This professor is exceptionally accommodating and you can tell he cares about being a good teacher. He is very good at answering questions and giving practice tests before exams. I only got a B because I did not study because I was struggling with a different class, but I know if I had just put in a reasonable amount of effort, I could have gotten an A. I think is was my favorite professor so far and they fixed my fear of physics!

Rombes is a wonderful professor for 5A IF you've taken physics before. If you have taken some sort of introductory course to physics (even AP physics), you will be fine in this class. I took AP physics in high school and it was the worst, but because I'd taken it already in high school, this class was more of a review for me... however, this is how Rombes teaches: like a simple review or like a very very simplified introduction. If you have never taken physics before, you will likely have a harder time in this class (however, that's probably going to be the case with any professor). Rombes oversimplifies concepts in lecture and barely goes over examples (and the ones he does go over, are very simple ones). I really enjoyed having Rombes as a professor for the first reason... once again, because it was a review for me. He is always open to questions during lecture. He stops after almost every slide and asks for questions, never makes you feel dumb for any question (in physics, there really is no stupid question because it can be confusing and hard to understand). He is a nice professor but will not budge on his grading scale. Chances are, your class will not do bad enough for him to have to change the scale and like many other lower div ucla courses, it is not a curved class.

One of the best professors I’ve had at UCLA!

- Good lecturer: lectures are very engaging and he cares about his students.
I was surprised to read that some people thought his lectures are boring and not engaging. I had 0 prior knowledge or interest in Physics, but Rombes really changed that for me and now I'm LAing for Physics 5AL. You can tell that he cares about his students and their learning experience by the way he prepares students for midterms/finals and answers questions thoughtfully.

- Uploads practice midterms/finals so students know what to expect.
For MT 1, the exam and the practice midterm was very similar, so solving it multiple times really helped me prepare for the exam. Because of the TA strike, MT 2 and the final became multiple-choice, so the practice exams and the actual exam was quite different.

- Exams are FAIR and very dooable.
Practice midterm and actual midterm was very similar for Midterm 1. No trick questions. Midterm 2 and final became multiple-choice and more conceptual, but if you understand the general idea you should be good.

- Grading is also FAIR and plenty of people can get As.
Campuswire extra-credit opportunity (very few points but better than nothing). He does NOT round.
However, if the average is below 80%, he curves the average to 80%. This is very helpful if you scored lower than expected!

- Discussion sections are NOT mandatory.
Personally didn't feel like they helped that much as we just spent the entire 50min solving one question and discussing about it. I'd rather spend that time studying on my own, but that's just personal preference.

- Lab portion is annoying but you'll most likely get full marks.
It's a lot of tedious work but as long as you do everything somewhat correctly, they'll give you full marks.

Personal tips on how to do well:
- There are big concepts that the course focuses on, such as projectile motion, drawing free body diagrams, etc. Search up the topic name on YouTube (preferably by "Organic Chemistry Tutor") and solve as many practice questions as you can. It's important you understand how to solve similar questions under the same topic.
- Re-solve Mastering Physics questions (this is your weekly homework). The questions on the exam are not exactly the same as these but it still helps.

If I had to re-take this class, I would take it with him. I've heard other professors (e.g. Tung, Schriver) are great and I don't doubt it! But so is Rombes, idk why he doesn't have that many posts on Bruinwalk.

Good luck!

This felt like a fair and well structured introduction to Physics. For context, I never took a physics class in any capacity in high school, so the content I learned in this class was completely new to me. The most important thing I can say is that Rombes is indeed a very good looking young man, to the point where I nearly mistook him for another student. I believe the way the class was structured was extremely fair. The two midterms and single final were each worth 20% of your grade. Rombes allows you to drop one midterm if it helps your grade, changing the value composition to 30% Midterm, 30% Final. The other 40% consists of homework via Mastering Physics (25%) and Lab (15%).

I believe the structure of this class is very fair. Dropping a midterm lowers the stakes of each exam pretty significantly. The content on the exams felt fair, however there is one slight caveat to that point that only applied this quarter due to the TA strike. I'll mention that bit a tad later. Mastering Physics (if you budget time right) should be a free 100% (I personally did not get 100% in this category because I was lazy). Labs, while tedious, are entertaining enough and are a fun distraction from the crippling pain of a college education. However, your lab grade may depend on your TA, since some grade on completion while others grade on content.

Lectures were actually pretty great, especially for me. This became especially noticeable when I stopped going and realized I had made a huge mistake three days before midterm two. They are Bruincasted which is a plus. Lectures are very straightforward, and Rombes explains concepts very well. My only issue is the fact that lectures do not contain many worked examples. The worked examples Rombes does go over are ok, they don't often resemble exam questions, but do a good enough job at displaying a basic application of concepts taught in lecture. Rombes is pretty entertaining to listen to and cracks some pretty fire jokes at times if I do say so myself (despite 90% of these jokes consisting of him poking fun at himself, which is still funny).

Now to address the elephant in the room, the TA strike. Rombes decided to cancel all week 8 lectures in light of this strike. He also cancelled the midterm that was supposed to happen that week. He would eventually resume lectures in week 9 and would eventually bring back midterm 2 in week 10, but announced this nine days before midterm 2. I believe that Rombes gave us enough time to prepare for midterm two. Rombes also made sure that content we had not been lectures on was not tested. I see no issue with this. I do take issue with the fact that the tests were converted to multiple choice on a relatively short notice. Again, this is not Rombes's fault, since nobody really knew how long the strike would go on, and he had to make a last minute call the Monday before the exam. Both midterm 2 and the final ended up being multiple choice. While this did suck, expecting a professor to grade hundreds of short answer exams would be unrealistic, so multiple choice was a necessary evil.

I believe rescheduling Midterm 2, rather than cancelling it altogether, gave students the chance to take advantage of the 20, 20, 20 grading scheme, which lowered the impact of the final. This was much appreciated in my case, since if Midterm 2 had been cancelled, and I would've had the 30,30 grading scheme, I would currently not have an A in the class. Rombes did end up covering the content he missed in week 8, so I really don't know why premeds keep complaining that Rombes "wasted their time." Trust me, not going to lecture for a week is not the end of the world, I would know. Rombes remained very active on Campuswire and offered a long review session before the final at the request of the students, which was much appreciated

Overall, I think this was a great introduction to Physics. Rombes, considering the circumstances, was a great professor and really tried his best to facilitate student learning. 8/10, Rombes has some insane drip.

This class was pretty straightforward and if you've taken AP Physics in high school, you'll find the class super easy. Rombes is a cool dude and definitely cares about his students but his lectures can be a bit dry. However, they're recorded which is nice. During the fall, there were two grading schemes (either 20% midterm 1 20% midterm 2 20% final or 30% midterm 30% final) that alleviated some stress. His tests were on the fair side, with some painfully easy questions and other really hard questions. I'd fully recommend this course with this professor but if you've never taken physics before, know you might have to put in some extra work to get the A.

I absolutely love the 5 series with Rombes. The labs are graded on completion, and if they say it's somewhat on correctness you'll get full points if you put in some effort. The mastering physics homework are nothing like the exams, so just try and get those over with for free points. Discussion is graded on completion/effort so just turn that in for points as well. Now for the midterms, just make sure you have an equation sheet ready. His exams are conceptual and I found them so much easier and predictable than other professors. Just study True/False questions, basic calculation questions on main topics (i.e. projectile motion and pulleys for 5A, or parallel-plate capacitors and circuits for 5C), and drawing diagrams (i.e. which way the net force points) and you'll be okay. If you can do good on the midterms, you'll need at most a B- on the final to get a solid A in the class, which happened to me for both 5A and 5C.

Lectures are decent and you can study off the slide or Pearson textbook. You get the option to take the exams online or in-person, and it's all open note <3. Take Rombes for easy physics life.

I thought Rombes did a good job with this class -- historically I've heard that the Physics department at UCLA sucked and people struggled to pass, but I thought that Rombes was super approachable and actually cared about student learning. He offered exams to either be taken in person or on Zoom, and the questions were reasonable. When students thought a question was hard, he was very lenient with partial credit! Our mastering physics had unlimited tries for 5A, but he changed it to 5 tries when I took 5C with him. Overall would recommend his class!

Loved both the class and Professor Rombes. The lectures were very well-paced and I think he had a good feel for which concepts are the most confusing/need the most time. The class actually went over some helpful differential equations material which we wouldn't normally see until Math 33B.
I would not recommend taking it in the summer as it's hard to really absorb the material in just 6 weeks, especially with two problem sets a week. The midterm and final were both open note and open internet and so the questions were fairly hard. However, Prof. Rombes mentioned that you'll always have access to the internet in research or professional settings, so this is actually good preparation for the future. Anyone who is willing to spend a lot of time on the exams should do well on them, I'd say. A lot of the test questions required explanation as well as calculation (ie. explain the properties of a given device, how it behaves under different circumstances, etc.)
It was obvious that Professor Rombes is passionate about these topics, and he was really willing to answer individual questions and expand on them in office hours. Overall, a fair class, great professor, and REALLY interesting material!

Rombes is the GOAT. Like seriously. I know we overuse that term now, but it fits here. I felt I had absolutely no use for this class or the information taught by it, but he made it bearable. HW was reasonable, tests were very reasonable, and he was helpful and responsive. You know how teachers just never answer questions in an online format? He answered everything, really reached out and made everyone's questions feel important. I've now completed the Physics 1 series, and I can guarantee you are not going to find a better, more reasonable teacher than Rombes. 12/10 stars.

He's a really good professor and a solid guy overall. Everything is very fair, including homework and exam material.

There's homework due each week. It's usually 1-2 problems Rombes writes and then 3-4 questions from the textbook.

There were two midterms and the final exam. Each exam only covers material since the last exam, so the final was not cumulative. Each exam was also 24 hour open book, open note, open internet. Each exam questions is pretty easy to answer by just referencing the recorded lectures.