PHYS161 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Alberto Belloni PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/17/2024	horrible experience. the guy doesn't explain anything in lecture (nothing more than reading the slides), gives out exams you humanly cannot finish in 50 mins, and doesn't give us anything with regards to curve, in spite the exam averages being 58 and 48. do NOT take him. you're better off taking this at ur local CC
Alberto Belloni PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 11/11/2024	Terrible instructor. Raced through content, had very tough exams, some with averages below 50%, much lower than other sections. Can’t see your old exams either.
Alberto Belloni PHYS161 Anonymous 10/19/2024	this is absolutely not the professor to take if you've never taken physics 1 before. the class is incredibly disorganized and very poorly taught. the department generally makes it unnecessarily complex, gives you meaningless practice on expert ta, and no practice exams. belloni seems to be basing the class of the OpenStax PDF and textbook, which straight up suck. I've taken physics 1 before, which is the only reason i'm surviving this class. if you're taking this 1) i'm sorry for you 2) use other resources (organic chem tutor, njctl ap physics c notes) to study. lecture is rather useless.
Alberto Belloni PHYS161 Anonymous 09/06/2024	Very good guy, Its hard to understand him at all times, makes lectures harder than they should be.
Alberto Belloni PHYS161 Anonymous 09/06/2024	nice guy, HEAVY Italian accent, lecture style is all over the place, don't feel like i learn a lot in lecture
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 06/06/2024	The other reviews are right so I'll keep it brief. Hailu is boring, it is hard to stay awake. If you can, pay attention in class, as going back to the slides after the lecture isn't really helpful. He doesn't post his solutions to problems we go over in class, so try to follow along. Quizzes are disproportionally easy compared to the exams. You won't need to worry about the quizzes at all, as long as you understand the basics.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/27/2024	Overall, he taught the content well, which succeeded in making me interested in the content and preparing me for the exam. He teaches in a chill style, and while he does get monotonous at times, I could deal with it and the solution is to sit near friends. Homework was assigned on a great site which gives us five attempts for problems and does not deduct us for hints or incorrect answers. For tests, we were allowed to use a cheat sheet and they were all fairly graded, and we were provided with a practice test to prepare us. Definitely take him for Physics 161.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/27/2024	Overall, he taught the content well, which succeeded in making me interested in the content and preparing me for the exam. He teaches in a chill style, and while he does get monotonous at times, I could deal with it and the solution is to sit near friends. Homework was assigned on a great site which gives us five attempts for problems and does not deduct us for hints or incorrect answers. For tests, we were allowed to use a cheat sheet and they were all fairly graded, and we were provided with a practice test to prepare us. Definitely take him for Physics 161.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/23/2024	Worst lectures I have ever been to. Skipped for like 2 months because they are useless unless you learn while sleeping. He only posts PowerPoints of the questions he goes through, not the solutions he works through during class so after going a couple of times, make some friends who can send you the notes. The tests are not too hard or tricky which was nice, but the homework kind of sucked just try to stay current on the material. Try and take Aria Heidarian, her class was late but my friend said it was much easier. She dropped the worst test and actually taught well. Although the homework and content for tests were a bit different so you can't study or do homework with your friends in Hailu's class. Overall the class isn't bad, all tests and final were fair. It is also easier if you took or are taking ENES102 or took AP physics in high school.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/22/2024	He taught the course well, clearly explaining all topics in a chill (as in not harsh) style. That allowed me to understand all topics well enough to do well on tests and be interested in them. During office hours, he is willing to answer any question about homework or content and he answers in a non-critical way. Regarding tests, they are administered in a fair way in which we are allowed to bring in cheat sheets which he does not check, allowing us to write what we want. The homework is assigned on a great website called expertTA which usually gives us five chances to get questions correct and does not deduct us for wrong answers or hints. Overall, he is a great man and an amazing teacher who I am excited to take again for PHYS261, you should definitely take physics with him if he is a choice. Regarding ratings that say he is boring, he does speak in slight monotone but the tip to not getting bored in class is to sit by friends.
Negar Heidarian Boroujeni PHYS161 Expecting a C- Anonymous 05/22/2024	She’s an alright professor. I would say she isn’t that amazing as others put it. Dr.Heidarian is an above average professor who cares about her students. Posting hw solutions on piazza and providing practice sets that help you on the exams. My main issue with her is the lectures. She goes too fast and doesn’t slow down. Her teaching style doesn’t work for me as it goes on the topic for brief moments and then do practice problems. All this makes the lecture very boring. I feel like I can take a nap in her lecture. She drops the lowest midterm and lowest in lecture quiz(make no sense since is only 5%). She does provide a lot of help when you go to office hours(which is a must to pass sadly). Don’t expect curves in her class. She hardly does and only does it if the class average is below 80%. If you want to pass the class without worrying too much, I say go with Buehrle. Who curves the class greatly but his exams are slightly harder. With Dr.Heidarian you must dedicate all your time for the class.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2024	Pretty slow and boring but gives good practice material and fair exams. He also explains problems well.
Negar Heidarian Boroujeni PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/19/2024	Professor Heidarian is clearly knowledgeable and skilled in her subject area, and because of that she moves through explanations and practice problems pretty quickly. I found it a bit hard to absorb everything during lecture so I had to do a fair amount of concept review outside of lecture. I found her midterm exams to be pretty difficult (definitely study a lot for these!), although your worst one (out of three) is dropped which is nice. She is very approachable and open to answering individual questions after lecture. Overall, I liked her as a professor.
Aria Heidarian PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/17/2024	An absolutely wonderful human being. I failed PHYS161 last semester and I approached her on the first day of class and her response was something to the effect of "forget last semester, don't let that bring you down, this is a new start." Her teaching style was a little bit unorganized for me. She would post power point slides before lectures for students to download but a lot of her teaching was not actually with the slides, unless it was go over examples. She would use her iPad to write and explain the topics and then skip 5 slides. So it was a little bit difficult to follow and she sometimes just wrote too fast for me to keep up but she always posted her notes from the chapter. Despite this you can tell that she is incredibly knowledgable and passionate about her field and is always happy to answer questions. She is a very gracious grader and in my experience will offer extensions on homeworks when you ask and is always willing to discuss exam grades and where you went wrong if you take the time to speak with her. Lowest midterm and lowest discussion quiz get dropped at the end of the semester so you technically don't have to take the third midterm. I did anyway and got the exact same grade as the first midterm but was granted 2 more points after talking with her. My point is: consider taking the third midterm. You will have 4 Expert TA homework assignments every month, with 2 being due on the 15th and 2 being due on the last day of the month. She is always willing to post solutions to homework problems, or get you started, or elaborate on the process as long as you ask her with enough notice. While her 6 pm classes were a bit rough for me sometimes, especially since they ended at 7:15 pm, I enjoyed not having the class on Friday and her lectures never felt rushed.
Aria Heidarian PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/17/2024	An absolutely wonderful human being. I failed PHYS161 last semester and I approached her on the first day of class and her response was something to the effect of "forget last semester, don't let that bring you down, this is a new start." Her teaching style was a little bit unorganized for me. She would post power point slides before lectures for students to download but a lot of her teaching was not actually with the slides, unless it was go over examples. She would use her iPad to write and explain the topics and then skip 5 slides. So it was a little bit difficult to follow and she sometimes just wrote too fast for me to keep up but she always posted her notes from the chapter. Despite this you can tell that she is incredibly knowledgable and passionate about her field and is always happy to answer questions. She is a very gracious grader and in my experience will offer extensions on homeworks when you ask and is always willing to discuss exam grades and where you went wrong if you take the time to speak with her. Lowest midterm and lowest discussion quiz get dropped at the end of the semester so you technically don't have to take the third midterm. I did anyway and got the exact same grade as the first midterm but was granted 2 more points after talking with her. My point is: consider taking the third midterm. You will have 4 Expert TA homework assignments every month, with 2 being due on the 15th and 2 being due on the last day of the month. She is always willing to post solutions to homework problems, or get you started, or elaborate on the process as long as you ask her with enough notice. While her 6 pm classes were a bit rough for me sometimes, especially since they ended at 7:15 pm, I enjoyed not having the class on Friday and her lectures never felt rushed.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/10/2024	I never understood why students would criticize professors for being boring until I took physics with Hailu. I fought so hard to stay awake during his lectures that I genuinely could not divert any of my energy into actually understanding the topics. He does not post lecture notes or videos, just his slides which are a jumbled mess of textbook screenshots. The only exam prep he provides is one old exam (posted two days before the exam) with no answer key. I went to his office hours once and he literally cost me points off my homework assignment; not only was it unproductive, but his explanations felt condescending and rude (not a comfortable environment to learn in). The quizzes are pretty easy and the homework is helpful (both for your grade and understanding). The only reason I would recommend Hailu is because he provides feedback and hints on the hw with no deductions.
Aria Heidarian PHYS161 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/09/2024	Dr.Heidarian is a nice teacher and care so much for her students. She provides a lot of extra problems and solutions for those problems on Piazza. Her exams are fair, but not easy even if you do her practice problems. My only issue with this professor is that she can be dry in her lectures. She goes by too fast, but at least her notes are posted on canvas. Her teaching style isn’t meant for me and I end up struggling a bit in her class. I don’t like how there’s quizzes every week, but it's doable I’ll say. I would recommend her if you got a good background on physics. Her teaching style really emphasizes on your understanding on the concepts of physics. If you can’t understand it then this class gonna be a struggle. I say take Buerle if you just aiming for the grade. His class is similar but curves very well while Dr.Heidarian isn’t nonchalant when it come to curving the class.
Patrick Kelly PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/04/2024	Patrick doesn't really care about much and is low-key depressed. He won't teach like the other TAs. But if you want a TA who basically gives you the quiz answers and will do your homework if you ask then he's your guy.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/04/2024	This guy is so boring. If you have prior knowledge of Physics 1, you'll be fine skipping class. If you need a review, you need to go to lecture. He goes kinda fast and the screen is hard to see from the back. If you pay attention, you will pass the class.
Aria Heidarian PHYS161 Expecting a C Anonymous 04/24/2024	Professor Heidarian is a very nice and compassionate professor. She helps you a lot on your homework by posting solutions on piazza and even during her office hours. This class is hard enough at it is and I recommend taking lenient classes so you don’t get overwhelmed with this class. For her exams, do her practice sets that she provides you with. It’ll help you with the exam greatly. Only downside with professor Heidarian is that she can sometimes be quiet and hard to hear. She only curves exam if the class average is below 75(don’t count on it). If you’re looking to just pass the class then go for Buerle(his insane curves) but if you want to learn then take Heidarian.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a C Anonymous 02/27/2024	[Taken Spring 2023] David Buehrle is a swell guy but he taught me absolutely nothing about physics. It's odd because his lectures sounded like they made sense, but in effect it's like he's blabbering on about nothing for an hour and fifteen minutes. His exams are extremely hard and everyone bombs them, but his grading scheme is perhaps the most generous that you will find during your time in the engineering program. His class is curved like crazy and the lowest exam is dropped. Because of the grading, you can pass this class without understanding a single concept like myself and many others and laugh about it in the future. In conclusion, if you are already well versed in basic physics such as kinematics and work and energy, you may as well take him to benefit from the generous grading. If you are like how I was and had never taken physics before, avoid him and take Hailu so that you can actually learn the stuff before dynamics.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/30/2024	As other reviews have mentioned, the greatest challenge in Hailu's class is staying awake. While he does effectively teach you the concepts, he does so in a way that will have you making sketches in your notebook within 5 minutes. Lectures were extremely boring, but did get across core concepts of each unit. Properly learning the material only really happened when doing the homeworks, but to be fair, they were quite useful. Quizzes weren't bad. Exams were hit-or-miss; with only three questions per midterm, if you missed one, you were a little screwed. Overall not a bad professor per se, but I would avoid his class if you have alternatives.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/25/2023	Everyone saying that Hailu is a boring lecturer is right for the most part. He spends the majority of his lecturers doing practice problems which I think is great because the key to success in physics is practice problems, and more practice problems. The class problems along with the weekly homeworks are great review for the midterms and final. On the last final, one of the problems was actually an exact one that we did in class. This course isn't easy, but if you apply yourself by doing enough practice problems and actually try on the homeworks, you'll succeed. As far as curvature goes, he curves so that the top 60% of the class will get an A or B. My final grade of 83% god curved up to a B+. However, if you are not within the top 60% of the class, you will not get a curve. You are awarded your own cheat sheet for each test, which is helpful.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/21/2023	Decent professor, I didn't find much use going to lectures. Most of the class didn't. There is an expertTA every week and they're not super helpful. Quizzes are very easy, testing conceptual understanding. The exams are 3 questions, 20 points each, not too bad if you understand the material. The final was much harder. Doesn't record lectures or post the work of him solving problems from his slide decks. The online textbook and youtube videos will be more helpful than the professor.
Negar Heidarian Boroujeni PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2023	Dr. Heidarian is an excellent physics professor at UMD. With only a limited time to cover lots of content, she did an excellent job putting the conceptual understanding over any formula. She gives so many opportunities to succeed in the class. Her midterms are highly based on what's learned in class and there are 10 extra credit points at the end of each midterm. There are also in class 2-3 question lecture quizzes that are almost word for word a concept we discussed in class. On top of that, she drops your lowest midterm and lowest quiz grade. In terms of homework, she will help you on any problem you're struggling with and stay after lecture to discuss anything physics. She's also very helpful via email and during her office hours. The only "downside" is her class is not a free "A" because of the final exam. The exam average was a 75 so she curved it 5 points to an 80. However, it's only 20% of the final grade and everything on the exam is 100% doable and genuinely proves you've learned a lot over the course of the year. Highly recommend for a calc based physics course. My favorite class this semester!
Negar Heidarian Boroujeni PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/13/2023	She is such an amazing professor!! She makes everything sound so exciting so that you're actually interested in the class. There is a minimal workload but enough to keep you involved in the class. Definitely take her if you can.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/07/2023	Went into this class expecting a horrible professor and came out realizing most of his bad reviews for 161 are from freshmen who aren’t used to having to go to discussion or pay attention in class. His exams were fair, he was a very efficient lecturer, TA’s were helpful. Homework every week but I really liked the ExpertTA platform because it gives good hints and feedback. Structure of class sets students up for success (doing the homework & going to lecture/discussion will definitely help you pass). Great first semester of physics.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/05/2023	it all depends on what you want/if you have any experience with physics, but overall he's a fairly good teacher. he posts his powerpoints ahead of time and works through all the examples in class, and he gives a practice exam for each midterm. you get a single-sided cheat sheet for each midterm (8.5x11) and a double-sided one for the final. weekly Expert TA homeworks, 3 midterms, weekly quizzes in discussion (lowest is dropped and if you're sick you can get one excused), and a fairly large curve at the end of the semester (top 15% get As, next 40% get Bs, next 25% get Cs, and the rest get Ds and Fs) so its not too bad even if you don't do well. if you've taken AP physics 1 you're basically set. little to no calc needed as well.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/05/2023	While the material itself isn't the hardest thing in the world, the exam questions can be much more abstract then any of the homework or quiz questions. It doesn't help that Hailu is an incredibly dry lecturer, and it makes the lecturers feel like a chore when 80% of every lecture is just him solving practice problems.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/26/2023	If you have taken AP Physics A, this class will be a review. Hailu's lectures aren't the most entertaining, but he usually gives you all the formulas you need by the end of each lecture. Hailu will try and prove every formula which can sometimes be confusing/boing. However, the exams are very fair and doable. The practice exams are the same difficulty as the actual ones, so there are no surprises at all.
Matt Severson PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/07/2023	Lectures could be a bit dull at some times, but the things he would go over were important and would help you understand what was actually happening. He does take off for wrong answers on homework, which can be annoying at times but oh well. Exams were incredibly straightforward. The questions were extremely similar to ones went over in class. Attending lectures is the best way to make sure you get a good grade.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/26/2023	Really slow lectures that were difficult to learn from (probably because they were boring and monotone) and no curve this semester. No one asked questions during class because no one actually pays attention and does anything else to at least use their time productively. Only the TAs were the saving grace for this course, so definitely go to office hours if you can. The course itself isn't difficult to grasp (coming from someone who didn't even take high school physics) because doing the homework and learning from it is the most important thing and will prepare you for the quizzes and exams.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Anonymous 06/22/2023	cool guy, boring lectures, practice exams waaayyy easier than actual exam. But not too terrible. Practice you can do ok.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/07/2023	I don't think I really learned anything significant in this class. He's passionate about physics and he's a nice guy, but Buehrle spends the majority of class going over the textbook definition and then very extensive examples, which I felt like I never used in the exams or homeworks. I attended the majority of the lectures, granted literally falling asleep in a few of them, but I still found his exams to be extremely difficult. In each exam, there's usually four problems with one of them being a concept matching or multiple choice. Three exams with curves and one is dropped. Only upsides is that the quizzes are online and multiple choice (use your resources if you know what I mean) and that his chalk handwriting is nice. Don't bother going to lecture if you take Buehrle.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/24/2023	I feel like Buerhle is probably your best bet for 161. I took AP physics C in high school so I found most of the course content pretty easy. In my opinion, he is a very good lecturer, although I know some people felt that he “dumbed down” the content too much while he was explaining. He spends most of class time doing practice problems from the textbook. His exams are pretty brutal but there is usually a nice curve. The weekly quizzes are on Canvas so you can take them at your leisure with notes, and Expert TA homeworks have unlimited hints and 5 attempts with no deductions.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a D Anonymous 05/23/2023	Super boring and was not a fan of his teaching style. He has a PowerPoint he goes through with some basic formulas and definitions and practice problems. He posts the PowerPoint but not the notes that he writes during class that actually shows you how to solve the practice problems. TA was not really helpful. Physics is clearly not my thing but taking Hailu certainly didn't help.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/23/2023	I wouldn't say Buehrle himself is terrible, I've heard he's more engaging than Hailu which I guess I can understand and is probably true. However, his exams are very challenging—they are not like the quizzes or the expert TA homeworks, and while they do get curved individually it's really not that much because he curves the average to be around an 80. I should've looked at his grade data for 161 more closely. My one piece of advice is, actually try and study for the third midterm—everyone's going into this one thinking it'll be their drop one, some don't even show up and many people leave halfway after looking at the questions. Why should you study then? Because the curve for this exam is actually good, and it could bring your grade up. I know because I went in thinking I was gonna drop it, but I still studied and tried, and ended up with a slightly higher score than the first exam (which was the easiest of the three) because of the curve. I guess Buehrle prepares you for the final because you're exposed to the combined topic problems he likes to put on his midterms, but I can't say Hailu is better or worse because I haven't seen his exams. The only other things contributing to your grade are homeworks (which can be long and difficult, but you get multiple tries per question) and the quizzes. The quizzes can be kind of tricky, and he only drops two so prepare for those. He drops four homeworks, but I would recommend saving those four drops for the end of the semester because there are homeworks due literally a couple of days before finals and nobody has time for that. So don't be lazy during the semester because you'll regret it if you have to do the ones near finals that are on topics you don't even need for the exam. Anyways I think this course was made more challenging than it should have been to get an A, so I'd probably go with Hailu. Good luck!
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/11/2023	The main two selling points for Buehrle is his ability to (somewhat?) keep you awake during his lectures, and his kind personality. His lectures on the other hand? Pretty much next to useless. The entire time you will go to lecture, there will be examples that he goes over that mostly just consist of long derivations and RARELY one actual problem that is useful. The only reason why I'm doing well in this course is the extremely generous curve that he applies to every single exam. I'm a physics minor, so I came into this class looking to learn something for my future classes but I'm afraid to say that I've learnt pretty much nothing in this course. The exams are difficult, and the homework questions are nothing like the exam questions so the practice you get out of the homework is very minimal. If you're actually trying learn something in physics, despite Hailu's rep of being boring, take Hailu instead since he actually does relevant examples, but if you want the B- for gateway requirements, etc, take Buehrle for the curve.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/10/2023	Hailu is a smart guy and not the worst teacher but I found him so incredibly boring that it became really difficult to pay attention for a 50 minute lecture. Would not recommend.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/08/2023	Buehrle is an incredibly boring lecturer to the point that it's extremely hard to stay focused in class. Nothing prepares you for the tests, the exams take a while to get graded, and if you learn by example, he won't be a good professor for you. I found it really difficult to connect each of the concepts because of the way his lectures are structured. He does try to make class interesting, and the dropped midterm is helpful, but other than that I've barely learned anything this semester.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/05/2023	Not the best professor or the worst. The grading structure surrounding the class is great such as with the lowest grades being dropped and very generous curves. However in terms of learning he doesn’t really go over problems and just talks about the theory. Which in a class like physics I would say hurts the learner a lot. Take this class if you just need to fulfill some requirements to graduate and pass.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/04/2023	If you can stay awake and not get bored during lectures you will be fine. The material is incredibly boring, but the homeworks and quizzes aren't too hard and give you a good cushion for your grade. The exams are a little tricky but a lot of the questions are literally word for word from the practice exams with the numbers changed so if you study those you're fine. He also drops your lowest of the 3 midterms which is great. He also drops some of your lowest homework and quiz grades which is also very nice. Overall if you pay attention in lecture and study the practice exams a lot you will do great in his class.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 04/25/2023	I hate hailu. So boring.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 03/11/2023	The worst. He thinks that he knows what he's talking about but does not. Worst professor EVER. The curves are pointless and the exams are rediculous. HE LIED WHEN HE SAID THAT THE EXAMS ARE EASIER THAN THE HW. JUST THE WORST!
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/28/2023	Dr. Hailu is a very straight forward teacher. If you attend lecture and do practice problems, you will do well in his class. You have multiple attempts on homework, but he doesn't give extensions. My TA helped with homework problems I did not understand. His exams are exactly like the problems he demonstrates in lecture. I only relied on the textbook for extra practice problems.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 01/09/2023	UMDs physics department is not strong. Very boring lecturer, does not explain anything well, and he’ll put you to sleep. There’s about a 5% curve in the class. Weekly homework, quizzes, and that’s it. The exams are the majority of your grade. The final is extremely hard.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Anonymous 01/03/2023	Great guy and decent lecturer. Homeworks give plenty of attempts and are mostly straightforward (there are a lot however). Quizzes are also pretty simple. Exams are tricky with Buehrle but he curves them pretty significantly. Overall good experience and would definitely recommend taking it with him.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/28/2022	The only reason I got an A- in this class was the extremely generous curve. In lecture, I felt like I understood the material when it was taught and studied it. However, when it came to exams I had no idea what I was doing- meaning I wasn't really understanding the material in the first place. As someone who has never taken physics before, his lectures teach you the step above before teaching you the basics- which was detrimental for someone like me who has never seen the material before. I even tried to learn and study the basics, but was still confused when exams came around (though I have come to realize that physics is one of my weaker subjects). Overall, I would take Buehrle if you just want to pass the class as he generously curves. Personally, I was not happy taking this course because I wanted to understand the material and found that his lectures hindered my learning instead of helping it.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2022	The professor is a really nice guy and is very understandable. People say his exams are harder, but he also curves pretty generously. Overall this guy is really nice and his class is more engaging than Hailu's, so he's a better bet over Hailu so long as you make the effort to understand what's going on in lecture.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/08/2022	As someone who has never liked physics this class was painful. Buehrle seems like a nice guy, but his lectures weren't helpful especially because he posted his slides which were straight copied from the textbook and didn't say anything different than what was included in the text. I found it really hard to study for this class because expert TA and quizzes were nothing at all like the problems on exams. I feel like I learned nothing, did average on exams, and only got an A because of a very large curve.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/24/2022	Overall, taking physics with Buehrle was okay, but it was the hardest class I have taken here at UMD so far. There is a lot of room to get A's on assignments, especially with the expert TA homeworks, because even though they can be frustrating, they are very doable. The quizzes have very vague and conceptual questions and I think that the wording is intentionally tricky. His exams are very hard since very little information is given to you in each question and you may be unable to see the path that you're supposed to take to answer a question. I also found it very frustrating that the exams asked questions that were similar to lectures, but the expert TA homeworks and quizzes didn't exactly line up with lecture, so it could feel like you were practicing skills you would not be tested on. Buehrle also had no control over the 300 student lecture hall. It was always noisy and distracting and very difficult to learn in that environment. I think Buehrle is a nice guy, and if you already have a solid foundation in physics, you can probably do well in his class. If you never took Ap physics in high school, you should probably find a different professor simply on the fact that it is really hard to focus in his class and the exams and quizzes will be extremely difficult since the expert TA homeworks aren't good practice for them.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Anonymous 05/20/2022	Pros: Very-generous curve. Cons: Lectures are pretty bad.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/19/2022	His lectures are a bit long and dull, and his exams are on the harder sides. However, he does apply a generous curve to most exams and he drops your lowest exam grade, so it's still possible to do well in this class even if you absolutely bomb one of your exams
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/17/2022	Quick overview of the course: 2 homework and 1 quiz a week, 3 midterms, 1 final, and you get a formula sheet for every exam My experience: I learned nothing from this class. Buehrle's lectures were very long and boring, meaning there is very little chance you will be able to focus enough to understand what he is teaching (many people gave up on showing to class after a while). He also didn't prepare us for the level of difficulty of his exams, so the only thing that will be keeping your grade afloat will be the curve. When I say difficult, I really mean his exams were designed to mess you up. For instance, one of the test questions this semester had 2 paragraphs talking about a block's movement and like 15 variables listed, all of which was completely useless to solving the problem. Instead of testing your knowledge, the problem was only meant to make you waste your time trying to use all of the information given. This is why the curve is critical. He curves the average grade of every midterm up to an 80% and drops your lowest scoring one. I doubt you'll end up learning anything from this class, so at least take the teacher who curves like crazy. GOOD LUCK!!!
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/15/2022	He's a nice guy. You gotta respect him. He gives a nice curve given the exams which he gives are difficult. I wouldn't recommend emailing him he doesn't really help with that kind of thing. Overall pretty good, just do the hw and you will be fine.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/12/2022	This professor did quite well in teaching the course, however as many people point out, his lectures are really long and extremely boring at times. His exams tend to be kind of difficult to some extent, but honestly I never found them to be insultingly hard. He curves SUPER generously and the grade distributions basically means that, as long as you get the average on all the midterms and do well on the homeworks and online quizzes, you'll basically have an A by the time you take the final. Not only that but he also drops your lowest midterm, meaning that if you did very well on the first 2 midterms, you don't even have to take the last one. Hell, I only took the last midterm for practice and for funsies. Didn't study at all, barely knew what I was doing, yet I STILL got a good grade on the exam. That's how good the curve is. Overall, study hard for the midterms, course is pretty straight forward, decent professor.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/02/2022	Other people I've talked to think he's great, but personally I think he's just okay. His lectures felt almost entirely conceptually based, meanwhile his exams were only applied problems so it felt like a lot of extra work to keep up. The discussion sections cover applied problems but unfortunately I didn't have a great TA so I was kind of on my own. The HW software wasn't great and was tedious at times. The curves on the exams did help quite a bit, but the questions tend to be more difficult than any other applied problems done during discussion and HWs. I only have Khan Academy to thank for my A in this class.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Anonymous 01/31/2022	People here are saying he's boring, but honestly, there are worse things. He knows what he's talking about in and out. His teaching style is clear and he is patient with any questions that are asked. He was accommodating, when people were having trouble seeing the blackboard he switched to the projector in the next class. He does a lot of examples in class. If you do/understand those with him, it's a huge help. Quizzes are not that bad. Midterms were hard but not a crazy level of hard, especially because you get an entire sheet of paper. I would take him for the rest of my physics classes if I could.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/18/2022	I'll be honest I came into this class having done physics a few times before but being pretty bad at it. Content is almost exactly what one would learn in AP Physics C mechanics, honestly wished I paid more attention then. First exam is pretty easy but it gets harder from there, even then I felt his midterms weren't that bad. On exams he does allow you to bring a one sided cheat sheet, so I found that to be helpful. Discussions were honestly the worst part. There's a quiz pretty much every week in discussion in the last 10 minutes of class, and obviously you would want to focus on that content during discussion, well you would be disappointed because our TA at least would just go over stuff from the next chapter and spend all of class doing maybe 2 or 3 problems even going into the last 10 mins. I tried really hard to pay attention but it was tough to follow along. Getting exams/quizzes back was very disorganized and we never went over any of them. Grading also took really long. This semester all the office hours were online and I tried going to one once but it seems the TA stopped holding them halfway through the semester, so I was pretty much on my own. There was some in person tutoring thing in the physics building I went to once (I did go day before hw was due so maybe that's why) but it was packed and the tutor wouldn't just answer the question and no one got it for hours, I ended up just figuring it out myself later. We also got assigned a homework to complete every week, and it's pretty long. I would definitely recommend starting early (at the minimum a day or two in advance) because trying to do it all at once is really hell. I would also recommend finding people in your class to work with because it makes it easier and helps you through it emotionally as well lol. Last couple hw problems of each set were pretty hard in my opinion and def harder than quizzes and midterms so I would just try and answer it and move on without devoting too much time to really understanding. We used expertTA which could sometimes be really stupid and confusing but it does give you 5 tries, no points deducted, and the feedback can be helpful if it gives you any. I will also admit I sometimes skipped lecture, sometimes fell asleep in class, or just did not focus in class and here's what I found to be the secret to doing well. He goes over problems in class and posts the slides online. DO THOSE PROBLEMS BEFORE MIDTERMS AND QUIZZES. Follow along with the work to those problems and try understanding why those steps were taken. These problems seemed to be the most on level and usually weren't too bad. He does "post" the slides online but there's no answers. It is possible to find the answers to those problems online but sometimes its more confusing. I would recommend going to class and just writing down exactly what he does on the board even if you don't get it in the moment (sometimes I just took pictures but I ended up losing them in camera roll or just not looking back). If you keep this organized you can use it to study and it will help you a lot. Sometimes looking at the textbook may be helpful if you don't know a concept at all or you can try looking at videos online. For exams I did that^ to study and wrote down all the equations and anything I would usually forget on my cheat sheet. I got an 88, 84, and 95 on the midterms this way. Most people fail the last midterm but I studied for like 7 hours at Mckeldin (probably shouldn't take that long but I get distracted easily) for it, looking over all of that^ for each chapter on the exam. I still never felt very confident after exams but I always answered each question and showed work because he does give partial credit. There's usually "3 questions" on the exam but each has like 3 or 4 parts and some parts were not even related (pretty much different questions). I did end up working pretty much till the end of the allotted time for every exam. The final exam in my opinion was possibly the worst exam I've ever taken in my life. I had 2 exams that day so maybe that's also why but I was sure I failed. He allows a double sided cheat sheet for this and I wrote every equation that came up but it honestly wasn't super helpful. I probably could have studied more but I pretty much just re did all 3 exams and tried to really understand how to do everything (if you can get your hands on someone's past exam where they got everything or nearly everything right, USE THAT, because just going off his "corrections" is not good enough for figuring out how to do the problem and google did not help). I would recommend going over quizzes as well but I lost most of mine or just didn't get them back, and lastly look over the slides questions, and then if time do textbook stuff. The actual exam was "6 questions" but again they have parts. All of the questions were pretty hard in my opinion but I did attempt everything, and honestly BS'D my way through most of it. He looks at partial work so if you know how to do one thing and not the other just come up with something and use that in the part you know. I ended up actually getting a 71% on the final so... I had a 92.5 before the final was put in and then it went down to an 87% after. Hailu does not curve exams but he does drop your lowest quiz grade and if you're sick you can be exempted from one quiz as well. He does end up curving the class at the end so 20% of people get A's (A-, A, A+) all included, and after the curve my grade went up to an A-. What I've heard from people in the past is that after the final grades go up by ~5% so a B+ becomes an A-, a B becomes B+, B- becomes B, etc. To wrap this up, this was my hardest class in my first semester in college so maybe my view is skewed but I think physics is just a hard subject overall. I've never had a good physics teacher to compare this to but this class has more to do with the amount of effort you put in than anything else. If you've taken physics before like me you can get an A by just putting in work when needed and hoping for the best. If you have never taken physics before I would recommend maybe doing AP mechanics stuff over the break before and putting in a lot of effort and time into this class. Good luck to all of you!
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/25/2021	I think this is one of the few professors where the TAs are much worse than the professor, and not in a good way. As other reviews stated, he's very boring and spends class deriving equations and solving problems. Don't take him in the morning if you don't get much sleep, you might doze off. The TA I had was horrible, always late to discussion, took long to grade, and get aggressive if you asked questions how she solved a problem.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2021	Hailu is fine as a professor. He tends to get frustrated with students who ask questions in lecture which makes it a hard environment to be in when you're confused. The reason this rating is so low is because the TAs for this class were absolutely terrible. They take up to a month to grade quizzes, and don't know what has been introduced in lecture. Multiple times my TA has done in-depth practice problems in discussion on a topic that students had never seen before. Exams also aren't graded with feedback. You just get a little x next to your answer with no notes, meaning that you lose points but don't gain any knowledge from messing up.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/03/2021	PHYS161 isn't easy, and it is a benchmark course for engineering at UMD. My one and only retake was at UMD, and I took the class with Professor Buehrle. Pros: Semi-generous curve. No textbook is required. (Physics textbooks can be really expensive.) Cons: Long lectures. Extremely difficult exam problems.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/21/2021	This class was run asynchronously and he just posted old lecture videos from previous courses he taught, not even necessarily from PHYS161! This means it was extremely disorganized and nothing he said in the lecture about the exams/homeworks was actually true. The tests were very hard, though they were curved insanely generously. Personally, I literally got nothing out of listening to his lectures which consisted only of slides from the textbook company and the example problems from the book. I had to do a ton of self-teaching just to pass the class. He also didn't respond to my emails and took forever to grade exams (like a month!!).
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/17/2021	He’s both ok and extremely boring. If you’re ok with listening to boring, monotone lectures that give the information necessary for homework and exams, then go with him. His exams were mostly ok, but the final exam seemed way harder than necessary. If you need an ok professor, then he’s your guy.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/19/2021	I had him during fall 2020, so class was completely online. His lecture videos were somewhat monotonous but actually taught you the material if you paid attention, and he had good examples so I never felt the need to read the book to supplement in-class instruction. Make sure to watch out for numerical mistakes in his examples though! Quizzes were simple FRQs which reflected the main concept of the content for the week, and homeworks were pretty consistent with what was taught in class. (Some problems were hard, but that's normal). Midterm exams were pretty ok, final was really hard, but the curve takes care of it.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/13/2021	As far as the quality of physics lecturers goes, Buehrle's probably up there as one of the better ones. Pretty entertaining guy in-person. His exams were somewhat challenging but he infamously had really generous curves on them. The flipside is this meant he didn't curve final grades, no matter how close you may have been to the next grade cutoff...
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A ILSboi 12/26/2020	class was fully online due to covid Imagine learning physics by reading a textbook. It's informative, but not particularly exciting. Now turn that textbook into a powerpoint. Literally just screenshot the equations from the digital version of the textbook and stick it in a powerpoint. Mix in an excessive amount of practice problems, usually solved wrong and usually easier than anything the test will give you. Now have a man read this powerpoint, veeerrryyy slooowwwlllyyy, unconstrained by the normal class schedule due to the asynchronous format of the class online. Thats Hailu. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that if I skipped every lecture and just read the textbook, I probably could have learned the same amount in half the time. The class had quizzes every week over zoom. They were timed for 10 minutes, so if you had internet issues, you were kind of screwed. The quizzes varied wildly in difficulty, from high school trig to problems we haven't learned yet. The class uses expert ta for all homework, which is actually very nice. It gives you hints and specific feedback if it knows why your answer is wrong. The class is curved, but hailu seemed to be deliberately vague about how much, or whether he would curve down if final grades were too high. In the end, the 67% average on the final meant there was a generous curve up of at least a few percent. Ultimately, take Hailu if you have to. He's not necessarily a good teacher, but he's also not actively bad.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/13/2020	I would give him 0 if that was possible. I think he doesn't deserve one dollar of his salary. He posted the lecture videos and never held class once, only proctored exams and quizes which is so nice of him honestly. He also never ever gave any study material for any test.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 06/08/2020	David Buehrle is a pretty nice guy, but his lectures were pretty boring and not too helpful; most of the content was ripped straight out of the textbook (including examples), and he didn't start doing more beneficial examples until halfway through the course. His online lectures were about the same as in-person. Homework was fairly straightforward and easy, but it took a lot of time to do. Exams were probably the worst part of the course: they either escalated the difficulty of problems or didn't give enough time to complete everything and check your answers. The raw average scores of most of the exams were in the upper 50's to lower 60's; however, he curved exams by 20-30% (around the average), which was a blessing. Overall, I didn't learn too much from his course, but I had taken AP Physics (so it wasn't utterly terrible). Since this is a requisite for engineering majors, I wish you the best of luck!
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/26/2020	The first thing people think about Professor Buehrle is that he looks like Mark Hamill. Aside from that, Buerhle is a laid back professor, and teaches similarly to AP Physics C. The notes were not too helpful with homework, but was doable. Exams were difficult, but he always curves to make the average 80%. Since quizzes were online, there was nothing to do in discussions, and therefore were pointless, unless you had a homework question.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/13/2020	Buehrle is a chill professor who makes the occasion physics jokes. The homework is easy, but the exams are usually pretty difficult, but he always curves the average to around 80%
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/07/2020	He's a funny and nice guy, but with this class, you get what you put in. The lectures are mostly pretty boring and the exams are pretty tough. There is a curve for the exams tho, plus he drops 1 of the 3 exams since the other physics professor only gives 2 exams.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/10/2020	Covers the material well, makes the occasional physics jokes, and is personal with each student's concerns and requests. He teaches at a manageable pace and posts his lectures slides. The exams however are quite difficult, but he curves.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/18/2019	Hailu's style of teaching mechanics is by completing examples during lecture, so if you do not make the effort to attend, you will likely have a hard time. He's a pretty laid-back professor and likes to occasionally joke during class too. His home work assignments are pretty easy and only take around one hour a week. He is not a perfect professor and definitely will not make you love physics if you already don't, but I would recommend him in general.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B+ casimir_pulaski 12/17/2019	He is the definition of an alright teacher. You will get in what you put out and his exams are fair representations of the material covered in class. I do advise you work out a significant number of problems in the book, since just doing the ExpertTA homework is unlikely to earn you and A unless you have past experience with physics. He's a good guy and writes very clearly. Lectures consist of mainly slides with supplemental work on the chalkboard.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/13/2019	Great Guy, Lectures were really boring sometimes, but HW was free and the exams were pretty fair, quizzes were really dumb sometimes tho
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/25/2019	The lectures were boring and long, but the homework was easy. However, the exams were tough. He gives a good curve because the average was low, but you still have to put in effort to get a good grade
Raymond Fermo PHYS161 Anonymous 05/17/2019	Fermo is inconsiderate and unhelpful. Through this entire semester, he has read off the powerpoint without doing any practice problems. He is insensitive and says things like "try harder" and "my pay isn't affected by my student's grades." Terrible professor.
Raymond Fermo PHYS161 Expecting a C- Anonymous 05/15/2019	Dude made this class waaaaay harder than it should be, also where is my refund for the hw thing in the beginning of the semester????
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/28/2019	He's a pretty decent professor even though most of his teaching is based off his slides. His TA is pretty bad however, and discussion sections are basically useless aside from the required quizzes. One big thing about his class though is that there's no curve which you'll want at the end of the semester
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/02/2018	You’re 100% not going to take anything from this class. I would honestly say he is the worst professor I’ve had at this university, and it’s a shame because he’s a nice guy and says funny things and engages the class - all building façade that you might be learning something useful or that those practice problems you just went over or the demo he did will end up being beneficial. The BAM here comes midterm number 1 ready to just bend you over and dilate your orifices until you walk out of the lecture hall physically and emotionally drained, wondering how you got to that point, and whether or not you’ll ever make it as an engineer when you thought you studied and prepared for this exam only to stare at the first problem and then at your formula sheet and realize you didn’t learn a damn thing in this class and it’s only getting worse from here on. For anyone discouraged after taking this course, PHYS260 is arguably harder in terms of content, but so long as your professor actually teaches you things they test you on, then you’ll be fine. Just rely on Buehrle’s curve to pass this class, I’d honestly say it’s impossible otherwise unless you took physics in high school.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting a W Anonymous 05/05/2018	Took him for PHYS161. I would not recommend him. His classes are mainly done from Powerpoint . He did many examples during class but the exams were a lot more difficult than the examples. Worst part was that he does not curve at all. And trust me, you'll want curving.
Sergio Picozzi PHYS161 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/21/2017	A lot of people like the way he teaches, but I had a hard time in this class. He doesn't really go over concepts, he just does practice problems on the board. All of his midterms are curved, they didn't really consist of the problems we did in class. He's nice and approachable, but personally, I didn't like his teaching style.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/15/2016	He's terrible at teaching. His lectures are so vague and he never does examples. I give him three stars because his class wasn't too hard. The clicker questions are online so you can not go to lecture and still do the clicker questions, you just have to always be looking at your computer so you know when a new questions pops up.
Theodore Kirkpatrick PHYS161 Anonymous 11/02/2015	Overall he is a good professor. His lectures can sometimes be slightly boring as he often spends long amounts of time working out practice problems that are hard to follow. However, he is a nice guy and he curves the exams, which are not very hard to begin with.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/29/2015	I never leave reviews for professors unless I have a bad time. I had a bad time with this guy. This guy straight up gives you old AP Physics C problems as exams. Those by themselves are hard. He does not actually teach anything, especially as an introductory Physics class. All he does is derivations on the board. I went to every lecture and it seemed like the time spent in class did not help at all and was a complete waste of time. All in all, bad teacher and really hard exams. Reading the book and watching videos helps a bit. Weekly quizzes which are usually pretty hard and can rarely be done in the time given. Discussion is utterly useless as all you have time to do is take the quiz then go over the answers to the quiz after it is collected. Now, after all this there is a pretty big curve. Be aware the final is really hard. I would recommend just doing old AP Physics C Free Responses to prepare for the exams. I worked really hard in this class and was able to pull off an A- in his class after the curve but if I had the option to take it with someone else that actually teaches, I would. (Side note: This guy is treats guy and girls completely differently -- to the point where me and several other students in lecture would pick up on the way he would talk to guys as opposed to the way he talked to girls.)
Theodore Kirkpatrick PHYS161 Expecting an A nassu30 02/18/2015	Great teacher. Good with concepts. His handwriting can be difficult to understand though. Fairly average exams.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B- Sal_man 01/20/2015	He is engaging and enthusiastic in his teaching. Grading was fair with the exams being manageable. I'll say the same for quizzes. It's important to actually do the homework problems and GSS worksheets. If you practice until you can get the answers without error, you will get an A in the class. I became lazy and started googling the homework answers since they are all online. Still managed a B in the class. I should mention this is my third physics class since I am a biology major and the material in this was a bit different. Definitely would take a another class with him.
Suresh Tonwar PHYS161 Expecting a C Anonymous 01/12/2015	Suresh Tonwar is terrible. He speaks terrible english, and he is not very good at answering questions. His lectures are not organized at all, and he only does some parts of some problems. His exams are nothing like his discussion sections, practice problems, or homeworks. They are totally random. It was very hard to study for his exams because his questions were out of the blue and random. If there are other teachers take them.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/04/2014	Buehrle was a decently dynamic teacher, but ultimately lectures were superfluous and I rarely went. Having taken AP Physics, I was quite bored by the class and he didn't do enough to change that. This would've been fine, but his mastering physics homeworks were ridiculous. They would often take hours and be significantly harder than anything he had talked about in class. On top of this, his exams were laughably difficult and the averages seemed to generally fall in the 60s. I don't feel like I learned the material well at all. That being said, the curve is definitely in your favor and relative to what I've heard of other teacher's for 161 you could do far worse.
Theodore Kirkpatrick PHYS161 Expecting an A cblumenf 11/05/2014	Kirkpatrick is a fairly interesting teacher, although his lectures aren't really necessary to do well in his course. I mostly just read the textbook. The quizzes and tests were very straight forward.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/28/2014	First, you are going to have endless amounts of Mastering Physics. It sucks. They take 2-5 hours depending on the week and your Googling ability. They don't match up all that well with the difficulty and style of the problems you get in class. Second, he does not go over many examples in class, and mostly does formula derivations, which is not very helpful for learning how to actually do the problems. Third, his exams are really hard. People walk out and say "I don't know if I got a single point." They are all curved, usually a lot, so there is no final curve on the class. Many people had already learned the material but the University did not give them AP credit, so that messed up the curve. Fourth, he is an engaging and energetic lecturer. He likes to bring in demonstrations that are not necessarily helpful, but at least interesting. He lets class out 10-15 minutes early almost every day.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A skamazin 04/26/2014	Buehrle is such a nice, straightforward person. He's teaching style is slow but thorough. If you've gone through AP Physics B you'll be fine for most of the course (you can probably skip most lectures and be fine on the exams). If you've never had physics before, he is also a great choice because of how thorough. I definitely recommend him.
David Buehrle PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/31/2014	Buehrle was a very straight forward and easy to understand professor. He explains everything VERY slowly compared to physics professors I've had in the past, which is good when you get into slightly more complicated topics. He's also easy to approach and is probably the least condescending professors I've ever had. His tests are more difficult and fast paced than his teaching style would suggest, but they are graded leniently. I'm usually decent at predicting my test scores, and I was confident I got a C or B at best on each test, but I actually got all As BEFORE the curve. The curve on each exam was around 10%. The tests did have a lot of questions without numbers, which could be a problem for some people. I noticed the reviewers that complained were in 121 or 122. I took those classes when I was a biology major, so I'm guessing they are also bio majors. I met a lot of bio majors while getting my microbiology degree at umd, and I hate to generalize, but a large percentage of them are incredibly lazy when it comes to certain classes (mainly pre-meds who want the glory of being a physician, but don't want to put in the work). My point is, don't judge Buehrle by those reviews. P.S. The last paragraph wasn't meant to offend pre-med students. There are plenty of hard working pre-meds who will be great physicians one day!
Andris Skuja PHYS161 Expecting a B cheesecake 08/05/2013	Horrible professor. He seems like a nice dude, but he is the worst lecturer I have ever seen. Has no idea how to teach properly. He just does problems and mumbles about while trying to solve them. He doesn't explain well at all. If you didn't take AP physics in high school, you'll be totally lost. Avoid this teacher at all costs!
Andris Skuja PHYS161 Expecting an A UMDStudent2 06/10/2013	Bad teacher. You will most likely not do well if you did not take AP Physics in high school. Even having taken AP Physics in high school, I had to put in a lot of work to pull off an A. His exam questions are basically taken directly out of the book. My strategy was that if I did most of the problems in the book, I would be prepared when I saw the same question on the exam. This strategy seemed to work, and I recommend it. Btw, the final exam is insanely difficult. You will feel like you failed, but there is some ridiculous 20 point curve because everyone fails it.
Andris Skuja PHYS161 Anonymous 05/17/2013	Pretty bad teacher. Not much homework. The materials not impossible to learn on ur own.You'll learn nothing in lecture.
Andris Skuja PHYS161 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/17/2013	THE WORST PROFESSOR EVER. You sit in lecture, and think "why the eff am I here?" The examples he gives in class are ridiculously easy and he spends too much time going over them. The exam problems, then, are NOTHING like ANYTHING he goes over in lecture. I stopped going to class because I wasn't getting anything out of them. I'm pretty sure I would have gotten a worse grade in the class if I had actually gone. Instead, during lecture times I self-studied or did the Mastering Physics. Seriously, skuja is a horrible teacher, do anything you can not to take his class. Honestly, he's probably a smart guy with a lot of knowledge, but he does not know how to teach at all. Avoid at all costs.
Andris Skuja PHYS161 Expecting a C- Anonymous 05/16/2013	Terrible Professor. He basically screwed up on the first exam because the average was a 90, and now he's going to compensate for it by normalizing the grades. Going to class is useless and exams (other than the first) are so obscure and ridiculous. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
Andris Skuja PHYS161 Anonymous 05/10/2013	He is a nice guy but not very good at teaching. Out of 300 of people in the class maybe 50 go to class. You really need to teach yourself in order to do well in the class. He does not give much homework so it is up to you to study and get practice. He takes everything out of the book almost word for word and does not teach anything new.
Andris Skuja PHYS161 Expecting a C MuffinKnight 04/30/2013	The worst professor anyone could ever take in the span of their entire college career. He doesn't actually teach anything and likes to whip out obscure questions on exams. I would gladly take 8 am or even 8pm classes over this class.
Andris Skuja PHYS161 Expecting a C parade 03/31/2013	Awful teacher, he does not explain anything in class. If you have him, you basically have to self study. When I go to lecture, I come out thinking why did I go? Literally have not learned anything all semestre.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A coolkat142 01/21/2013	I love Bantu, he is the best! go to his office hours and befreind him he is a great guy. I already graduated two years ago but he has become my freind and mentor for a long time. What an amazing guy. so damn nice. godman
Brad Conrad PHYS161 Expecting a C Anonymous 01/26/2011	The exams were hard, and I paid attention in everyone of his lectures. The homework was extremely easy and the classes were interesting. The demos were fun to watch and he is a very nice professor. The final was really hard and I feel like he did not prepare us enough for the tests that we had.
Frederick Wellstood PHYS161 Expecting a B RLJ2009 01/18/2011	Great teacher! He was helpful and very interested in his work. His exams were fair and offered make ups for the first two. He is also very nice if you visit him during his office hours. Would take again.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS161 Expecting an A+ MooseNinja 05/22/2010	To be honest, the only reason I ever went to lecture was because of the unannounced pop quizzes. Bantu's lectures are pretty boring (and that's with a laptop). Mastering Physics (online HW) is more difficult than any of the tests (or the examples done in class). If you have even marginal experience with physics this class is a review. (but a 3 on AP C Mech doesn't place you out).
Brad Conrad PHYS161 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/07/2010	As far as assignments, there was weekly online and book homework. Online was through mastering physics and the book homework was generally fairly easy (one to two problems per week). Exams were fairly long, sometimes needing all or more time than the 50 minutes provided, but the course is curved generously. Normally had some True/False, a question on one of the demos, a couple short problems, and 2-3 longer problems with multiple parts. The content was nothing unexpected if you paid attention in class and did the homework problems; all the problems were rearranged problems from class. Class was late (at 7pm), but he tried to fill it with demos to make it more interesting, and you could tell that he enjoyed teaching the material.
Rabindra Mohapatra PHYS161 Anonymous 04/26/2010	Funny dude in lecture, but is very difficult to understand. Take a different teacher. Wants to get to know students, so he's good in his limited office hours, but that's the best I can say.
Frederick Wellstood PHYS161 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/03/2010	I don't think there is any sane person who would have any complaint WHATSOEVER with this professor. I think he might actually be a godsend to reward us cursed engineering students. He responds to e-mails, cares about his students, basically gives away the exams with his review sessions, Gave MAKE-UP exams for two exams last semester in 161 (I don't think you heard me right, let me say that again: THE MAN GAVE TWO MAKE UP EXAMMMMMMMSSSSSSS!!!!!!!), has a fun, quirky attitude in lecture, explains all the concepts behind equations in PROSE AND INDENTIFIES THEM PHYSICALLY, has cool fun demoes sporadically, I could spent all day listing his qualities. I took him for 161, have him right now in 260 (and btw the first exam was easier than expected, lol), and damn sure plan to take him for 271. I don't care what you expect to get from the class, how you want your tests to be, how you want the professor to teach, or your general level in physics (he could teach a monkey about fluid dynamics) -- Wellstood is the high school physics teacher who came to answer all of your prayers!
Frederick Wellstood PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2009	Softball class, especially if you have had some Physics in high school. Wellstood is a great professor, going through derivations and a few examples in class. A bit nitpicky when it comes to grading, although if you attend review sessions and/or pay attention in class, he tells you what he expects and how he grades. Homework is sometimes harder than what is covered in lecture, but that's what discussion's for. Tests are surprisingly easy, although the final is a bit tricky. Overall, a good experience. As someone with a good background in mechanics, this class took little time and effort. Even for someone new to physics, it shouldn't be too bad.
Frederick Wellstood PHYS161 Expecting a B UMDstudent2011 12/12/2009	Professor Wellstood has been my favorite teacher this Fall 2009 semester. His class is fun, and very informative with great examples to use for the homework. He is approachable and will also answer any questions you may have. The mastering physics homework is also helpful and really makes the students think. His examinations are very difficult but they are ALL curved (so is the class) so just do as well or better than the class average and you should get at least a B in the class. One last thing, if you completely bomb any of the examines, he will allow you to complete a make-up examine! How many professors allow students to get another attempt at the material? None that i know of.
Rabindra Mohapatra PHYS161 Expecting a C Anonymous 04/20/2009	If you've taken some form of physics before then the class will be pretty straightforward, but Mohapatra's accent made it near impossible to learn anything from the lecture. However, he's a nice enough guy and seemed willing to help if you took the time to go to him and ask questions. Quizzes and homework were annoying, but I probably learned more from those than the lectures. Sad thing is, he's probably one of the better physics professors on campus (the least bad of the physics professors if that makes sense) and I would take him over most of the other physics professors.
Wolfgang Losert PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/14/2009	Not a good professor to have if you are taking physics for the first time in your life. Expect to rely on your textbook for help because he spends most of his lectures starting a problem and then concluding that the problem must be solved with additional concepts and techniques that we have not yet learned. He is not very organized and never finishes his sentences. The exams were okay and there was a curve on each one, but be prepared to be bored.
Rabindra Mohapatra PHYS161 Anonymous 12/24/2008	Go to discussion. I made the mistake of not going and learned nothing. His teaching style and accent aren't helpful either. The book won't help you either.
Frederick Wellstood PHYS161 Anonymous 12/04/2008	EXCELLENT PROFESSOR! Dr. Wellstood truly cares about his students and goes the extra mile to make sure he is doing everything possible to be of assistance when help is needed. He personally grades exams, so he gets to know your strengths and weaknesses in the subject material. Dr. Wellstood makes sure that all students understand the essentials of Physics I (i.e. vectors, proper notation, etc.), all of which are critically important in all sciences/math/engineering. The class is challenging, but it is a necessary class for all engineering majors (and no physics class is easy). Dr. Wellstood is by far one of the greatest professors in the physics department.
Rabindra Mohapatra PHYS161 Expecting an A jahs389 11/25/2008	Giving weekly quizzes isn't such a bad thing. You actually learn under this guy, and he is a riot. His demonstrations and explanations are very entertaining. He was also really nice and approachable in his office hours and help me make up they exams I missed.
Frederick Wellstood PHYS161 Anonymous 11/16/2008	Professor Wellstood is awful! First of all... he SMELLS SO BAD all the time! Please do us a favor and take a shower! Second... his exams are so hard! They are nothing like lecture, homework, or discussion. The old exams are sometimes helpful, but not that much. Don't take him!
Frederick Wellstood PHYS161 Anonymous 11/06/2008	Amazing teacher. very clear and comprehensive with his lectures. you will definitely want to go to all of the lectures and take notes since they are extremely helpful. He takes the extra effort to emphasize the important points and theorems and try to incorporate demonstrations to illustrate certain points (makes the class so much more interesting). His animated character and love for physics is quite contagious (will keep you entertained and awake in class). Although his examples are graded a bit more carefully, it is very reasonably done so since the problems are basically exactly like the posted sample examples and he will go over the entire sample example at the review sessions (if you can't make it, he will go over the sample exam with you in office hours). His lectures are also thorough enough to warrant for the difficulty level of the test. Definitely do all of the mastering physics hw! they are very helpful. To succeed in this class: 1. attend and stay awake for all his lectures 2. do all the mastering phys hw 3. do sample exam and go to review session
Frederick Wellstood PHYS161 Anonymous 10/30/2008	Professor Wellstood is very smart and very knowledgeable about physics, so much so that I felt like his teachings and his expectations for you as a student went beyond what is necessary. Classes were okay. You definitely want to take notes, as a couple exam questions here and there will come from what is discussed in lecture. Homework was relatively easy, as the problems were straight out of the book. However, you can have a great understanding of how to do all of the problems in the book/homework and then his test questions come straight outta "no-man's land". Exams are SOOO HARD!! Exam questions that are nothing like the homework problems and oftentimes the type of problems that were never covered in class. If you take his class, DEFINITELY study the old sample exams; exams are ususally very similar to old exams and are very helpful. He doesn't post answers to these old exams, you HAVE to attend his review sessions (usually in the evening, day before exam) in order to obtain the solutions. Also, he provides a curve based on a bell statistical distribution. AVERAGE grades were usually like a 45 for my class; he already anticipates offering a make-up exam before giving the actual exam. Harsh grading; real big on vector notation. If I had to take this class again, I'd definitely look to take it with another professor. Please!
Rabindra Mohapatra PHYS161 Expecting an A xinio64 06/02/2008	I did not really get much out of his lectures. They were so boring and his accent got on my nerves. I learned by doing the written homework and masteringphysics. Even though masteringphysics was a huge pain, I actually did get something out of it. He did make jokes occasionally and some were actually funny. The first midterm was easy but the second and third ones were kind of difficult. The final was not that bad. Best advice is to go to office hours, go to discussion class, do the homework in a timely manner, and try to do as many other practice problems from the book.
Rabindra Mohapatra PHYS161 Anonymous 05/21/2008	Mohapatra in my opinion should stick to teaching grad courses. Not only are his lectures extremely boring, but he makes it a nuisance for students to not go to class. He gives a weekly quiz, which is good and all, but gives them on sporadic times to his whim. In addition, his accent does put a large barrier in terms of learning. If you don't like powerpoints, or find yourself falling asleep while looking at them, do not join his class. He's not a very good teacher. Nice guy, but he definitely doesn't know how to convey the information over to students. He's also quite unreasonable when it comes to problems with the online homework.
Rabindra Mohapatra PHYS161 Anonymous 05/02/2008	Although Mohapatra appears to know his stuff, he doesn't teach very clearly. His accent is an unfortunate barrier, it took me half the semester to get used to it. He used masteringphysics which was a disaster because there were glitches with the program. Despite many complaints, he remained indifferent to the fact that many people had low homework grades because the online homework wasn't working correctly. He usually just gives confusing proofs in class and doesn't always point out which forumlas are worth knowing. He is, however, very eager to help anyone who comes to office hours or makes an appointment so if you don't understand something, take some time to see him after class. Despite his confusing explanations, he is happy to help anyone who is truely interested.
Young Kim PHYS161 avigana 11/16/2007	Unless you can learn physics straight from a text book do not take this class. Kim is a nice guy but his extremely poor command of English and disorganized lecture style make it hard for students to learn anything in his lectures. To give an example of his disorganization, when I was in his class he talked about how much he admired Galileo for literally the first three weeks of classes. He did not cover any material related to physics during this time.

Alberto Belloni
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
11/17/2024

horrible experience. the guy doesn't explain anything in lecture (nothing more than reading the slides), gives out exams you humanly cannot finish in 50 mins, and doesn't give us anything with regards to curve, in spite the exam averages being 58 and 48. do NOT take him. you're better off taking this at ur local CC

Alberto Belloni
PHYS161

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
11/11/2024

Terrible instructor. Raced through content, had very tough exams, some with averages below 50%, much lower than other sections. Can’t see your old exams either.

Alberto Belloni
PHYS161

Anonymous
10/19/2024

this is absolutely not the professor to take if you've never taken physics 1 before. the class is incredibly disorganized and very poorly taught. the department generally makes it unnecessarily complex, gives you meaningless practice on expert ta, and no practice exams. belloni seems to be basing the class of the OpenStax PDF and textbook, which straight up suck. I've taken physics 1 before, which is the only reason i'm surviving this class. if you're taking this 1) i'm sorry for you 2) use other resources (organic chem tutor, njctl ap physics c notes) to study. lecture is rather useless.

Alberto Belloni
PHYS161

Anonymous
09/06/2024

Very good guy, Its hard to understand him at all times, makes lectures harder than they should be.

Alberto Belloni
PHYS161

Anonymous
09/06/2024

nice guy, HEAVY Italian accent, lecture style is all over the place, don't feel like i learn a lot in lecture

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
06/06/2024

The other reviews are right so I'll keep it brief. Hailu is boring, it is hard to stay awake. If you can, pay attention in class, as going back to the slides after the lecture isn't really helpful. He doesn't post his solutions to problems we go over in class, so try to follow along. Quizzes are disproportionally easy compared to the exams. You won't need to worry about the quizzes at all, as long as you understand the basics.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/27/2024

Overall, he taught the content well, which succeeded in making me interested in the content and preparing me for the exam. He teaches in a chill style, and while he does get monotonous at times, I could deal with it and the solution is to sit near friends. Homework was assigned on a great site which gives us five attempts for problems and does not deduct us for hints or incorrect answers. For tests, we were allowed to use a cheat sheet and they were all fairly graded, and we were provided with a practice test to prepare us. Definitely take him for Physics 161.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/27/2024

Overall, he taught the content well, which succeeded in making me interested in the content and preparing me for the exam. He teaches in a chill style, and while he does get monotonous at times, I could deal with it and the solution is to sit near friends. Homework was assigned on a great site which gives us five attempts for problems and does not deduct us for hints or incorrect answers. For tests, we were allowed to use a cheat sheet and they were all fairly graded, and we were provided with a practice test to prepare us. Definitely take him for Physics 161.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/23/2024

Worst lectures I have ever been to. Skipped for like 2 months because they are useless unless you learn while sleeping. He only posts PowerPoints of the questions he goes through, not the solutions he works through during class so after going a couple of times, make some friends who can send you the notes. The tests are not too hard or tricky which was nice, but the homework kind of sucked just try to stay current on the material. Try and take Aria Heidarian, her class was late but my friend said it was much easier. She dropped the worst test and actually taught well. Although the homework and content for tests were a bit different so you can't study or do homework with your friends in Hailu's class. Overall the class isn't bad, all tests and final were fair. It is also easier if you took or are taking ENES102 or took AP physics in high school.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/22/2024

He taught the course well, clearly explaining all topics in a chill (as in not harsh) style. That allowed me to understand all topics well enough to do well on tests and be interested in them. During office hours, he is willing to answer any question about homework or content and he answers in a non-critical way. Regarding tests, they are administered in a fair way in which we are allowed to bring in cheat sheets which he does not check, allowing us to write what we want. The homework is assigned on a great website called expertTA which usually gives us five chances to get questions correct and does not deduct us for wrong answers or hints. Overall, he is a great man and an amazing teacher who I am excited to take again for PHYS261, you should definitely take physics with him if he is a choice. Regarding ratings that say he is boring, he does speak in slight monotone but the tip to not getting bored in class is to sit by friends.

Negar Heidarian Boroujeni
PHYS161

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
05/22/2024

She’s an alright professor. I would say she isn’t that amazing as others put it. Dr.Heidarian is an above average professor who cares about her students. Posting hw solutions on piazza and providing practice sets that help you on the exams. My main issue with her is the lectures. She goes too fast and doesn’t slow down. Her teaching style doesn’t work for me as it goes on the topic for brief moments and then do practice problems. All this makes the lecture very boring. I feel like I can take a nap in her lecture. She drops the lowest midterm and lowest in lecture quiz(make no sense since is only 5%). She does provide a lot of help when you go to office hours(which is a must to pass sadly). Don’t expect curves in her class. She hardly does and only does it if the class average is below 80%. If you want to pass the class without worrying too much, I say go with Buehrle. Who curves the class greatly but his exams are slightly harder. With Dr.Heidarian you must dedicate all your time for the class.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/21/2024

Pretty slow and boring but gives good practice material and fair exams. He also explains problems well.

Negar Heidarian Boroujeni
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/19/2024

Professor Heidarian is clearly knowledgeable and skilled in her subject area, and because of that she moves through explanations and practice problems pretty quickly. I found it a bit hard to absorb everything during lecture so I had to do a fair amount of concept review outside of lecture. I found her midterm exams to be pretty difficult (definitely study a lot for these!), although your worst one (out of three) is dropped which is nice. She is very approachable and open to answering individual questions after lecture. Overall, I liked her as a professor.

Aria Heidarian
PHYS161

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/17/2024

An absolutely wonderful human being. I failed PHYS161 last semester and I approached her on the first day of class and her response was something to the effect of "forget last semester, don't let that bring you down, this is a new start." Her teaching style was a little bit unorganized for me. She would post power point slides before lectures for students to download but a lot of her teaching was not actually with the slides, unless it was go over examples. She would use her iPad to write and explain the topics and then skip 5 slides. So it was a little bit difficult to follow and she sometimes just wrote too fast for me to keep up but she always posted her notes from the chapter. Despite this you can tell that she is incredibly knowledgable and passionate about her field and is always happy to answer questions. She is a very gracious grader and in my experience will offer extensions on homeworks when you ask and is always willing to discuss exam grades and where you went wrong if you take the time to speak with her. Lowest midterm and lowest discussion quiz get dropped at the end of the semester so you technically don't have to take the third midterm. I did anyway and got the exact same grade as the first midterm but was granted 2 more points after talking with her. My point is: consider taking the third midterm. You will have 4 Expert TA homework assignments every month, with 2 being due on the 15th and 2 being due on the last day of the month. She is always willing to post solutions to homework problems, or get you started, or elaborate on the process as long as you ask her with enough notice. While her 6 pm classes were a bit rough for me sometimes, especially since they ended at 7:15 pm, I enjoyed not having the class on Friday and her lectures never felt rushed.

Aria Heidarian
PHYS161

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/17/2024

An absolutely wonderful human being. I failed PHYS161 last semester and I approached her on the first day of class and her response was something to the effect of "forget last semester, don't let that bring you down, this is a new start." Her teaching style was a little bit unorganized for me. She would post power point slides before lectures for students to download but a lot of her teaching was not actually with the slides, unless it was go over examples. She would use her iPad to write and explain the topics and then skip 5 slides. So it was a little bit difficult to follow and she sometimes just wrote too fast for me to keep up but she always posted her notes from the chapter. Despite this you can tell that she is incredibly knowledgable and passionate about her field and is always happy to answer questions. She is a very gracious grader and in my experience will offer extensions on homeworks when you ask and is always willing to discuss exam grades and where you went wrong if you take the time to speak with her. Lowest midterm and lowest discussion quiz get dropped at the end of the semester so you technically don't have to take the third midterm. I did anyway and got the exact same grade as the first midterm but was granted 2 more points after talking with her. My point is: consider taking the third midterm. You will have 4 Expert TA homework assignments every month, with 2 being due on the 15th and 2 being due on the last day of the month. She is always willing to post solutions to homework problems, or get you started, or elaborate on the process as long as you ask her with enough notice. While her 6 pm classes were a bit rough for me sometimes, especially since they ended at 7:15 pm, I enjoyed not having the class on Friday and her lectures never felt rushed.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/10/2024

I never understood why students would criticize professors for being boring until I took physics with Hailu. I fought so hard to stay awake during his lectures that I genuinely could not divert any of my energy into actually understanding the topics. He does not post lecture notes or videos, just his slides which are a jumbled mess of textbook screenshots. The only exam prep he provides is one old exam (posted two days before the exam) with no answer key. I went to his office hours once and he literally cost me points off my homework assignment; not only was it unproductive, but his explanations felt condescending and rude (not a comfortable environment to learn in). The quizzes are pretty easy and the homework is helpful (both for your grade and understanding). The only reason I would recommend Hailu is because he provides feedback and hints on the hw with no deductions.

Aria Heidarian
PHYS161

Expecting a C
Anonymous
05/09/2024

Dr.Heidarian is a nice teacher and care so much for her students. She provides a lot of extra problems and solutions for those problems on Piazza. Her exams are fair, but not easy even if you do her practice problems. My only issue with this professor is that she can be dry in her lectures. She goes by too fast, but at least her notes are posted on canvas. Her teaching style isn’t meant for me and I end up struggling a bit in her class. I don’t like how there’s quizzes every week, but it's doable I’ll say. I would recommend her if you got a good background on physics. Her teaching style really emphasizes on your understanding on the concepts of physics. If you can’t understand it then this class gonna be a struggle. I say take Buerle if you just aiming for the grade. His class is similar but curves very well while Dr.Heidarian isn’t nonchalant when it come to curving the class.

Patrick Kelly
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/04/2024

Patrick doesn't really care about much and is low-key depressed. He won't teach like the other TAs. But if you want a TA who basically gives you the quiz answers and will do your homework if you ask then he's your guy.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/04/2024

This guy is so boring. If you have prior knowledge of Physics 1, you'll be fine skipping class. If you need a review, you need to go to lecture. He goes kinda fast and the screen is hard to see from the back. If you pay attention, you will pass the class.

Aria Heidarian
PHYS161

Expecting a C
Anonymous
04/24/2024

Professor Heidarian is a very nice and compassionate professor. She helps you a lot on your homework by posting solutions on piazza and even during her office hours. This class is hard enough at it is and I recommend taking lenient classes so you don’t get overwhelmed with this class. For her exams, do her practice sets that she provides you with. It’ll help you with the exam greatly. Only downside with professor Heidarian is that she can sometimes be quiet and hard to hear. She only curves exam if the class average is below 75(don’t count on it). If you’re looking to just pass the class then go for Buerle(his insane curves) but if you want to learn then take Heidarian.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a C
Anonymous
02/27/2024

[Taken Spring 2023] David Buehrle is a swell guy but he taught me absolutely nothing about physics. It's odd because his lectures sounded like they made sense, but in effect it's like he's blabbering on about nothing for an hour and fifteen minutes. His exams are extremely hard and everyone bombs them, but his grading scheme is perhaps the most generous that you will find during your time in the engineering program. His class is curved like crazy and the lowest exam is dropped. Because of the grading, you can pass this class without understanding a single concept like myself and many others and laugh about it in the future. In conclusion, if you are already well versed in basic physics such as kinematics and work and energy, you may as well take him to benefit from the generous grading. If you are like how I was and had never taken physics before, avoid him and take Hailu so that you can actually learn the stuff before dynamics.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/30/2024

As other reviews have mentioned, the greatest challenge in Hailu's class is staying awake. While he does effectively teach you the concepts, he does so in a way that will have you making sketches in your notebook within 5 minutes. Lectures were extremely boring, but did get across core concepts of each unit. Properly learning the material only really happened when doing the homeworks, but to be fair, they were quite useful. Quizzes weren't bad. Exams were hit-or-miss; with only three questions per midterm, if you missed one, you were a little screwed. Overall not a bad professor per se, but I would avoid his class if you have alternatives.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/25/2023

Everyone saying that Hailu is a boring lecturer is right for the most part. He spends the majority of his lecturers doing practice problems which I think is great because the key to success in physics is practice problems, and more practice problems. The class problems along with the weekly homeworks are great review for the midterms and final. On the last final, one of the problems was actually an exact one that we did in class. This course isn't easy, but if you apply yourself by doing enough practice problems and actually try on the homeworks, you'll succeed. As far as curvature goes, he curves so that the top 60% of the class will get an A or B. My final grade of 83% god curved up to a B+. However, if you are not within the top 60% of the class, you will not get a curve. You are awarded your own cheat sheet for each test, which is helpful.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/21/2023

Decent professor, I didn't find much use going to lectures. Most of the class didn't. There is an expertTA every week and they're not super helpful. Quizzes are very easy, testing conceptual understanding. The exams are 3 questions, 20 points each, not too bad if you understand the material. The final was much harder. Doesn't record lectures or post the work of him solving problems from his slide decks. The online textbook and youtube videos will be more helpful than the professor.

Negar Heidarian Boroujeni
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/19/2023

Dr. Heidarian is an excellent physics professor at UMD. With only a limited time to cover lots of content, she did an excellent job putting the conceptual understanding over any formula. She gives so many opportunities to succeed in the class. Her midterms are highly based on what's learned in class and there are 10 extra credit points at the end of each midterm. There are also in class 2-3 question lecture quizzes that are almost word for word a concept we discussed in class. On top of that, she drops your lowest midterm and lowest quiz grade. In terms of homework, she will help you on any problem you're struggling with and stay after lecture to discuss anything physics. She's also very helpful via email and during her office hours. The only "downside" is her class is not a free "A" because of the final exam. The exam average was a 75 so she curved it 5 points to an 80. However, it's only 20% of the final grade and everything on the exam is 100% doable and genuinely proves you've learned a lot over the course of the year. Highly recommend for a calc based physics course. My favorite class this semester!

Negar Heidarian Boroujeni
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/13/2023

She is such an amazing professor!! She makes everything sound so exciting so that you're actually interested in the class. There is a minimal workload but enough to keep you involved in the class. Definitely take her if you can.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/07/2023

Went into this class expecting a horrible professor and came out realizing most of his bad reviews for 161 are from freshmen who aren’t used to having to go to discussion or pay attention in class. His exams were fair, he was a very efficient lecturer, TA’s were helpful. Homework every week but I really liked the ExpertTA platform because it gives good hints and feedback. Structure of class sets students up for success (doing the homework & going to lecture/discussion will definitely help you pass). Great first semester of physics.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/05/2023

it all depends on what you want/if you have any experience with physics, but overall he's a fairly good teacher. he posts his powerpoints ahead of time and works through all the examples in class, and he gives a practice exam for each midterm. you get a single-sided cheat sheet for each midterm (8.5x11) and a double-sided one for the final. weekly Expert TA homeworks, 3 midterms, weekly quizzes in discussion (lowest is dropped and if you're sick you can get one excused), and a fairly large curve at the end of the semester (top 15% get As, next 40% get Bs, next 25% get Cs, and the rest get Ds and Fs) so its not too bad even if you don't do well. if you've taken AP physics 1 you're basically set. little to no calc needed as well.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
12/05/2023

While the material itself isn't the hardest thing in the world, the exam questions can be much more abstract then any of the homework or quiz questions. It doesn't help that Hailu is an incredibly dry lecturer, and it makes the lecturers feel like a chore when 80% of every lecture is just him solving practice problems.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/26/2023

If you have taken AP Physics A, this class will be a review. Hailu's lectures aren't the most entertaining, but he usually gives you all the formulas you need by the end of each lecture. Hailu will try and prove every formula which can sometimes be confusing/boing. However, the exams are very fair and doable. The practice exams are the same difficulty as the actual ones, so there are no surprises at all.

Matt Severson
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
07/07/2023

Lectures could be a bit dull at some times, but the things he would go over were important and would help you understand what was actually happening. He does take off for wrong answers on homework, which can be annoying at times but oh well. Exams were incredibly straightforward. The questions were extremely similar to ones went over in class. Attending lectures is the best way to make sure you get a good grade.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
06/26/2023

Really slow lectures that were difficult to learn from (probably because they were boring and monotone) and no curve this semester. No one asked questions during class because no one actually pays attention and does anything else to at least use their time productively. Only the TAs were the saving grace for this course, so definitely go to office hours if you can. The course itself isn't difficult to grasp (coming from someone who didn't even take high school physics) because doing the homework and learning from it is the most important thing and will prepare you for the quizzes and exams.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Anonymous
06/22/2023

cool guy, boring lectures, practice exams waaayyy easier than actual exam. But not too terrible. Practice you can do ok.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
06/07/2023

I don't think I really learned anything significant in this class. He's passionate about physics and he's a nice guy, but Buehrle spends the majority of class going over the textbook definition and then very extensive examples, which I felt like I never used in the exams or homeworks. I attended the majority of the lectures, granted literally falling asleep in a few of them, but I still found his exams to be extremely difficult. In each exam, there's usually four problems with one of them being a concept matching or multiple choice. Three exams with curves and one is dropped. Only upsides is that the quizzes are online and multiple choice (use your resources if you know what I mean) and that his chalk handwriting is nice. Don't bother going to lecture if you take Buehrle.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/24/2023

I feel like Buerhle is probably your best bet for 161. I took AP physics C in high school so I found most of the course content pretty easy. In my opinion, he is a very good lecturer, although I know some people felt that he “dumbed down” the content too much while he was explaining. He spends most of class time doing practice problems from the textbook. His exams are pretty brutal but there is usually a nice curve. The weekly quizzes are on Canvas so you can take them at your leisure with notes, and Expert TA homeworks have unlimited hints and 5 attempts with no deductions.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a D
Anonymous
05/23/2023

Super boring and was not a fan of his teaching style. He has a PowerPoint he goes through with some basic formulas and definitions and practice problems. He posts the PowerPoint but not the notes that he writes during class that actually shows you how to solve the practice problems. TA was not really helpful. Physics is clearly not my thing but taking Hailu certainly didn't help.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/23/2023

I wouldn't say Buehrle himself is terrible, I've heard he's more engaging than Hailu which I guess I can understand and is probably true. However, his exams are very challenging—they are not like the quizzes or the expert TA homeworks, and while they do get curved individually it's really not that much because he curves the average to be around an 80. I should've looked at his grade data for 161 more closely. My one piece of advice is, actually try and study for the third midterm—everyone's going into this one thinking it'll be their drop one, some don't even show up and many people leave halfway after looking at the questions. Why should you study then? Because the curve for this exam is actually good, and it could bring your grade up. I know because I went in thinking I was gonna drop it, but I still studied and tried, and ended up with a slightly higher score than the first exam (which was the easiest of the three) because of the curve. I guess Buehrle prepares you for the final because you're exposed to the combined topic problems he likes to put on his midterms, but I can't say Hailu is better or worse because I haven't seen his exams. The only other things contributing to your grade are homeworks (which can be long and difficult, but you get multiple tries per question) and the quizzes. The quizzes can be kind of tricky, and he only drops two so prepare for those. He drops four homeworks, but I would recommend saving those four drops for the end of the semester because there are homeworks due literally a couple of days before finals and nobody has time for that. So don't be lazy during the semester because you'll regret it if you have to do the ones near finals that are on topics you don't even need for the exam. Anyways I think this course was made more challenging than it should have been to get an A, so I'd probably go with Hailu. Good luck!

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/11/2023

The main two selling points for Buehrle is his ability to (somewhat?) keep you awake during his lectures, and his kind personality. His lectures on the other hand? Pretty much next to useless. The entire time you will go to lecture, there will be examples that he goes over that mostly just consist of long derivations and RARELY one actual problem that is useful. The only reason why I'm doing well in this course is the extremely generous curve that he applies to every single exam. I'm a physics minor, so I came into this class looking to learn something for my future classes but I'm afraid to say that I've learnt pretty much nothing in this course. The exams are difficult, and the homework questions are nothing like the exam questions so the practice you get out of the homework is very minimal. If you're actually trying learn something in physics, despite Hailu's rep of being boring, take Hailu instead since he actually does relevant examples, but if you want the B- for gateway requirements, etc, take Buehrle for the curve.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/10/2023

Hailu is a smart guy and not the worst teacher but I found him so incredibly boring that it became really difficult to pay attention for a 50 minute lecture. Would not recommend.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/08/2023

Buehrle is an incredibly boring lecturer to the point that it's extremely hard to stay focused in class. Nothing prepares you for the tests, the exams take a while to get graded, and if you learn by example, he won't be a good professor for you. I found it really difficult to connect each of the concepts because of the way his lectures are structured. He does try to make class interesting, and the dropped midterm is helpful, but other than that I've barely learned anything this semester.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/05/2023

Not the best professor or the worst. The grading structure surrounding the class is great such as with the lowest grades being dropped and very generous curves. However in terms of learning he doesn’t really go over problems and just talks about the theory. Which in a class like physics I would say hurts the learner a lot. Take this class if you just need to fulfill some requirements to graduate and pass.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/04/2023

If you can stay awake and not get bored during lectures you will be fine. The material is incredibly boring, but the homeworks and quizzes aren't too hard and give you a good cushion for your grade. The exams are a little tricky but a lot of the questions are literally word for word from the practice exams with the numbers changed so if you study those you're fine. He also drops your lowest of the 3 midterms which is great. He also drops some of your lowest homework and quiz grades which is also very nice. Overall if you pay attention in lecture and study the practice exams a lot you will do great in his class.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a D+
Anonymous
04/25/2023

I hate hailu. So boring.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
03/11/2023

The worst. He thinks that he knows what he's talking about but does not. Worst professor EVER. The curves are pointless and the exams are rediculous. HE LIED WHEN HE SAID THAT THE EXAMS ARE EASIER THAN THE HW. JUST THE WORST!

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/28/2023

Dr. Hailu is a very straight forward teacher. If you attend lecture and do practice problems, you will do well in his class. You have multiple attempts on homework, but he doesn't give extensions. My TA helped with homework problems I did not understand. His exams are exactly like the problems he demonstrates in lecture. I only relied on the textbook for extra practice problems.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
01/09/2023

UMDs physics department is not strong. Very boring lecturer, does not explain anything well, and he’ll put you to sleep. There’s about a 5% curve in the class. Weekly homework, quizzes, and that’s it. The exams are the majority of your grade. The final is extremely hard.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Anonymous
01/03/2023

Great guy and decent lecturer. Homeworks give plenty of attempts and are mostly straightforward (there are a lot however). Quizzes are also pretty simple. Exams are tricky with Buehrle but he curves them pretty significantly. Overall good experience and would definitely recommend taking it with him.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/28/2022

The only reason I got an A- in this class was the extremely generous curve. In lecture, I felt like I understood the material when it was taught and studied it. However, when it came to exams I had no idea what I was doing- meaning I wasn't really understanding the material in the first place. As someone who has never taken physics before, his lectures teach you the step above before teaching you the basics- which was detrimental for someone like me who has never seen the material before. I even tried to learn and study the basics, but was still confused when exams came around (though I have come to realize that physics is one of my weaker subjects). Overall, I would take Buehrle if you just want to pass the class as he generously curves. Personally, I was not happy taking this course because I wanted to understand the material and found that his lectures hindered my learning instead of helping it.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/11/2022

The professor is a really nice guy and is very understandable. People say his exams are harder, but he also curves pretty generously. Overall this guy is really nice and his class is more engaging than Hailu's, so he's a better bet over Hailu so long as you make the effort to understand what's going on in lecture.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
06/08/2022

As someone who has never liked physics this class was painful. Buehrle seems like a nice guy, but his lectures weren't helpful especially because he posted his slides which were straight copied from the textbook and didn't say anything different than what was included in the text. I found it really hard to study for this class because expert TA and quizzes were nothing at all like the problems on exams. I feel like I learned nothing, did average on exams, and only got an A because of a very large curve.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/24/2022

Overall, taking physics with Buehrle was okay, but it was the hardest class I have taken here at UMD so far. There is a lot of room to get A's on assignments, especially with the expert TA homeworks, because even though they can be frustrating, they are very doable. The quizzes have very vague and conceptual questions and I think that the wording is intentionally tricky. His exams are very hard since very little information is given to you in each question and you may be unable to see the path that you're supposed to take to answer a question. I also found it very frustrating that the exams asked questions that were similar to lectures, but the expert TA homeworks and quizzes didn't exactly line up with lecture, so it could feel like you were practicing skills you would not be tested on. Buehrle also had no control over the 300 student lecture hall. It was always noisy and distracting and very difficult to learn in that environment. I think Buehrle is a nice guy, and if you already have a solid foundation in physics, you can probably do well in his class. If you never took Ap physics in high school, you should probably find a different professor simply on the fact that it is really hard to focus in his class and the exams and quizzes will be extremely difficult since the expert TA homeworks aren't good practice for them.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Anonymous
05/20/2022

Pros: Very-generous curve. Cons: Lectures are pretty bad.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/19/2022

His lectures are a bit long and dull, and his exams are on the harder sides. However, he does apply a generous curve to most exams and he drops your lowest exam grade, so it's still possible to do well in this class even if you absolutely bomb one of your exams

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/17/2022

Quick overview of the course: 2 homework and 1 quiz a week, 3 midterms, 1 final, and you get a formula sheet for every exam My experience: I learned nothing from this class. Buehrle's lectures were very long and boring, meaning there is very little chance you will be able to focus enough to understand what he is teaching (many people gave up on showing to class after a while). He also didn't prepare us for the level of difficulty of his exams, so the only thing that will be keeping your grade afloat will be the curve. When I say difficult, I really mean his exams were designed to mess you up. For instance, one of the test questions this semester had 2 paragraphs talking about a block's movement and like 15 variables listed, all of which was completely useless to solving the problem. Instead of testing your knowledge, the problem was only meant to make you waste your time trying to use all of the information given. This is why the curve is critical. He curves the average grade of every midterm up to an 80% and drops your lowest scoring one. I doubt you'll end up learning anything from this class, so at least take the teacher who curves like crazy. GOOD LUCK!!!

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/15/2022

He's a nice guy. You gotta respect him. He gives a nice curve given the exams which he gives are difficult. I wouldn't recommend emailing him he doesn't really help with that kind of thing. Overall pretty good, just do the hw and you will be fine.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/12/2022

This professor did quite well in teaching the course, however as many people point out, his lectures are really long and extremely boring at times. His exams tend to be kind of difficult to some extent, but honestly I never found them to be insultingly hard. He curves SUPER generously and the grade distributions basically means that, as long as you get the average on all the midterms and do well on the homeworks and online quizzes, you'll basically have an A by the time you take the final. Not only that but he also drops your lowest midterm, meaning that if you did very well on the first 2 midterms, you don't even have to take the last one. Hell, I only took the last midterm for practice and for funsies. Didn't study at all, barely knew what I was doing, yet I STILL got a good grade on the exam. That's how good the curve is. Overall, study hard for the midterms, course is pretty straight forward, decent professor.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
03/02/2022

Other people I've talked to think he's great, but personally I think he's just okay. His lectures felt almost entirely conceptually based, meanwhile his exams were only applied problems so it felt like a lot of extra work to keep up. The discussion sections cover applied problems but unfortunately I didn't have a great TA so I was kind of on my own. The HW software wasn't great and was tedious at times. The curves on the exams did help quite a bit, but the questions tend to be more difficult than any other applied problems done during discussion and HWs. I only have Khan Academy to thank for my A in this class.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Anonymous
01/31/2022

People here are saying he's boring, but honestly, there are worse things. He knows what he's talking about in and out. His teaching style is clear and he is patient with any questions that are asked. He was accommodating, when people were having trouble seeing the blackboard he switched to the projector in the next class. He does a lot of examples in class. If you do/understand those with him, it's a huge help. Quizzes are not that bad. Midterms were hard but not a crazy level of hard, especially because you get an entire sheet of paper. I would take him for the rest of my physics classes if I could.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/18/2022

I'll be honest I came into this class having done physics a few times before but being pretty bad at it. Content is almost exactly what one would learn in AP Physics C mechanics, honestly wished I paid more attention then. First exam is pretty easy but it gets harder from there, even then I felt his midterms weren't that bad. On exams he does allow you to bring a one sided cheat sheet, so I found that to be helpful. Discussions were honestly the worst part. There's a quiz pretty much every week in discussion in the last 10 minutes of class, and obviously you would want to focus on that content during discussion, well you would be disappointed because our TA at least would just go over stuff from the next chapter and spend all of class doing maybe 2 or 3 problems even going into the last 10 mins. I tried really hard to pay attention but it was tough to follow along. Getting exams/quizzes back was very disorganized and we never went over any of them. Grading also took really long. This semester all the office hours were online and I tried going to one once but it seems the TA stopped holding them halfway through the semester, so I was pretty much on my own. There was some in person tutoring thing in the physics building I went to once (I did go day before hw was due so maybe that's why) but it was packed and the tutor wouldn't just answer the question and no one got it for hours, I ended up just figuring it out myself later. We also got assigned a homework to complete every week, and it's pretty long. I would definitely recommend starting early (at the minimum a day or two in advance) because trying to do it all at once is really hell. I would also recommend finding people in your class to work with because it makes it easier and helps you through it emotionally as well lol. Last couple hw problems of each set were pretty hard in my opinion and def harder than quizzes and midterms so I would just try and answer it and move on without devoting too much time to really understanding. We used expertTA which could sometimes be really stupid and confusing but it does give you 5 tries, no points deducted, and the feedback can be helpful if it gives you any. I will also admit I sometimes skipped lecture, sometimes fell asleep in class, or just did not focus in class and here's what I found to be the secret to doing well. He goes over problems in class and posts the slides online. DO THOSE PROBLEMS BEFORE MIDTERMS AND QUIZZES. Follow along with the work to those problems and try understanding why those steps were taken. These problems seemed to be the most on level and usually weren't too bad. He does "post" the slides online but there's no answers. It is possible to find the answers to those problems online but sometimes its more confusing. I would recommend going to class and just writing down exactly what he does on the board even if you don't get it in the moment (sometimes I just took pictures but I ended up losing them in camera roll or just not looking back). If you keep this organized you can use it to study and it will help you a lot. Sometimes looking at the textbook may be helpful if you don't know a concept at all or you can try looking at videos online. For exams I did that^ to study and wrote down all the equations and anything I would usually forget on my cheat sheet. I got an 88, 84, and 95 on the midterms this way. Most people fail the last midterm but I studied for like 7 hours at Mckeldin (probably shouldn't take that long but I get distracted easily) for it, looking over all of that^ for each chapter on the exam. I still never felt very confident after exams but I always answered each question and showed work because he does give partial credit. There's usually "3 questions" on the exam but each has like 3 or 4 parts and some parts were not even related (pretty much different questions). I did end up working pretty much till the end of the allotted time for every exam. The final exam in my opinion was possibly the worst exam I've ever taken in my life. I had 2 exams that day so maybe that's also why but I was sure I failed. He allows a double sided cheat sheet for this and I wrote every equation that came up but it honestly wasn't super helpful. I probably could have studied more but I pretty much just re did all 3 exams and tried to really understand how to do everything (if you can get your hands on someone's past exam where they got everything or nearly everything right, USE THAT, because just going off his "corrections" is not good enough for figuring out how to do the problem and google did not help). I would recommend going over quizzes as well but I lost most of mine or just didn't get them back, and lastly look over the slides questions, and then if time do textbook stuff. The actual exam was "6 questions" but again they have parts. All of the questions were pretty hard in my opinion but I did attempt everything, and honestly BS'D my way through most of it. He looks at partial work so if you know how to do one thing and not the other just come up with something and use that in the part you know. I ended up actually getting a 71% on the final so... I had a 92.5 before the final was put in and then it went down to an 87% after. Hailu does not curve exams but he does drop your lowest quiz grade and if you're sick you can be exempted from one quiz as well. He does end up curving the class at the end so 20% of people get A's (A-, A, A+) all included, and after the curve my grade went up to an A-. What I've heard from people in the past is that after the final grades go up by ~5% so a B+ becomes an A-, a B becomes B+, B- becomes B, etc. To wrap this up, this was my hardest class in my first semester in college so maybe my view is skewed but I think physics is just a hard subject overall. I've never had a good physics teacher to compare this to but this class has more to do with the amount of effort you put in than anything else. If you've taken physics before like me you can get an A by just putting in work when needed and hoping for the best. If you have never taken physics before I would recommend maybe doing AP mechanics stuff over the break before and putting in a lot of effort and time into this class. Good luck to all of you!

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/25/2021

I think this is one of the few professors where the TAs are much worse than the professor, and not in a good way. As other reviews stated, he's very boring and spends class deriving equations and solving problems. Don't take him in the morning if you don't get much sleep, you might doze off. The TA I had was horrible, always late to discussion, took long to grade, and get aggressive if you asked questions how she solved a problem.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/19/2021

Hailu is fine as a professor. He tends to get frustrated with students who ask questions in lecture which makes it a hard environment to be in when you're confused. The reason this rating is so low is because the TAs for this class were absolutely terrible. They take up to a month to grade quizzes, and don't know what has been introduced in lecture. Multiple times my TA has done in-depth practice problems in discussion on a topic that students had never seen before. Exams also aren't graded with feedback. You just get a little x next to your answer with no notes, meaning that you lose points but don't gain any knowledge from messing up.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/03/2021

PHYS161 isn't easy, and it is a benchmark course for engineering at UMD. My one and only retake was at UMD, and I took the class with Professor Buehrle. Pros: Semi-generous curve. No textbook is required. (Physics textbooks can be really expensive.) Cons: Long lectures. Extremely difficult exam problems.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/21/2021

This class was run asynchronously and he just posted old lecture videos from previous courses he taught, not even necessarily from PHYS161! This means it was extremely disorganized and nothing he said in the lecture about the exams/homeworks was actually true. The tests were very hard, though they were curved insanely generously. Personally, I literally got nothing out of listening to his lectures which consisted only of slides from the textbook company and the example problems from the book. I had to do a ton of self-teaching just to pass the class. He also didn't respond to my emails and took forever to grade exams (like a month!!).

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/17/2021

He’s both ok and extremely boring. If you’re ok with listening to boring, monotone lectures that give the information necessary for homework and exams, then go with him. His exams were mostly ok, but the final exam seemed way harder than necessary. If you need an ok professor, then he’s your guy.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/19/2021

I had him during fall 2020, so class was completely online. His lecture videos were somewhat monotonous but actually taught you the material if you paid attention, and he had good examples so I never felt the need to read the book to supplement in-class instruction. Make sure to watch out for numerical mistakes in his examples though! Quizzes were simple FRQs which reflected the main concept of the content for the week, and homeworks were pretty consistent with what was taught in class. (Some problems were hard, but that's normal). Midterm exams were pretty ok, final was really hard, but the curve takes care of it.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/13/2021

As far as the quality of physics lecturers goes, Buehrle's probably up there as one of the better ones. Pretty entertaining guy in-person. His exams were somewhat challenging but he infamously had really generous curves on them. The flipside is this meant he didn't curve final grades, no matter how close you may have been to the next grade cutoff...

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A
ILSboi
12/26/2020

*class was fully online due to covid* Imagine learning physics by reading a textbook. It's informative, but not particularly exciting. Now turn that textbook into a powerpoint. Literally just screenshot the equations from the digital version of the textbook and stick it in a powerpoint. Mix in an excessive amount of practice problems, usually solved wrong and usually easier than anything the test will give you. Now have a man read this powerpoint, veeerrryyy slooowwwlllyyy, unconstrained by the normal class schedule due to the asynchronous format of the class online. Thats Hailu. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that if I skipped every lecture and just read the textbook, I probably could have learned the same amount in half the time. The class had quizzes every week over zoom. They were timed for 10 minutes, so if you had internet issues, you were kind of screwed. The quizzes varied wildly in difficulty, from high school trig to problems we haven't learned yet. The class uses expert ta for all homework, which is actually very nice. It gives you hints and specific feedback if it knows why your answer is wrong. The class is curved, but hailu seemed to be deliberately vague about how much, or whether he would curve down if final grades were too high. In the end, the 67% average on the final meant there was a generous curve up of at least a few percent. Ultimately, take Hailu if you have to. He's not necessarily a good teacher, but he's also not actively bad.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
12/13/2020

I would give him 0 if that was possible. I think he doesn't deserve one dollar of his salary. He posted the lecture videos and never held class once, only proctored exams and quizes which is so nice of him honestly. He also never ever gave any study material for any test.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
06/08/2020

David Buehrle is a pretty nice guy, but his lectures were pretty boring and not too helpful; most of the content was ripped straight out of the textbook (including examples), and he didn't start doing more beneficial examples until halfway through the course. His online lectures were about the same as in-person. Homework was fairly straightforward and easy, but it took a lot of time to do. Exams were probably the worst part of the course: they either escalated the difficulty of problems or didn't give enough time to complete everything and check your answers. The raw average scores of most of the exams were in the upper 50's to lower 60's; however, he curved exams by 20-30% (around the average), which was a blessing. Overall, I didn't learn too much from his course, but I had taken AP Physics (so it wasn't utterly terrible). Since this is a requisite for engineering majors, I wish you the best of luck!

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/26/2020

The first thing people think about Professor Buehrle is that he looks like Mark Hamill. Aside from that, Buerhle is a laid back professor, and teaches similarly to AP Physics C. The notes were not too helpful with homework, but was doable. Exams were difficult, but he always curves to make the average 80%. Since quizzes were online, there was nothing to do in discussions, and therefore were pointless, unless you had a homework question.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/13/2020

Buehrle is a chill professor who makes the occasion physics jokes. The homework is easy, but the exams are usually pretty difficult, but he always curves the average to around 80%

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/07/2020

He's a funny and nice guy, but with this class, you get what you put in. The lectures are mostly pretty boring and the exams are pretty tough. There is a curve for the exams tho, plus he drops 1 of the 3 exams since the other physics professor only gives 2 exams.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
04/10/2020

Covers the material well, makes the occasional physics jokes, and is personal with each student's concerns and requests. He teaches at a manageable pace and posts his lectures slides. The exams however are quite difficult, but he curves.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/18/2019

Hailu's style of teaching mechanics is by completing examples during lecture, so if you do not make the effort to attend, you will likely have a hard time. He's a pretty laid-back professor and likes to occasionally joke during class too. His home work assignments are pretty easy and only take around one hour a week. He is not a perfect professor and definitely will not make you love physics if you already don't, but I would recommend him in general.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B+
casimir_pulaski
12/17/2019

He is the definition of an alright teacher. You will get in what you put out and his exams are fair representations of the material covered in class. I do advise you work out a significant number of problems in the book, since just doing the ExpertTA homework is unlikely to earn you and A unless you have past experience with physics. He's a good guy and writes very clearly. Lectures consist of mainly slides with supplemental work on the chalkboard.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/13/2019

Great Guy, Lectures were really boring sometimes, but HW was free and the exams were pretty fair, quizzes were really dumb sometimes tho

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/25/2019

The lectures were boring and long, but the homework was easy. However, the exams were tough. He gives a good curve because the average was low, but you still have to put in effort to get a good grade

Raymond Fermo
PHYS161

Anonymous
05/17/2019

Fermo is inconsiderate and unhelpful. Through this entire semester, he has read off the powerpoint without doing any practice problems. He is insensitive and says things like "try harder" and "my pay isn't affected by my student's grades." Terrible professor.

Raymond Fermo
PHYS161

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
05/15/2019

Dude made this class waaaaay harder than it should be, also where is my refund for the hw thing in the beginning of the semester????

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
01/28/2019

He's a pretty decent professor even though most of his teaching is based off his slides. His TA is pretty bad however, and discussion sections are basically useless aside from the required quizzes. One big thing about his class though is that there's no curve which you'll want at the end of the semester

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
06/02/2018

You’re 100% not going to take anything from this class. I would honestly say he is the worst professor I’ve had at this university, and it’s a shame because he’s a nice guy and says funny things and engages the class - all building façade that you might be learning something useful or that those practice problems you just went over or the demo he did will end up being beneficial. The BAM here comes midterm number 1 ready to just bend you over and dilate your orifices until you walk out of the lecture hall physically and emotionally drained, wondering how you got to that point, and whether or not you’ll ever make it as an engineer when you thought you studied and prepared for this exam only to stare at the first problem and then at your formula sheet and realize you didn’t learn a damn thing in this class and it’s only getting worse from here on. For anyone discouraged after taking this course, PHYS260 is arguably harder in terms of content, but so long as your professor actually teaches you things they test you on, then you’ll be fine. Just rely on Buehrle’s curve to pass this class, I’d honestly say it’s impossible otherwise unless you took physics in high school.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting a W
Anonymous
05/05/2018

Took him for PHYS161. I would not recommend him. His classes are mainly done from Powerpoint . He did many examples during class but the exams were a lot more difficult than the examples. Worst part was that he does not curve at all. And trust me, you'll want curving.

Sergio Picozzi
PHYS161

Expecting a C
Anonymous
12/21/2017

A lot of people like the way he teaches, but I had a hard time in this class. He doesn't really go over concepts, he just does practice problems on the board. All of his midterms are curved, they didn't really consist of the problems we did in class. He's nice and approachable, but personally, I didn't like his teaching style.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/15/2016

He's terrible at teaching. His lectures are so vague and he never does examples. I give him three stars because his class wasn't too hard. The clicker questions are online so you can not go to lecture and still do the clicker questions, you just have to always be looking at your computer so you know when a new questions pops up.

Theodore Kirkpatrick
PHYS161

Anonymous
11/02/2015

Overall he is a good professor. His lectures can sometimes be slightly boring as he often spends long amounts of time working out practice problems that are hard to follow. However, he is a nice guy and he curves the exams, which are not very hard to begin with.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/29/2015

I never leave reviews for professors unless I have a bad time. I had a bad time with this guy. This guy straight up gives you old AP Physics C problems as exams. Those by themselves are hard. He does not actually teach anything, especially as an introductory Physics class. All he does is derivations on the board. I went to every lecture and it seemed like the time spent in class did not help at all and was a complete waste of time. All in all, bad teacher and really hard exams. Reading the book and watching videos helps a bit. Weekly quizzes which are usually pretty hard and can rarely be done in the time given. Discussion is utterly useless as all you have time to do is take the quiz then go over the answers to the quiz after it is collected. Now, after all this there is a pretty big curve. Be aware the final is really hard. I would recommend just doing old AP Physics C Free Responses to prepare for the exams. I worked really hard in this class and was able to pull off an A- in his class after the curve but if I had the option to take it with someone else that actually teaches, I would. (Side note: This guy is treats guy and girls completely differently -- to the point where me and several other students in lecture would pick up on the way he would talk to guys as opposed to the way he talked to girls.)

Theodore Kirkpatrick
PHYS161

Expecting an A
nassu30
02/18/2015

Great teacher. Good with concepts. His handwriting can be difficult to understand though. Fairly average exams.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B-
Sal_man
01/20/2015

He is engaging and enthusiastic in his teaching. Grading was fair with the exams being manageable. I'll say the same for quizzes. It's important to actually do the homework problems and GSS worksheets. If you practice until you can get the answers without error, you will get an A in the class. I became lazy and started googling the homework answers since they are all online. Still managed a B in the class. I should mention this is my third physics class since I am a biology major and the material in this was a bit different. Definitely would take a another class with him.

Suresh Tonwar
PHYS161

Expecting a C
Anonymous
01/12/2015

Suresh Tonwar is terrible. He speaks terrible english, and he is not very good at answering questions. His lectures are not organized at all, and he only does some parts of some problems. His exams are nothing like his discussion sections, practice problems, or homeworks. They are totally random. It was very hard to study for his exams because his questions were out of the blue and random. If there are other teachers take them.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/04/2014

Buehrle was a decently dynamic teacher, but ultimately lectures were superfluous and I rarely went. Having taken AP Physics, I was quite bored by the class and he didn't do enough to change that. This would've been fine, but his mastering physics homeworks were ridiculous. They would often take hours and be significantly harder than anything he had talked about in class. On top of this, his exams were laughably difficult and the averages seemed to generally fall in the 60s. I don't feel like I learned the material well at all. That being said, the curve is definitely in your favor and relative to what I've heard of other teacher's for 161 you could do far worse.

Theodore Kirkpatrick
PHYS161

Expecting an A
cblumenf
11/05/2014

Kirkpatrick is a fairly interesting teacher, although his lectures aren't really necessary to do well in his course. I mostly just read the textbook. The quizzes and tests were very straight forward.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/28/2014

First, you are going to have endless amounts of Mastering Physics. It sucks. They take 2-5 hours depending on the week and your Googling ability. They don't match up all that well with the difficulty and style of the problems you get in class. Second, he does not go over many examples in class, and mostly does formula derivations, which is not very helpful for learning how to actually do the problems. Third, his exams are really hard. People walk out and say "I don't know if I got a single point." They are all curved, usually a lot, so there is no final curve on the class. Many people had already learned the material but the University did not give them AP credit, so that messed up the curve. Fourth, he is an engaging and energetic lecturer. He likes to bring in demonstrations that are not necessarily helpful, but at least interesting. He lets class out 10-15 minutes early almost every day.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A
skamazin
04/26/2014

Buehrle is such a nice, straightforward person. He's teaching style is slow but thorough. If you've gone through AP Physics B you'll be fine for most of the course (you can probably skip most lectures and be fine on the exams). If you've never had physics before, he is also a great choice because of how thorough. I definitely recommend him.

David Buehrle
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/31/2014

Buehrle was a very straight forward and easy to understand professor. He explains everything VERY slowly compared to physics professors I've had in the past, which is good when you get into slightly more complicated topics. He's also easy to approach and is probably the least condescending professors I've ever had. His tests are more difficult and fast paced than his teaching style would suggest, but they are graded leniently. I'm usually decent at predicting my test scores, and I was confident I got a C or B at best on each test, but I actually got all As BEFORE the curve. The curve on each exam was around 10%. The tests did have a lot of questions without numbers, which could be a problem for some people. I noticed the reviewers that complained were in 121 or 122. I took those classes when I was a biology major, so I'm guessing they are also bio majors. I met a lot of bio majors while getting my microbiology degree at umd, and I hate to generalize, but a large percentage of them are incredibly lazy when it comes to certain classes (mainly pre-meds who want the glory of being a physician, but don't want to put in the work). My point is, don't judge Buehrle by those reviews. P.S. The last paragraph wasn't meant to offend pre-med students. There are plenty of hard working pre-meds who will be great physicians one day!

Andris Skuja
PHYS161

Expecting a B
cheesecake
08/05/2013

Horrible professor. He seems like a nice dude, but he is the worst lecturer I have ever seen. Has no idea how to teach properly. He just does problems and mumbles about while trying to solve them. He doesn't explain well at all. If you didn't take AP physics in high school, you'll be totally lost. Avoid this teacher at all costs!

Andris Skuja
PHYS161

Expecting an A
UMDStudent2
06/10/2013

Bad teacher. You will most likely not do well if you did not take AP Physics in high school. Even having taken AP Physics in high school, I had to put in a lot of work to pull off an A. His exam questions are basically taken directly out of the book. My strategy was that if I did most of the problems in the book, I would be prepared when I saw the same question on the exam. This strategy seemed to work, and I recommend it. Btw, the final exam is insanely difficult. You will feel like you failed, but there is some ridiculous 20 point curve because everyone fails it.

Andris Skuja
PHYS161

Anonymous
05/17/2013

Pretty bad teacher. Not much homework. The materials not impossible to learn on ur own.You'll learn nothing in lecture.

Andris Skuja
PHYS161

Expecting a C
Anonymous
05/17/2013

THE WORST PROFESSOR EVER. You sit in lecture, and think "why the eff am I here?" The examples he gives in class are ridiculously easy and he spends too much time going over them. The exam problems, then, are NOTHING like ANYTHING he goes over in lecture. I stopped going to class because I wasn't getting anything out of them. I'm pretty sure I would have gotten a worse grade in the class if I had actually gone. Instead, during lecture times I self-studied or did the Mastering Physics. Seriously, skuja is a horrible teacher, do anything you can not to take his class. Honestly, he's probably a smart guy with a lot of knowledge, but he does not know how to teach at all. Avoid at all costs.

Andris Skuja
PHYS161

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
05/16/2013

Terrible Professor. He basically screwed up on the first exam because the average was a 90, and now he's going to compensate for it by normalizing the grades. Going to class is useless and exams (other than the first) are so obscure and ridiculous. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

Andris Skuja
PHYS161

Anonymous
05/10/2013

He is a nice guy but not very good at teaching. Out of 300 of people in the class maybe 50 go to class. You really need to teach yourself in order to do well in the class. He does not give much homework so it is up to you to study and get practice. He takes everything out of the book almost word for word and does not teach anything new.

Andris Skuja
PHYS161

Expecting a C
MuffinKnight
04/30/2013

The worst professor anyone could ever take in the span of their entire college career. He doesn't actually teach anything and likes to whip out obscure questions on exams. I would gladly take 8 am or even 8pm classes over this class.

Andris Skuja
PHYS161

Expecting a C
parade
03/31/2013

Awful teacher, he does not explain anything in class. If you have him, you basically have to self study. When I go to lecture, I come out thinking why did I go? Literally have not learned anything all semestre.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A
coolkat142
01/21/2013

I love Bantu, he is the best! go to his office hours and befreind him he is a great guy. I already graduated two years ago but he has become my freind and mentor for a long time. What an amazing guy. so damn nice. godman

Brad Conrad
PHYS161

Expecting a C
Anonymous
01/26/2011

The exams were hard, and I paid attention in everyone of his lectures. The homework was extremely easy and the classes were interesting. The demos were fun to watch and he is a very nice professor. The final was really hard and I feel like he did not prepare us enough for the tests that we had.

Frederick Wellstood
PHYS161

Expecting a B
RLJ2009
01/18/2011

Great teacher! He was helpful and very interested in his work. His exams were fair and offered make ups for the first two. He is also very nice if you visit him during his office hours. Would take again.

Hailu Gebremariam
PHYS161

Expecting an A+
MooseNinja
05/22/2010

To be honest, the only reason I ever went to lecture was because of the unannounced pop quizzes. Bantu's lectures are pretty boring (and that's with a laptop). Mastering Physics (online HW) is more difficult than any of the tests (or the examples done in class). If you have even marginal experience with physics this class is a review. (but a 3 on AP C Mech doesn't place you out).

Brad Conrad
PHYS161

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/07/2010

As far as assignments, there was weekly online and book homework. Online was through mastering physics and the book homework was generally fairly easy (one to two problems per week). Exams were fairly long, sometimes needing all or more time than the 50 minutes provided, but the course is curved generously. Normally had some True/False, a question on one of the demos, a couple short problems, and 2-3 longer problems with multiple parts. The content was nothing unexpected if you paid attention in class and did the homework problems; all the problems were rearranged problems from class. Class was late (at 7pm), but he tried to fill it with demos to make it more interesting, and you could tell that he enjoyed teaching the material.

Rabindra Mohapatra
PHYS161

Anonymous
04/26/2010

Funny dude in lecture, but is very difficult to understand. Take a different teacher. Wants to get to know students, so he's good in his limited office hours, but that's the best I can say.

Frederick Wellstood
PHYS161

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
03/03/2010

I don't think there is any sane person who would have any complaint WHATSOEVER with this professor. I think he might actually be a godsend to reward us cursed engineering students. He responds to e-mails, cares about his students, basically gives away the exams with his review sessions, Gave MAKE-UP exams for two exams last semester in 161 (I don't think you heard me right, let me say that again: THE MAN GAVE TWO MAKE UP EXAMMMMMMMSSSSSSS!!!!!!!), has a fun, quirky attitude in lecture, explains all the concepts behind equations in PROSE AND INDENTIFIES THEM PHYSICALLY, has cool fun demoes sporadically, I could spent all day listing his qualities. I took him for 161, have him right now in 260 (and btw the first exam was easier than expected, lol), and damn sure plan to take him for 271. I don't care what you expect to get from the class, how you want your tests to be, how you want the professor to teach, or your general level in physics (he could teach a monkey about fluid dynamics) -- Wellstood is the high school physics teacher who came to answer all of your prayers!

Frederick Wellstood
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/19/2009

Softball class, especially if you have had some Physics in high school. Wellstood is a great professor, going through derivations and a few examples in class. A bit nitpicky when it comes to grading, although if you attend review sessions and/or pay attention in class, he tells you what he expects and how he grades. Homework is sometimes harder than what is covered in lecture, but that's what discussion's for. Tests are surprisingly easy, although the final is a bit tricky. Overall, a good experience. As someone with a good background in mechanics, this class took little time and effort. Even for someone new to physics, it shouldn't be too bad.

Frederick Wellstood
PHYS161

Expecting a B
UMDstudent2011
12/12/2009

Professor Wellstood has been my favorite teacher this Fall 2009 semester. His class is fun, and very informative with great examples to use for the homework. He is approachable and will also answer any questions you may have. The mastering physics homework is also helpful and really makes the students think. His examinations are very difficult but they are ALL curved (so is the class) so just do as well or better than the class average and you should get at least a B in the class. One last thing, if you completely bomb any of the examines, he will allow you to complete a make-up examine! How many professors allow students to get another attempt at the material? None that i know of.

Rabindra Mohapatra
PHYS161

Expecting a C
Anonymous
04/20/2009

If you've taken some form of physics before then the class will be pretty straightforward, but Mohapatra's accent made it near impossible to learn anything from the lecture. However, he's a nice enough guy and seemed willing to help if you took the time to go to him and ask questions. Quizzes and homework were annoying, but I probably learned more from those than the lectures. Sad thing is, he's probably one of the better physics professors on campus (the least bad of the physics professors if that makes sense) and I would take him over most of the other physics professors.

Wolfgang Losert
PHYS161

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/14/2009

Not a good professor to have if you are taking physics for the first time in your life. Expect to rely on your textbook for help because he spends most of his lectures starting a problem and then concluding that the problem must be solved with additional concepts and techniques that we have not yet learned. He is not very organized and never finishes his sentences. The exams were okay and there was a curve on each one, but be prepared to be bored.

Rabindra Mohapatra
PHYS161

Anonymous
12/24/2008

Go to discussion. I made the mistake of not going and learned nothing. His teaching style and accent aren't helpful either. The book won't help you either.

Frederick Wellstood
PHYS161

Anonymous
12/04/2008

EXCELLENT PROFESSOR! Dr. Wellstood truly cares about his students and goes the extra mile to make sure he is doing everything possible to be of assistance when help is needed. He personally grades exams, so he gets to know your strengths and weaknesses in the subject material. Dr. Wellstood makes sure that all students understand the essentials of Physics I (i.e. vectors, proper notation, etc.), all of which are critically important in all sciences/math/engineering. The class is challenging, but it is a necessary class for all engineering majors (and no physics class is easy). Dr. Wellstood is by far one of the greatest professors in the physics department.

Rabindra Mohapatra
PHYS161

Expecting an A
jahs389
11/25/2008

Giving weekly quizzes isn't such a bad thing. You actually learn under this guy, and he is a riot. His demonstrations and explanations are very entertaining. He was also really nice and approachable in his office hours and help me make up they exams I missed.

Frederick Wellstood
PHYS161

Anonymous
11/16/2008

Professor Wellstood is awful! First of all... he SMELLS SO BAD all the time! Please do us a favor and take a shower! Second... his exams are so hard! They are nothing like lecture, homework, or discussion. The old exams are sometimes helpful, but not that much. Don't take him!

Frederick Wellstood
PHYS161

Anonymous
11/06/2008

Amazing teacher. very clear and comprehensive with his lectures. you will definitely want to go to all of the lectures and take notes since they are extremely helpful. He takes the extra effort to emphasize the important points and theorems and try to incorporate demonstrations to illustrate certain points (makes the class so much more interesting). His animated character and love for physics is quite contagious (will keep you entertained and awake in class). Although his examples are graded a bit more carefully, it is very reasonably done so since the problems are basically exactly like the posted sample examples and he will go over the entire sample example at the review sessions (if you can't make it, he will go over the sample exam with you in office hours). His lectures are also thorough enough to warrant for the difficulty level of the test. Definitely do all of the mastering physics hw! they are very helpful. To succeed in this class: 1. attend and stay awake for all his lectures 2. do all the mastering phys hw 3. do sample exam and go to review session

Frederick Wellstood
PHYS161

Anonymous
10/30/2008

Professor Wellstood is very smart and very knowledgeable about physics, so much so that I felt like his teachings and his expectations for you as a student went beyond what is necessary. Classes were okay. You definitely want to take notes, as a couple exam questions here and there will come from what is discussed in lecture. Homework was relatively easy, as the problems were straight out of the book. However, you can have a great understanding of how to do all of the problems in the book/homework and then his test questions come straight outta "no-man's land". Exams are SOOO HARD!! Exam questions that are nothing like the homework problems and oftentimes the type of problems that were never covered in class. If you take his class, DEFINITELY study the old sample exams; exams are ususally very similar to old exams and are very helpful. He doesn't post answers to these old exams, you HAVE to attend his review sessions (usually in the evening, day before exam) in order to obtain the solutions. Also, he provides a curve based on a bell statistical distribution. AVERAGE grades were usually like a 45 for my class; he already anticipates offering a make-up exam before giving the actual exam. Harsh grading; real big on vector notation. If I had to take this class again, I'd definitely look to take it with another professor. Please!

Rabindra Mohapatra
PHYS161

Expecting an A
xinio64
06/02/2008

I did not really get much out of his lectures. They were so boring and his accent got on my nerves. I learned by doing the written homework and masteringphysics. Even though masteringphysics was a huge pain, I actually did get something out of it. He did make jokes occasionally and some were actually funny. The first midterm was easy but the second and third ones were kind of difficult. The final was not that bad. Best advice is to go to office hours, go to discussion class, do the homework in a timely manner, and try to do as many other practice problems from the book.

Rabindra Mohapatra
PHYS161

Anonymous
05/21/2008

Mohapatra in my opinion should stick to teaching grad courses. Not only are his lectures extremely boring, but he makes it a nuisance for students to not go to class. He gives a weekly quiz, which is good and all, but gives them on sporadic times to his whim. In addition, his accent does put a large barrier in terms of learning. If you don't like powerpoints, or find yourself falling asleep while looking at them, do not join his class. He's not a very good teacher. Nice guy, but he definitely doesn't know how to convey the information over to students. He's also quite unreasonable when it comes to problems with the online homework.

Rabindra Mohapatra
PHYS161

Anonymous
05/02/2008

Although Mohapatra appears to know his stuff, he doesn't teach very clearly. His accent is an unfortunate barrier, it took me half the semester to get used to it. He used masteringphysics which was a disaster because there were glitches with the program. Despite many complaints, he remained indifferent to the fact that many people had low homework grades because the online homework wasn't working correctly. He usually just gives confusing proofs in class and doesn't always point out which forumlas are worth knowing. He is, however, very eager to help anyone who comes to office hours or makes an appointment so if you don't understand something, take some time to see him after class. Despite his confusing explanations, he is happy to help anyone who is truely interested.

Young Kim
PHYS161

avigana
11/16/2007

Unless you can learn physics straight from a text book do not take this class. Kim is a nice guy but his extremely poor command of English and disorganized lecture style make it hard for students to learn anything in his lectures. To give an example of his disorganization, when I was in his class he talked about how much he admired Galileo for literally the first three weeks of classes. He did not cover any material related to physics during this time.

Reviews for PHYS161