I took both Physics 1 and 2 in high school and I think that if you did well in those, you will do well in this class. As such, the quality of teaching didn't really matter so much for me, but in my opinion, Professor Tung is a fantastic teacher and person whose lectures are both clear and engaging. I appreciate his way of approaching physics and I liked the way he structured his class by having four midterms (all non-cumulative) and no final.

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

Tung is easily one of the best professors I've had in my time here. I didn't have that great an experience with physics in high school so I was unsure of what to expect in 5A, but Tung immediately dissolved any hesitations.

He makes lectures very engaging with super interesting demos and conveys the information in such a way that it's very easy to grasp. Like most physics classes should be, he gives you all the information you need to be able to solve any kind of problem, which does, admittedly, make his tests harder because he gives problems that you've never seen before and makes you work through them.

I'm not sure if the format of the class will stay the same in the regular school year (since I took it in Summer) but he has 4 midterms over the course of the 6 weeks each testing only the week's material (not cumulative). Your grade is also made up of homework problems through MasteringPhysics as well as lab (which was simultaneously fun and tedious). I would definitely take a class with Tung again!

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.