Reviews for PHYS273

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Peter Shawhan PHYS273 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/27/2023	If you can get this professor for any physics class at UMD, please take him. He is the probably one of the only professors at this dogshit school who actually cares about you and your well-being both in and out of class. Pros: Replies to emails at a reasonable time, office hours are helpful, lectures are organized, tests are challenging but reasonable, homework is fine Cons: N/A
Erin Sohr PHYS273 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/07/2023	Avoid taking a class with this professor at all costs. You will not learn anything. Despite being a professor, she seems to have a severe lack of understanding of the material, and simply rewrites the equations from the textbook every class. Always walked into class with a cup of coffee like she just woke up 2 minutes ago, no energy. I stopped attending her lectures after a couple weeks. We were lucky to have 2 wonderful TAs who had a better understanding of the material than the professor. Her class is pretty easy only because no one does well due to her terrible teaching skills. When the TAs are literally smarter than the professor, something is wrong.
Erin Sohr PHYS273 Expecting a D Anonymous 05/16/2023	considering the class she taught, the worst teacher i have ever had. definitely the worst professor i've had at UMD. half of the class failed both the midterms, so we just end up praying that everyone else failed so we can get a curve. it's a really difficult class and difficult class to teach in her defense, but her lectures felt completely useless. she is very nice and caring, but she never sounds like she even fully knows what she is talking about. the entire class had to basically teach themselves the material. to make everything worse, the exams are always way harder than anything we've done in class, and often contain types of problems we have never seen or been prepared for. i just took the final and I would be happy if I got a 50 before the curve, which will be a huge one, but probably not enough to get me to pass. i'm far from the best or smartest student, but I worked my ass off to try to pass this class and it just feels completely impossible with her exams. it is painfully obvious she has not been teaching for long. she would make a great middle school or high school science teacher. but for her to teach this class, with how much content there is and how difficult it is, has caused me genuine mental anguish and caused me to hate physics for the first time in my life.
Abolhassan Jawahery PHYS273 Anonymous 12/22/2022	The most "reasonable" person since Immanuel Kant. Jawahery's lectures are pretty straightforward and his homework content may be challenging from time to time but is absolutely doable. The quizzes and exams will mostly contain questions/problems from the homework problem sets however, there always may be one or two that are mixed in (i.e. one or two questions that aren't from the H.W. problems) just to make sure you know your material. Overall, PHYS273 isn't an easy course but Jawahery definitely made the experience way more entertaining and interesting.
Abolhassan Jawahery PHYS273 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/12/2022	quizzes and exams identical to the hws, good at teaching.
Hailu Gebremariam PHYS273 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/17/2022	Had an amazing time studying PHYS273 over the summer with prof. Hailu. The course was straightforward, the material he went over was quick for me to grasp onto, the TA was very accessible, the Homework wasn't difficult and same with the midterm. If you have to get your credit for waves over the summer, I strongly recommend taking it under him, you will not regret it.
Abolhassan Jawahery PHYS273 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/20/2022	PHYS 273 is a challenging course. It's a lot of content in a short amount of time. That being said, Prof. Jawahery tries to make the most of it and present it to his students in a comprehensible way. His content builds on itself, so if you're paying attention along the way, you'll find content later in the course quite easy to understand. His homework assignments are pretty tough, so don't wait till the last night to do them. That being said, his quizzes and exams are almost identical to these homework assignments, so if you really work on them and understand the posted solutions, you'll do great. He is a very understanding and reasonable person who changed deadlines often when his lectures did not sync up with them. The final exam was quite the challenge and unlike anything we had seen before, which did not help my final grade, but the course as a whole was a good learning experience. I would recommend him if you had the choice.
Peter Shawhan PHYS273 Anonymous 05/29/2021	Great Lecturer, very organized. Kind and understanding.
Peter Shawhan PHYS273 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/31/2020	Prof. Shawhan was fantastic. He managed to navigate the switch to online classes relatively seamlessly, and I still feel like I learned a lot in the class and feel ready for next semester.
Christopher Lobb PHYS273 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/24/2019	Great guy. Nothing can go wrong taking him, so maybe I should say something about this class. First I am a math student. This was the first physics class I've taken since high school (did physics c in hs, didn't learn anything), so I was clueless from the beginning. It turned out that I could manage derivations pretty well, and the concepts were very sensible. But whenever there were formula based and plug in chug type of questions I would get totally lost because of my lack of familiarity with those stuffs (and apparently reluctance to memorize them). Not all homework problems were graded, so it was sometimes a pain depending on whether if I correctly solved the graded ones. Also never did too well on the quizzes (bunch of zeros, ouch), but the tests were fine since there were a lot of guided derivations, which I liked. My raw grade on elms was appalling (less than 65%) but I ended up with a B (my tests were all a bit above average). Lobb is strict about material-wise grading (quizzes, tests) but is very lenient when it comes to the final grade. I would say don't worry about grades too much, but focus on the understanding of the material and that feel of doing physics. Last remark, I much prefer French's book to Pain's, especially French's treatment of Fourier series (honestly I didn't read either of them).
Carter Hall PHYS273 Anonymous 05/13/2013	This guys is the most excellent professor I've ever met. Super smart + humble = clearly covers concepts and wants students to learn the stuff. Homeworks were somewhat challenging but the test were recast/simplified homework questions! Ahhh, why aren't all my professors like him?!?
Carter Hall PHYS273 Expecting an A anonn 12/23/2012	The textbook for this class has a one star rating on Amazon, so I didn't get it. But it was okay because he posts his notes on his website, and they cover literally everything he goes over in class. Technically, you don't even have to take notes! He lectures very clearly and effectively and definitely wants the students to do well. The class is called waves, but he describes the class as a pre-quantum mechanics, mathematical methods class. Thus, as a math major, I already knew a lot of the stuff he taught and thought he taught the beginning of the semester rather slowly. Other students didn't seem to have this problem though. The exams are easy and straightforward (he provides equation sheets). For the second exam, I only studied for about an hour (I had a lot of other exams that week), finished it early, and only lost two points. They test concepts rather than little details, so if you go to every class and pay attention, you'll do fine. Homework is also fairly easy, maybe 3 hours a week. Another tidbit: my friend took this class with a different professor two semesters ago, and it was extremely difficult. He worked really hard, but ended up with a B. This shows how much this class can vary with different professors.
Christopher Monroe PHYS273 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/17/2009	He's a nice guy but the class is hard, so I suppose I'm only capable of liking him so much. Lectures can be intense sometimes, and he does tend to make mistakes, but he's aware of it and fixes them/is really nice about it if you point something out. He's also very willing to answer questions. The homework would vary between really hard and easy. And the tests we hard, as he aims for a 50% average. But then he curves by about 25% (even if the average is above 50%) so it's ok. Certainly a hard class that will take effort, and it can get rather confusing, but he seems to be doing a decent job.
Kara Hoffman PHYS273 Expecting an A Austin90 05/09/2009	Dr. Hoffman is one of the better professors at MD. Her lectures are very useful, and her demonstrations in class are very interesting. The only problem is that not-too-uncommon questions catch her by surprise. Therefore, she isn't able to answer them until a day or more later. However, she is very easy to talk to, because she doesn't have an ego that dominates her personality. Her tests are a little harder than most (Hence our average test score for the spring 2009 semester was a 60%) However, she gives generous curves (1/3 As, 1/3 Bs, 1/3 C's, and some "stragglers" get Ds and Fs ) If you do well on the webassign and homework, none of which are too hard, then you should really enjoy her class. As a side note, GO TO RECITATIONS EVERY FRIDAY since not doing so can take up to 10% off your final grade.