Professor
Paul Hamilton
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2018 - Hamilton is a standard professor - he goes over concepts/theory in class along with some examples. I liked how he did in-class questions through a software called Kudu - this allowed us to interact with each other and not fall asleep at 9 am haha. However, I found that his lectures lacked example problems, and also he did not give us any sample exam problems before the midterm/final. As such, we kind of went into the exams without knowing exactly what to study. Also, some of the hw questions he assigned were kind of irrelevant to the material. Overall, Hamilton is okay as a professor - I'm kind of neutral about recommending or not recommending him.
Fall 2018 - Hamilton is a standard professor - he goes over concepts/theory in class along with some examples. I liked how he did in-class questions through a software called Kudu - this allowed us to interact with each other and not fall asleep at 9 am haha. However, I found that his lectures lacked example problems, and also he did not give us any sample exam problems before the midterm/final. As such, we kind of went into the exams without knowing exactly what to study. Also, some of the hw questions he assigned were kind of irrelevant to the material. Overall, Hamilton is okay as a professor - I'm kind of neutral about recommending or not recommending him.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - 4AL is a behemoth. You've probably heard that the grading is harsh and that you're going to spend a lot of time on lab reports. It's true. . You're given all the materials required for this class (a lab manual) and you go to section having read up on what you are going to do in lab. The labs investigate different physical properties like mechanical energy, friction, gravity etc. Most labs (not lab reports) I was able to finish in two hours. However, the last one I had to do twice because I ran out of time. Make sure to collect good lab data. . The TA's are instructed to deduct a lot of points for mistakes to spread out the sections, as there are up to 20 kids in a class. Homework 0 (the first assignment) covers the policies of the course. The next 7 labs will take you at least 10 hours to perfect (to get a good grade), re-reading and editing to the specifications of your TA. You'll learn when you get your old labs back what the TA was looking for and should correct for it. Put in the time and hope you come out on top when it's all said and done.
Spring 2018 - 4AL is a behemoth. You've probably heard that the grading is harsh and that you're going to spend a lot of time on lab reports. It's true. . You're given all the materials required for this class (a lab manual) and you go to section having read up on what you are going to do in lab. The labs investigate different physical properties like mechanical energy, friction, gravity etc. Most labs (not lab reports) I was able to finish in two hours. However, the last one I had to do twice because I ran out of time. Make sure to collect good lab data. . The TA's are instructed to deduct a lot of points for mistakes to spread out the sections, as there are up to 20 kids in a class. Homework 0 (the first assignment) covers the policies of the course. The next 7 labs will take you at least 10 hours to perfect (to get a good grade), re-reading and editing to the specifications of your TA. You'll learn when you get your old labs back what the TA was looking for and should correct for it. Put in the time and hope you come out on top when it's all said and done.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - I think Hamilton is a really good professor overall. The grading scheme consisted of homework, two midterms, and a final exam. The homework was pretty straightforward overall. The midterms I thought were extremely fair. If I had to give a tip to do well on the midterms I would say do the practice midterms he gives out and go to the review session. The questions on the midterms/final were not computationally intensive but rather conceptually difficult, so you really have to make sure you understand the ideas presented in this course. The final exam was exactly like the midterms just longer. The midterms/final are open book but the midterms are designed to take almost the whole time of the class so it doesn't really help for those. Overall I really liked Hamilton for quantum, and I don't think he deserves his rating on bruin walk. The only thing that was a negative was that he was pretty monotone so his lectures weren't super engaging overall. Also he goes super slow for the first two weeks for review of 115A but the pace increases quite a bit after that so keep that in mind if you take him.
Fall 2022 - I think Hamilton is a really good professor overall. The grading scheme consisted of homework, two midterms, and a final exam. The homework was pretty straightforward overall. The midterms I thought were extremely fair. If I had to give a tip to do well on the midterms I would say do the practice midterms he gives out and go to the review session. The questions on the midterms/final were not computationally intensive but rather conceptually difficult, so you really have to make sure you understand the ideas presented in this course. The final exam was exactly like the midterms just longer. The midterms/final are open book but the midterms are designed to take almost the whole time of the class so it doesn't really help for those. Overall I really liked Hamilton for quantum, and I don't think he deserves his rating on bruin walk. The only thing that was a negative was that he was pretty monotone so his lectures weren't super engaging overall. Also he goes super slow for the first two weeks for review of 115A but the pace increases quite a bit after that so keep that in mind if you take him.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - The instructor is nice. He is willing to help students and answer questions. He is a great person, and I would love to take his course again. The problem is the course content. I would rather die than doing any AMO experiments in my life again. I completely lost interest in AMO. The elective of optics is not offered, so all theory is new to me. I have to learn the theory and the experiments while writing all the reports and pre-labs. All of this takes all my time. All the experiments except the last two take so long, and when I left the labs, it was always mid-night. At least I can say confidently that there is no homeless people on campus in midnight because I was really physically on campus. The experiment s were hard to conduct, and sometimes the TA did the labs for us becuase we spent hours on it and couldn't succeed. For example, in the cavity lab, all the alignments were done by the TA because all our attempts failed miserably. After the labs, we spend so much time writnig reports and answer questions, but the TA grade harshly for some ridiculous reason. After constantly grinding and failing, the hopelessness made me lost hope of life and I started to weep lonely. Another thing to mention is that there is so much information in lecture, and every week after the lecture, my brain is cooked. I don't understand anything from lecture, and I have to self-study. Basically, I self-studied all the theory part, spending days and nights reading lecture notes myself. The instructor did his best, but we have so much material to cover in so little time. This should be a multi-quarter course. I now have a PTSD for lab course. It is completely different from my experience in an actual lab.
Spring 2024 - The instructor is nice. He is willing to help students and answer questions. He is a great person, and I would love to take his course again. The problem is the course content. I would rather die than doing any AMO experiments in my life again. I completely lost interest in AMO. The elective of optics is not offered, so all theory is new to me. I have to learn the theory and the experiments while writing all the reports and pre-labs. All of this takes all my time. All the experiments except the last two take so long, and when I left the labs, it was always mid-night. At least I can say confidently that there is no homeless people on campus in midnight because I was really physically on campus. The experiment s were hard to conduct, and sometimes the TA did the labs for us becuase we spent hours on it and couldn't succeed. For example, in the cavity lab, all the alignments were done by the TA because all our attempts failed miserably. After the labs, we spend so much time writnig reports and answer questions, but the TA grade harshly for some ridiculous reason. After constantly grinding and failing, the hopelessness made me lost hope of life and I started to weep lonely. Another thing to mention is that there is so much information in lecture, and every week after the lecture, my brain is cooked. I don't understand anything from lecture, and I have to self-study. Basically, I self-studied all the theory part, spending days and nights reading lecture notes myself. The instructor did his best, but we have so much material to cover in so little time. This should be a multi-quarter course. I now have a PTSD for lab course. It is completely different from my experience in an actual lab.
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