worksheet due per week that sometimes covered material ahead of the actual lecture, but they were still pretty fair. Also all of the MyLab homework was due after the last midterm, so you basically had the whole quarter to complete at least like 70% of the HW, which is all he required for us to get 100% in the hw category.

He even gave us extra credit through completing HW and Top Hat (it’s like Clicker) participation points during his YouTube lectures (the EC was about 4 to 5 % which is awesome). Super cool professor who also did really funny but also engaging demonstrations of physics concepts.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 9, 2021

One of the best professors I've taken at UCLA! He was extremely accommodating and genuinely cared about students, their wellbeing, and their learning. His lectures were streamed on Youtube and were sufficient at explaining basic concepts. I would recommend reading the textbook for further clarifications and to complete the homework. The workload was also very doable and all the assignments (Mastering Physics) were due at the end of the quarter to accommodate any personal circumstances. There were also multiple opportunities for extra credit, such as TopHat and completion of more than 65% of the homework was extra credit.

There were weekly worksheets assigned based on completion and four midterms throughout the quarter. Our fourth midterm was our "final". Dr. Tung has review sessions before each exam is released and I recommend going to them because they are very helpful for the free response portion of the midterms. We had 24 hours to complete the exams and they would usually have a few multiple choice and 2-3 free responses. Dr. Tung definitely made physics a lot more enjoyable!

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Jan. 26, 2021

After a hard time with physics in high school, Dr. Tung was the professor that I needed to clarify the material. This is not to say his tests were easy, but I felt that he prepared his students well to succeed on them. He went at his own pace to make sure the understanding was clear, I enjoyed how his lectures were him drawing out the problems and scenarios, and he gave good examples to connect to the real world. He was also fair with homework, and you had unlimited attempts to get the problems right without losing credit. The homework was due at the end of the quarter, but I would advise doing it week by week to stay on track. His tests were not easy, but with enough practice and attending the review sessions, you should do fine. Would highly recommend Tung for 5A.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Summer 2022
Grade: A+
Sept. 11, 2022

Oh where to start? I saw this professors seemingly great reviews on bruinwalk and was very excited to have him for c sesh physics… boy was I wrong. That class was such a mess! His lectures were really a waste of time, and unorganized. He taught nothing of substance and provides no resources. Let me be the first to say I’m fine with bad professors so long as they give the necessary resources to succeed. This man is neither a good professor nor does he give any extra resources to his students. And on the topic of students… this man is so narcissistic and apathetic towards his students. He repeatedly referred to us as his “audience.” I doubt he learned a single kids name. When he was approached with questions he usually was rather unhelpful and condescending.

The biggest blunder of this course, though, were his tests. You see Tung’s tests are multiple choice and he really doesn’t allow for partial credit on much, meaning a lot of your grade comes down to a few questions. They are also on this godforsaken website called kudu, which we had major tech problems with. He was absent for our midterm, ultimately messed up calculating grades, and as a result canceled midterm scores and made our 12 question final exam the only test grade of the entire class.

Above all this, he really was a bad teacher. He confused people more than he helped them the more he went on, and often approached problems in the most conceptually difficult ways to grasp. I was lucky to have had experience in physics, otherwise I feel this class would have been more of a challenge. I found myself often explaining problems to peers, as the professors explanations and instruction was too rudimentary to cover the homework/ quizzes. Just don’t bother with him - not worth it at all.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Summer 2021
Grade: N/A
Feb. 23, 2022

I'm retaking this class with a different professor right now because I was unable to finish the first time due to personal issues. I'm coming back to say that, after taking this class with a different prof (Rombes), I think that the way Tung teaches makes the course a lot harder than it needs to be. His lectures were engaging for the most part, and he was good at explaining things clearly, but I think he tried to teach concepts in a way that was too in-depth for an intro physics course. There are a lot of things in my old notes from this course that haven't even been mentioned in the one I'm taking now because they're not necessary to understand the curriculum.

If you like physics and want a deep, integrated understanding of the different concepts in 5A, then this might be the professor for you. Otherwise, I found that other profs like Rombes make their courses a little more beginner friendly.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2021
Grade: A
Jan. 4, 2022

Tung is a great professor! He speaks in a manner that is very straight-forward and clear. He's able to break down concepts well and gives relevant examples. He cares very much about the students, his tests are fair and similar to the homework and in-class questions. He gives us review sessions before the midterms, which are exactly like the tests. You just need to do the homework and go to his review sessions in order to do well on the class.

Helpful?

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

Dr. Tung is an excellent professor who really cares about his students. He explains concepts very easily and always addresses questions throughly. His homework policy is very generous as its not due till the end of the quarter and if you do more than 65% you can receive Extra Credit. Exams were definitely fair overall. The multiple choice portion was pretty straightforward but the free response was definitely more difficult. It was still very doable for a 24 hr exam. I highly recommend Shardul if he is a Lab TA for 5A because he made labs really enjoyable. I highly recommend Dr. Tung for any physics class.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Summer 2021
Grade: A
Aug. 15, 2021

I recommend taking PHYSICS 5A with Dr. Tung. The class taught me a lot while being low stress (as every class should be). Dr. Tung’s lectures were very clear, organized, and well thought out. They were more like conceptual lectures though, so example problems in the lectures will not exactly mimic homework problems. The lectures were sort of like extended Khan Academy videos with some participation questions that were extra credit. Dr. Tung also has an extremely cool intro video that he plays at the beginning of every lecture which amazed me every time I watched it.

Homework was collected all at the end of the class. These problems mostly prepared me for tests. Some of the homework problems were difficult, so ask on Campuswire for help. Only 60% of homework is need to get full credit for the homework part of your grade. Anything else over that is extra credit.

Discussions were somewhat useful. We worked on worksheets in groups and the TA’s went over the solutions at the end of class, which cleared things up. However, this might be the case just for the session I took.

Labs were tedious, but doable. They took a long time as we had to set up and record our own videos to analyze. The labs were also extremely independent, so no one really talked to their group members during lab. My TA wasn’t that helpful, but the lab manuals had enough instruction for me to figure out most stuff on my own.

The four midterms we had were similar to homework. Each midterm was 15% each and there was no final. There were only about 15 questions on each test, so one question was 1% of your grade. That can seem intimidating, but there was a lot of extra credit in the class. We were also given 24 hours to complete it and we could use the whole 24 hours if needed, meaning there wasn’t any time limit within the 24 hours.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Summer 2021
Grade: A-
Aug. 10, 2021

Professor Tung was a very nice and funny person who gave very engaging lectures with examples ofen in the form of videos demonstrations he conducted. Professor Tung's lectures was more on the conceptual side which sometimes made calculation in homework, discussion worksheets, etc. a little trickier but still doable. The labs were pretty tedious in the beginning but I felt as if it eased up a bit towards the end; like other reviews stated, the labs often times felt like a seperate class since they took up a lot of time and didn't match up with the lecture content at times. Also, I wasn't a big fan of the worksheets since it also introduced topics that were barely introduced (sometimes literally introduced in lecture a few minutes prior to discussion). I'd strongly recommend this class since Professor Tung genuinely cares about students learning and is also pretty forgiving in terms of grades since he offers a lot of extra credit than can bump you up a grade level if you do most of it.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
May 12, 2021

The tests lasted for 24 hours which helped a lot especially if you had other midterms on the same day. His lectures where live YouTube videos. He offered ALOT of extra credit. This class lessened my stress.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Winter 2021
Grade: A
April 2, 2021

Probably one of the best professors I’ve had so far. I have never taken a physics class before, but Professor Tung seriously helped me and I’d say most of my class understand the material well. He’s a super funny and chill lecturer, and I felt like his lectures and the test questions were well-related and fair.

His exams were pretty short in terms of the number of questions, with each of the four midterms having around 6 to 8 questions. You want to make sure you do well on the last 2 or 3 questions, as those typically counted for a larger portion of the exam grade. There was no final exam which was great, and the midterms were spaced out and could be taken within a 24 hour window (no other time limit, so you basically had the whole day from one evening to the next). I really appreciate how Professor Tung scheduled the exams so that it wasn’t too overwhelming, and he even did class polls asking what days and times we preferred, and pushed back the fourth midterm a bit so we’d have more time to study.

There was one discussion worksheet due per week that sometimes covered material ahead of the actual lecture, but they were still pretty fair. Also all of the MyLab homework was due after the last midterm, so you basically had the whole quarter to complete at least like 70% of the HW, which is all he required for us to get 100% in the hw category.

He even gave us extra credit through completing HW and Top Hat (it’s like Clicker) participation points during his YouTube lectures (the EC was about 4 to 5 % which is awesome). Super cool professor who also did really funny but also engaging demonstrations of physics concepts.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
March 9, 2021

One of the best professors I've taken at UCLA! He was extremely accommodating and genuinely cared about students, their wellbeing, and their learning. His lectures were streamed on Youtube and were sufficient at explaining basic concepts. I would recommend reading the textbook for further clarifications and to complete the homework. The workload was also very doable and all the assignments (Mastering Physics) were due at the end of the quarter to accommodate any personal circumstances. There were also multiple opportunities for extra credit, such as TopHat and completion of more than 65% of the homework was extra credit.

There were weekly worksheets assigned based on completion and four midterms throughout the quarter. Our fourth midterm was our "final". Dr. Tung has review sessions before each exam is released and I recommend going to them because they are very helpful for the free response portion of the midterms. We had 24 hours to complete the exams and they would usually have a few multiple choice and 2-3 free responses. Dr. Tung definitely made physics a lot more enjoyable!

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Verified Reviewer This user is a verified UCLA student/alum.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A
Jan. 26, 2021

After a hard time with physics in high school, Dr. Tung was the professor that I needed to clarify the material. This is not to say his tests were easy, but I felt that he prepared his students well to succeed on them. He went at his own pace to make sure the understanding was clear, I enjoyed how his lectures were him drawing out the problems and scenarios, and he gave good examples to connect to the real world. He was also fair with homework, and you had unlimited attempts to get the problems right without losing credit. The homework was due at the end of the quarter, but I would advise doing it week by week to stay on track. His tests were not easy, but with enough practice and attending the review sessions, you should do fine. Would highly recommend Tung for 5A.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
4 of 6
3.8
Overall Rating
Based on 68 Users
Easiness 3.1 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Clarity 3.9 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Workload 3.6 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Helpfulness 3.8 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

TOP TAGS

  • Gives Extra Credit
    (46)
  • Engaging Lectures
    (39)
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