PHYS122 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Negar Heidarian Boroujeni PHYS122 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2024	Amazing and informative professor! Dr. Heidarian is very kind and approachable with any questions! She does go rather quickly during lectures and does a lot of practice problems. For lecture exams (she drops the lowest), she gives you an extensive practice problem sheet (DO ALL OF THEM) to work on prior to exams (actual exam questions I felt were easier). She does give a curve to some exams if she believes the averages were low, but my class averages were in the 80s. The only "con" I would say is the cut-off for an A- and A is 95% which is rather high... Overall, amazing professor and highly recommend any student to take physics with her!
Negar Heidarian Boroujeni PHYS122 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2023	I took PHYS121 with her and now 122, she is a wonderful professor! Really helpful and explains all the topics, even content covered in labs. Her practice sets and solutions are super helpful in studying for exams and I feel that the grading is very fair.
Negar Heidarian Boroujeni PHYS122 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/20/2023	Took PHYS121 with her and currently taking PHYS122. She is a great professor and makes sure you are on track. She provides practice sets for each exam which is similar to the actual exams. Also, she is accommodating to the exam scores and will curve if necessary. Very patient and overall a great professor.
Negar Heidarian Boroujeni PHYS122 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/14/2023	Heidarian is a great professor. I took her for 121 and 122. Love her engaging lectures, I actually looked forward to class. The labs, which are run by TAs, are relatively easy - just do your best and you'll be fine. Tip: Make your formula sheets for exams incrementally - as you learn/are introduced to a new formula, add it. It will make exam prep much easier because you can just get right into practice questions instead of spending forever making your formula sheet.
Negar Heidarian Boroujeni PHYS122 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/06/2020	Lectures can be really dry but she's super nice and accommodating. Gives 20+ points worth of extra credit questions for each exam.
Ki-Yong Kim PHYS122 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/23/2013	Dr. Kim is a great professor! I don't know what these other reviews are talking about. Yes, he has an accent. So what? He does explain well, and he genuinely cares about how well his students do. He makes himself very accessible with multiple office hours and quick responses via email. He does the coolest demos ever! Sometimes I felt more like I was watching a magic show than sitting in physics lecture. I was actually excited to go to class, and I don't even like physics! Just go to class! He even made the class before every exam a review session and told us exactly what to study. If you go to class, pay attention, and do what he says you will do well.
David Buehrle PHYS122 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 09/04/2013	Ouch this guy is so outta whack. Do your GPA a favor, take someone else. His exams are all over the places. If your physic is semi ok, you'll feel like crap when taking his exams. I don't understand why he doesn't write his own exam that is related to what's teaching in the classroom, but instead he takes some questions from college board website, probably copy and paste and said he wrote them. At the end of the class, I think he curved like 1% or something geez.
Ki-Yong Kim PHYS122 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/23/2013	He was not very good at conveying information for the course. Boring lectures. Thick accent. I learned from the book. Big curve though.
Edward Redish PHYS122 Anonymous 03/19/2011	DO NOT TAKE REDISH! He intentionality tries to trick students on his exams and is proud of it. He will often say, "don't just memorize the equation or I will trick you on the exam and you will get it wrong." This idea would not be bad if he actually taught the material correctly. Instead of doing any practice problems during class, he will ask a question and then just make it a clicker question. In phys121 I took a different teacher and got an A fairly easily, but this semester I am struggling to make a B. Additionally, on his homework he will include several non-physics questions that are usually very hard to figure out and will bring down your grade. Overall, this class is very weird and is not taught correctly for a student to succeed.
Edward Redish PHYS122 Anonymous 07/20/2010	I had him for both 121 and 122 and hes a great professor!! His techniques seem weird at first but once you get the concepts you'll always remember them. I'm studying for MCATS right now and I can tell you that all the concepts I learned in his class are of great help to me and the ones I didnt fully understand are coming back to haunt me
Bei Lok Hu PHYS122 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/08/2009	I don't recommend taking physics with Dr. Hu. For one thing, it's pretty difficult to understand what he says half the time because of his accent. Also, he never really explained concepts fully. He would derive equations, which sometimes had different symbols from those given in our textbook; PHYS122 is an introductory physics course- we are expected to know concepts and not derivation of equations, especially since this course is not calculus-based. He would go over problems using the derived equations but they were difficult to follow because he never really would explain WHAT the concepts were. Furthermore, his lectures were Powerpoint presentations often containing images and excerpts from our textbook. In a class such as physics where going over problems step by step helps in explaining concepts, powerpoint presentations were completely ineffective and useless. Using the blackboard would have been a much better approach to teaching this course. Dr. Hu also sometimes never completed problems that he started; thus, often my notes were incomplete. I feel that a majority of the class got by because most of the problems on the exams and quizzes were similar to (or the exact same) suggested review problems that he gave from the textbook as well as our homework problems (which were from the textbook as well). I suppose the predictability of the problems on the exams etc was one good side to Dr. Hu's teaching. This allowed me to get an A+ in the course, despite Dr. Hu's poor teaching skills. I believe Dr. Hu is very knowledgeable and also friendly and easy to approach; however, he does not seem to be the best professor.
Bei Lok Hu PHYS122 rbterp 05/03/2009	Dr. Hu was a very difficult professor to follow and I do not recommend him at all. He used notes and examples from a different textbook, and would jump into topics without explaining basic concepts such as what is a wave, or what is electricity. Even though our course was a non-calculus based course, he relied heavily on mathematical explanations instead of actually explaining concepts conceptually. He rarely worked through examples from the course textbook FULLY, from start to finish. His demonstrations were not effective as many students did not understand the scientific principles behind them. Very few students attended lecture as the course was not tailored to the abilities, background knowledge, and interests of non-physics major undergraduates. The only good thing is that the exams were fair (textbook problems - nothing like the weird examples from class) and I liked that we could use notecards for them. There were also weekly quizzes (no notecards) consisting of a textbook problem and weekly homework sets of ~8 hw problems.

Negar Heidarian Boroujeni
PHYS122

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/20/2024

Amazing and informative professor! Dr. Heidarian is very kind and approachable with any questions! She does go rather quickly during lectures and does a lot of practice problems. For lecture exams (she drops the lowest), she gives you an extensive practice problem sheet (DO ALL OF THEM) to work on prior to exams (actual exam questions I felt were easier). She does give a curve to some exams if she believes the averages were low, but my class averages were in the 80s. The only "con" I would say is the cut-off for an A- and A is 95% which is rather high... Overall, amazing professor and highly recommend any student to take physics with her!

Negar Heidarian Boroujeni
PHYS122

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/08/2023

I took PHYS121 with her and now 122, she is a wonderful professor! Really helpful and explains all the topics, even content covered in labs. Her practice sets and solutions are super helpful in studying for exams and I feel that the grading is very fair.

Negar Heidarian Boroujeni
PHYS122

Expecting a B
Anonymous
11/20/2023

Took PHYS121 with her and currently taking PHYS122. She is a great professor and makes sure you are on track. She provides practice sets for each exam which is similar to the actual exams. Also, she is accommodating to the exam scores and will curve if necessary. Very patient and overall a great professor.

Negar Heidarian Boroujeni
PHYS122

Expecting a B
Anonymous
06/14/2023

Heidarian is a great professor. I took her for 121 and 122. Love her engaging lectures, I actually looked forward to class. The labs, which are run by TAs, are relatively easy - just do your best and you'll be fine. Tip: Make your formula sheets for exams incrementally - as you learn/are introduced to a new formula, add it. It will make exam prep much easier because you can just get right into practice questions instead of spending forever making your formula sheet.

Negar Heidarian Boroujeni
PHYS122

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/06/2020

Lectures can be really dry but she's super nice and accommodating. Gives 20+ points worth of extra credit questions for each exam.

Ki-Yong Kim
PHYS122

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/23/2013

Dr. Kim is a great professor! I don't know what these other reviews are talking about. Yes, he has an accent. So what? He does explain well, and he genuinely cares about how well his students do. He makes himself very accessible with multiple office hours and quick responses via email. He does the coolest demos ever! Sometimes I felt more like I was watching a magic show than sitting in physics lecture. I was actually excited to go to class, and I don't even like physics! Just go to class! He even made the class before every exam a review session and told us exactly what to study. If you go to class, pay attention, and do what he says you will do well.

David Buehrle
PHYS122

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
09/04/2013

Ouch this guy is so outta whack. Do your GPA a favor, take someone else. His exams are all over the places. If your physic is semi ok, you'll feel like crap when taking his exams. I don't understand why he doesn't write his own exam that is related to what's teaching in the classroom, but instead he takes some questions from college board website, probably copy and paste and said he wrote them. At the end of the class, I think he curved like 1% or something geez.

Ki-Yong Kim
PHYS122

Expecting a B
Anonymous
08/23/2013

He was not very good at conveying information for the course. Boring lectures. Thick accent. I learned from the book. Big curve though.

Edward Redish
PHYS122

Anonymous
03/19/2011

DO NOT TAKE REDISH! He intentionality tries to trick students on his exams and is proud of it. He will often say, "don't just memorize the equation or I will trick you on the exam and you will get it wrong." This idea would not be bad if he actually taught the material correctly. Instead of doing any practice problems during class, he will ask a question and then just make it a clicker question. In phys121 I took a different teacher and got an A fairly easily, but this semester I am struggling to make a B. Additionally, on his homework he will include several non-physics questions that are usually very hard to figure out and will bring down your grade. Overall, this class is very weird and is not taught correctly for a student to succeed.

Edward Redish
PHYS122

Anonymous
07/20/2010

I had him for both 121 and 122 and hes a great professor!! His techniques seem weird at first but once you get the concepts you'll always remember them. I'm studying for MCATS right now and I can tell you that all the concepts I learned in his class are of great help to me and the ones I didnt fully understand are coming back to haunt me

Bei Lok Hu
PHYS122

Expecting an A
Anonymous
07/08/2009

I don't recommend taking physics with Dr. Hu. For one thing, it's pretty difficult to understand what he says half the time because of his accent. Also, he never really explained concepts fully. He would derive equations, which sometimes had different symbols from those given in our textbook; PHYS122 is an introductory physics course- we are expected to know concepts and not derivation of equations, especially since this course is not calculus-based. He would go over problems using the derived equations but they were difficult to follow because he never really would explain WHAT the concepts were. Furthermore, his lectures were Powerpoint presentations often containing images and excerpts from our textbook. In a class such as physics where going over problems step by step helps in explaining concepts, powerpoint presentations were completely ineffective and useless. Using the blackboard would have been a much better approach to teaching this course. Dr. Hu also sometimes never completed problems that he started; thus, often my notes were incomplete. I feel that a majority of the class got by because most of the problems on the exams and quizzes were similar to (or the exact same) suggested review problems that he gave from the textbook as well as our homework problems (which were from the textbook as well). I suppose the predictability of the problems on the exams etc was one good side to Dr. Hu's teaching. This allowed me to get an A+ in the course, despite Dr. Hu's poor teaching skills. I believe Dr. Hu is very knowledgeable and also friendly and easy to approach; however, he does not seem to be the best professor.

Bei Lok Hu
PHYS122

rbterp
05/03/2009

Dr. Hu was a very difficult professor to follow and I do not recommend him at all. He used notes and examples from a different textbook, and would jump into topics without explaining basic concepts such as what is a wave, or what is electricity. Even though our course was a non-calculus based course, he relied heavily on mathematical explanations instead of actually explaining concepts conceptually. He rarely worked through examples from the course textbook FULLY, from start to finish. His demonstrations were not effective as many students did not understand the scientific principles behind them. Very few students attended lecture as the course was not tailored to the abilities, background knowledge, and interests of non-physics major undergraduates. The only good thing is that the exams were fair (textbook problems - nothing like the weird examples from class) and I liked that we could use notecards for them. There were also weekly quizzes (no notecards) consisting of a textbook problem and weekly homework sets of ~8 hw problems.

Reviews for PHYS122