REVIEW FOR PHYSICS 5A

THIS LADY IS THE BEST PROFESSOR EVER! SHE REALLY CARES ABOUT HER STUDENTS AND WANTS THEM ALL TO DO WELL. SHE REPLIES QUICKLY AND ALWAYS GIVES UP SOME OF HER TIME SO SHE CAN HELP US. She's so smart and can make the toughest topics seem easy when she works out the problems. Physics was hard I must admit but she gives really good studying advice and was clear when she taught.

Shoko is not a very engaging lecturer, but posts all her slides. I didn't go to class mostly because she posted the slides and the textbook was the most important part. Most of the content on the tests is from the book, and if the book is thoroughly studied you will do well. Not a very hard class, but it does require a lot of book reading.

Okay here's the deal.
She's such a nice person. If you go into office hours, she will help you.
But this quarter, the tests were exceptionally harder than expected for a science GE.
The average on the first midterm was a 70% then the second midterm was a 75% and the final was about a 70% as well. But luckily, she curves the class.
Overall, she wasn't the most clear on specific information and was super broad in lecture about material. I'd recommend reading the textbook over going to lecture, as lecture did not help me learn very much.
I felt overwhelming stress taking this class because I never felt like I was learning anything, and the tests were pretty tricky in regards to the wording of specific questions.
Also, she never goes over certain math that appears on the midterms and finals.
But if you are willing to read the textbook and go into office hours, you should gain enough information to pass this class.
If you are looking for an easy GE, this isn't the one you should take with this professor.

As long as you can commit a decent amount of material to memory, this is a fairly easy class. Only focus on her lecture presentations. Her exams consist of multiple choice questions that test knowledge of simple facts. Weekly online quizzes almost entirely mirror both midterms and the final.

--------------------PHYSICS 1B--------------------

Sakai is a good teacher. Although the lectures were lengthy (two hour lectures, twice a week), she really cares about her students, is willing to help out in office hours, and is fair on exams. She also allows students to bring in a 3x5 index card for exams, which I found helpful.

Since the lectures are so long and since there is a lot of material to cover, she uses powerpoint slides to lecture. This is a kind of weak and uninteresting way to teach the material (but understandable, given the circumstances). In office hours, however, she does a great job of going into detail about the material, and tries to emphasize understanding the material conceptually (as opposed to having students memorize a bunch of physics equations).

If I had to take another physics course, I would take it with her.

Contrary to what most people here are saying, Sakai was excellent as an instructor. Yes, the tests can be hard but the quality of instruction matches up to the expected level of performance. I got an A plus on this class.
It helps to have past papers and other materials which I'm selling for $20.
Email at *************

For 6A:

The two evaluations before this are useless/fake, since they were posted right around when first pass opened up and Sakai hasn't taught 6A since fall quarter. And she definitely was not terrible.

Fall 2012 was her first quarter teaching 6A, and she wasn't too bad compared to the other professors. For the first midterm, the test was in fact too easy that the curve was almost at a 90%. But she got a little more difficult for the second midterm and final.

Overall she was fair in my opinion. Williams taught that quarter too and I heard he was more difficult. He tested on more topics, like 3D collisions, which Sakai didn't expect us to know. And Forrester was some crazy dude that only gave A's to like 10% of his class. But who knows how Sakai will be in the future now that she's had a quarter of teaching 6A under her belt.

Overall, take this class seriously. People say 6A is the easiest of the physics series, but in my opinion, it was the hardest. But that's just me. If you do well in this class, then you'll be set for 6B and 6C (if you pick a decent professor).

I had Professor Sakai for Astro 3 during winter quarter of 2012. Let’s just start off with some facts: Out of 150 open spots in the lecture, only 50-60 were filled. The other section of this class, taught by Mclean, was completely full. We ended up switching rooms because the size of MS4000 was unnecessary. At the final, one of the TAs proctoring saw the number of students in the room and not-so-quietly remarked to another TA how Mclean’s class was packed. I saw the numbers and previous bruinwalk reviews going into the class, and as expected, Sakai wasn’t the greatest lecturer. I would definitely take Mclean if I had the choice. That said, she is very nice and does seem to try. Unfortunately, with the class being so basic and her lectures not expanding on her slides, after 3 weeks I stopped going to lecture and just read the slides online.

If you want an easy GE, take this class. Just don’t expect it to be the most fun or interesting thing you’ll take at UCLA. It requires minimal effort and fulfills your lab requirement. The curve is pretty generous and the online homework is easy. I basically didn’t study for the second midterm and still managed an 87. I studied for maybe 2 hours before the final and got a 93, which was the highest score overall. As I said, the curve is generous and I ended up with an A.

***(ignore the above course, didn't have her for that!!)***
Course: Physics 6A

First off, if she is available for physics TAKE HER!! She is a VERY easy physics professor. AND she is NICE! (totally unheard of!)

Professor Sakai is actually concerned about her students and whether or not the material understood or not. She takes the time to work problems through and always goes over concepts that the class might be having trouble with.

She goes at a relatively steady pace that is perfectly fine to follow along at, although I found that she always tried to cram in material before a midterm or a final -- which was annoying. But then again, her class wasn't too difficult to begin with.

Unlike the reviews below me, I didn't find that she got frustrated when she couldn't explain something well, maybe its simply because she is better at explaining physics than astronomy. She seemed to be very patient and really interested in the students feelings about the material.

If you've ever taken physics before, this class should honestly not be difficult for you. The only problem is that too many people feel that way and so the curve is relatively high. Don't expect the curve to help your grade too much.

To ace her class, all you need to do is the problems at the end of each chapter. She really likes using the even general problems at the end of the section -- if you can do those, her final and midterm should be a piece of cake.

The only other thing that I didn't like about her class is her obsession with Mastering Physics. It's expensive and it just plain sucks. You'll have three assignments a week, 2 short ones and one long one -- all designed to help you stay on track with the material. The thing is that this program just doesn't work, you can always google the question and find an answer (which is probably what most of the class did) so it's not really testing how well you know the material. All of this, is annoying but really doesn't make her class any harder.

Just take her. She's nice. Her class is easy. What more could you want?

It's true that Sakai gets flustered when answering questions and is not super clear in lecture, but the lecture is exactly like the reading, so if you do the reading, lecture is barely even necessary. I didn't think this class was hard at all, I studied for a couple days before each midterm and I aced both. I completely disagree with previous reviews that said she made the class too hard and expected too much, the lecture exactly matches the book, and is just basic concepts. I am a humanities major and I find this class to be very easy and do-able. Sakai is very approachable and eager to help with problems, although she isn't all that good at explaining things.