PHYS132 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Wolfgang Losert PHYS132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/22/2024	Losert is a good professor. I just hate the life science physics classes. Losert is passionate about physics and he can be funny at times as well. However, the head TA taught 1/3 of the lectures because Losert was at a conference like every other week. He does TopHat questions just like 131, and some of them are graded for accuracy, but he'll literally tell you the answers in class so as long as you're there, you will get it right. ExpertTA homework was time consuming and annoying. It's literally impossible to fail this class. You don't need to know anything about the content going into the exams because you get a double-sided formula sheet and the curve is insane, and you can bs enough to get a solid grade. Also, the exams have retakes, where your new grade is the average of the original and the retake (although I've heard the retakes are much harder). Exam 2 was nothing like the practice. Labs are easier than 131 - once you get through the couple of harder lab reports at the beginning, the rest are easy and don't require a whole lab report - just answering questions. It's also highly dependent on if your group members actually do the work. Overall, I've learned nothing in this class. 131 and 132 are a joke. I would've been better off taking the non-life science physics courses.
Matt Severson PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/30/2024	The class itself is hard but Severson curves based on a standard curve, has practice exams and records class. Participation credit is open for 24hrs so you don't have to go. The lab sucks but that's just phys lab. ExpertTA HW each week. I don't think you get options for a phys class for bio major but regardless he's aight. Also has a couple of dropped tophat questions. Cheat sheet for test but tbh the material is hard and there's so much that it's hard to prepare well. That said exams don't count for everything in this class.
Wolfgang Losert PHYS132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/29/2024	prof is chill, make sure you do the clickers. class is 'mandatory' because of the clickers. exams are annoying but the curve is insane. for the second exam, a 75 was curved to a 93-ish. decent professor but rlly boring lecture, he loves his work but the content in class and the content on the exams are very irregular and don't match up.
Matt Severson PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2023	Cool guy but it's pretty obvious that he hates teaching this course. The best way to get to know him is to go to his office hours. He's a bit impatient and won't sugarcoat things when he explains concepts, but he knows what he's talking about. If you ask the right questions he can be very helpful. I personally highly recommend going to the TA office hours whenever you get the chance. They'll be more willing to hold your hand for a lot of these more complicated concepts and explain things in more intuitive ways (which I personally needed and I know a lot of students appreciated). While this course has a very generous curve and the assignments are a great buffer, the content itself can be very complicated depending on how well you want to understand it. Don't just brush off the content because it'll haunt you on the MCAT.
Matt Severson PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/01/2023	Exams are really easy if you study the practice problems and practice exam. Lectures are a bit hard to understand because it gets really boring but, he records them. The curve + opportunities to get a good grade in this class make it very easy to do well. Just do all the hw assignments and tophat questions.
Wolfgang Losert PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/29/2023	He’s a great professor! He made the class funny with his demos and tried his best to make all the hard concepts easy. I would definitely recommend him to everyone as he made physics fun.
Wolfgang Losert PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2023	He’s a great professor who's always willing to answer questions and provide help. If you put in effort you'll get an A.
Wolfgang Losert PHYS132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 03/08/2023	I highly recommend Dr. Losert. This was his first time teaching this class in years and he had no trouble diving back in. He is a very passionate lecturer and always takes time to answer everyone’s questions during class. He is very receptive to feedback and always ready to help when you email him. Homework and Tophat questions were fair, on exams he allows you to make a front and back equation sheet. Both the exams and your overall grade are curved at least 10%, so it’s difficult to get a low score in the class. Exams are only 35% of the grade, so there is a much greater emphasis on your textbook questions, lab participation, and homework.
David Buehrle PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/26/2023	Actually the worst professor of the worst class ever. Everything in this class is a mess. None of the material is relevant to the tests, and the tests are not meant to be answered by students of this class. Most people will get an A, if that's what you're worried about. But if you want to actually learn physics DO NOT take this class. The absolute WOAT
David Buehrle PHYS132 Anonymous 01/05/2023	Phys132 was very disorganized. The lectures, labs, homeworks, exams, and textbook were all out of sync with each other. The material in the 2nd half of the semester was poorly taught, not enough examples to prepare for assignments. Easy A but did not learn a lot.
David Buehrle PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2022	Dave Buehrle is a legend. He may seem intimidating at first through lecture or email, but I promise you he is a genuinely nice professor and person. His lecture is engaging and interesting, and I promise you will learn a lot of useful information. The grading is setup so that as long as you put in effort you will NOT fail. I'm not sure what these other reviews are about, but definitely chose this professor and come ready to class.
David Buehrle PHYS132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/17/2022	Dr. Buehrle is seriously one of the best people, and professors you can have as a student at this University. It is rare to find a professor who is not only genuinely passionate about the material they teach but also about the students they teach it to. Dr. B is very accommodating of students' needs and will do anything in his power to ensure they succeed. I highly recommend taking any class he teaches.
David Buehrle PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2022	I always enjoy his lectures, even though I've never liked physics much, because he does a good job of incorporating a lot of examples and practice problems. The class is definitely doable - he has lots of Tophat questions for completion that help boost your grade, and the hws and labs, while tedious, aren't too bad if you work with others or go to course center hours. Exams aren't too hard, they're usually similar to many of hws and old exam practice problems. Buehrle's a very nice and understanding professor - when one of our exam averages was pretty low this semester, he gave us the opportunity to make up points on a couple of the problems, which I really appreciated as not many STEM professors will do this. Glad I got to take his course for 131/132.
Matt Severson PHYS132 Anonymous 04/26/2022	He curves which is a blessing but this class is just rough. I have no clue what I'm gonna get in this class and I have never been so lost in my life. I plan on dropping pre-med after this semester, this class was the last straw and it made me realize just how exhausted I am. I can't wait till the semester is over. Take 121 if you can.
David Buehrle PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/26/2021	This class is a dub. Even though my man is the epitome of laizefaire, the class is an absolute W.
Matt Severson PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/24/2021	Dr.Severson is a great professor. His teaching style isn't the best but he still manages to explain things clear enough. There are some instances were he would get confused since he is using another professor's teaching material. My biggest concern with his class was that since it was online when I took it, there were a lot of people cheating on his exams and it showed on the averages. We had 2 midterms and the average on each of them was ~80% which is very high considering the difficulty of the exams. While this was not entirely Dr. Severson's fault, this could have been prevented if he had muted the exams after it was completed. When I took the class, he had it where you had the whole weekend to take the exam with about 75 minutes to complete it once you start it. When you finished the exam, it would tell you what you got wrong and the correct answers to the questions. This allowed some people in our class to cheat artificially raising the average and almost lowering the curve/cutoff.
Freddy Cisneros PHYS132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/20/2018	He has got to be one of the worst physics TAs out there. He does not grade anything in a timely manner (in the 12th week of school he has only graded our first lab) and he does not know how to effectively communicate physics concepts to a group of students. He also is unresponsive to emails. If you have him I would suggest switching to another section.
David Buehrle PHYS132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/20/2018	He is a pretty good lecturer but the class is still difficult. Reuses a lot of questions on clickers, homework, quizzes, and exams. One nice thing is that the exams do not count for a large percentage of the final grade. The exams have way too many questions to get done in the time period allotted.
David Buehrle PHYS132 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/03/2016	Buehrle is your best bet with physics II. We tend to repeat material in class from the class before and after, which helps enforce the topic. The class didn’t seem to be a lot of work besides the lab, which will never not be a pain in the ass, but at least there is no take-home work from lab. Honestly the key to success with either physics for the life sciences (I or II) is to do well on the homework. Find a group of friends and work on it together, and go to office hours with a TA who seems the most competent. And hint hint, the homework get reused usually each semester. Overall I would recommend taking PHYS132 with Buehrle, seems like a pretty chill and nice guy.
David Buehrle PHYS132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/08/2015	Great professor. His motto is: ZERO STRESS. He recycles A LOT of clicker questions on his weekly quizzes and on his exams. Great at answering questions and responding to student concerns. And he doesn't use those annoying white boards from 131 which is awesome!

Wolfgang Losert
PHYS132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/22/2024

Losert is a good professor. I just hate the life science physics classes. Losert is passionate about physics and he can be funny at times as well. However, the head TA taught 1/3 of the lectures because Losert was at a conference like every other week. He does TopHat questions just like 131, and some of them are graded for accuracy, but he'll literally tell you the answers in class so as long as you're there, you will get it right. ExpertTA homework was time consuming and annoying. It's literally impossible to fail this class. You don't need to know anything about the content going into the exams because you get a double-sided formula sheet and the curve is insane, and you can bs enough to get a solid grade. Also, the exams have retakes, where your new grade is the average of the original and the retake (although I've heard the retakes are much harder). Exam 2 was nothing like the practice. Labs are easier than 131 - once you get through the couple of harder lab reports at the beginning, the rest are easy and don't require a whole lab report - just answering questions. It's also highly dependent on if your group members actually do the work. Overall, I've learned nothing in this class. 131 and 132 are a joke. I would've been better off taking the non-life science physics courses.

Matt Severson
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/30/2024

The class itself is hard but Severson curves based on a standard curve, has practice exams and records class. Participation credit is open for 24hrs so you don't have to go. The lab sucks but that's just phys lab. ExpertTA HW each week. I don't think you get options for a phys class for bio major but regardless he's aight. Also has a couple of dropped tophat questions. Cheat sheet for test but tbh the material is hard and there's so much that it's hard to prepare well. That said exams don't count for everything in this class.

Wolfgang Losert
PHYS132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/29/2024

prof is chill, make sure you do the clickers. class is 'mandatory' because of the clickers. exams are annoying but the curve is insane. for the second exam, a 75 was curved to a 93-ish. decent professor but rlly boring lecture, he loves his work but the content in class and the content on the exams are very irregular and don't match up.

Matt Severson
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/24/2023

Cool guy but it's pretty obvious that he hates teaching this course. The best way to get to know him is to go to his office hours. He's a bit impatient and won't sugarcoat things when he explains concepts, but he knows what he's talking about. If you ask the right questions he can be very helpful. I personally highly recommend going to the TA office hours whenever you get the chance. They'll be more willing to hold your hand for a lot of these more complicated concepts and explain things in more intuitive ways (which I personally needed and I know a lot of students appreciated). While this course has a very generous curve and the assignments are a great buffer, the content itself can be very complicated depending on how well you want to understand it. Don't just brush off the content because it'll haunt you on the MCAT.

Matt Severson
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/01/2023

Exams are really easy if you study the practice problems and practice exam. Lectures are a bit hard to understand because it gets really boring but, he records them. The curve + opportunities to get a good grade in this class make it very easy to do well. Just do all the hw assignments and tophat questions.

Wolfgang Losert
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/29/2023

He’s a great professor! He made the class funny with his demos and tried his best to make all the hard concepts easy. I would definitely recommend him to everyone as he made physics fun.

Wolfgang Losert
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/22/2023

He’s a great professor who's always willing to answer questions and provide help. If you put in effort you'll get an A.

Wolfgang Losert
PHYS132

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
03/08/2023

I highly recommend Dr. Losert. This was his first time teaching this class in years and he had no trouble diving back in. He is a very passionate lecturer and always takes time to answer everyone’s questions during class. He is very receptive to feedback and always ready to help when you email him. Homework and Tophat questions were fair, on exams he allows you to make a front and back equation sheet. Both the exams and your overall grade are curved at least 10%, so it’s difficult to get a low score in the class. Exams are only 35% of the grade, so there is a much greater emphasis on your textbook questions, lab participation, and homework.

David Buehrle
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/26/2023

Actually the worst professor of the worst class ever. Everything in this class is a mess. None of the material is relevant to the tests, and the tests are not meant to be answered by students of this class. Most people will get an A, if that's what you're worried about. But if you want to actually learn physics DO NOT take this class. The absolute WOAT

David Buehrle
PHYS132

Anonymous
01/05/2023

Phys132 was very disorganized. The lectures, labs, homeworks, exams, and textbook were all out of sync with each other. The material in the 2nd half of the semester was poorly taught, not enough examples to prepare for assignments. Easy A but did not learn a lot.

David Buehrle
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/26/2022

Dave Buehrle is a legend. He may seem intimidating at first through lecture or email, but I promise you he is a genuinely nice professor and person. His lecture is engaging and interesting, and I promise you will learn a lot of useful information. The grading is setup so that as long as you put in effort you will NOT fail. I'm not sure what these other reviews are about, but definitely chose this professor and come ready to class.

David Buehrle
PHYS132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/17/2022

Dr. Buehrle is seriously one of the best people, and professors you can have as a student at this University. It is rare to find a professor who is not only genuinely passionate about the material they teach but also about the students they teach it to. Dr. B is very accommodating of students' needs and will do anything in his power to ensure they succeed. I highly recommend taking any class he teaches.

David Buehrle
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/16/2022

I always enjoy his lectures, even though I've never liked physics much, because he does a good job of incorporating a lot of examples and practice problems. The class is definitely doable - he has lots of Tophat questions for completion that help boost your grade, and the hws and labs, while tedious, aren't too bad if you work with others or go to course center hours. Exams aren't too hard, they're usually similar to many of hws and old exam practice problems. Buehrle's a very nice and understanding professor - when one of our exam averages was pretty low this semester, he gave us the opportunity to make up points on a couple of the problems, which I really appreciated as not many STEM professors will do this. Glad I got to take his course for 131/132.

Matt Severson
PHYS132

Anonymous
04/26/2022

He curves which is a blessing but this class is just rough. I have no clue what I'm gonna get in this class and I have never been so lost in my life. I plan on dropping pre-med after this semester, this class was the last straw and it made me realize just how exhausted I am. I can't wait till the semester is over. Take 121 if you can.

David Buehrle
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/26/2021

This class is a dub. Even though my man is the epitome of laizefaire, the class is an absolute W.

Matt Severson
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/24/2021

Dr.Severson is a great professor. His teaching style isn't the best but he still manages to explain things clear enough. There are some instances were he would get confused since he is using another professor's teaching material. My biggest concern with his class was that since it was online when I took it, there were a lot of people cheating on his exams and it showed on the averages. We had 2 midterms and the average on each of them was ~80% which is very high considering the difficulty of the exams. While this was not entirely Dr. Severson's fault, this could have been prevented if he had muted the exams after it was completed. When I took the class, he had it where you had the whole weekend to take the exam with about 75 minutes to complete it once you start it. When you finished the exam, it would tell you what you got wrong and the correct answers to the questions. This allowed some people in our class to cheat artificially raising the average and almost lowering the curve/cutoff.

Freddy Cisneros
PHYS132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/20/2018

He has got to be one of the worst physics TAs out there. He does not grade anything in a timely manner (in the 12th week of school he has only graded our first lab) and he does not know how to effectively communicate physics concepts to a group of students. He also is unresponsive to emails. If you have him I would suggest switching to another section.

David Buehrle
PHYS132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/20/2018

He is a pretty good lecturer but the class is still difficult. Reuses a lot of questions on clickers, homework, quizzes, and exams. One nice thing is that the exams do not count for a large percentage of the final grade. The exams have way too many questions to get done in the time period allotted.

David Buehrle
PHYS132

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/03/2016

Buehrle is your best bet with physics II. We tend to repeat material in class from the class before and after, which helps enforce the topic. The class didn’t seem to be a lot of work besides the lab, which will never not be a pain in the ass, but at least there is no take-home work from lab. Honestly the key to success with either physics for the life sciences (I or II) is to do well on the homework. Find a group of friends and work on it together, and go to office hours with a TA who seems the most competent. And hint hint, the homework get reused usually each semester. Overall I would recommend taking PHYS132 with Buehrle, seems like a pretty chill and nice guy.

David Buehrle
PHYS132

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
06/08/2015

Great professor. His motto is: ZERO STRESS. He recycles A LOT of clicker questions on his weekly quizzes and on his exams. Great at answering questions and responding to student concerns. And he doesn't use those annoying white boards from 131 which is awesome!

Reviews for PHYS132